Pocha! Korean Street Dining @ JEM • Enjoy Seoul's Hawker Culture in Singapore

Lunch today at Pocha!

The idea is very simple but hard to resist - bring the street food from Korea's night markets into the comfort of air conditioned shopping malls in Singapore.

Brilliant.

Pocha is short for Pojangmacha 포장마차 which is Korean for outdoor food stalls selling street dishes like hotteok (fried peanut filled pancake), gimbap (seaweed rice roll), tteokbokki (rice cake), dak-kkochi (Korean skewered chicken), eomuk (fish cake), mandu (Korean dumplings), anju (foods accompanying drinks), etc.

Inside Pocha! colours were hip and cheerful. The utilitarian furnishings gel with the gritty street food theme.

Ben said we must order their 1-Metre K Platter.

The idea was to curate dishes from the kilometre long night market stalls into a 1-Metre long platter.

As we say in Singlish, "I like your idea, bro".

I am excited.

Seven different dishes, Chijimi (seafood pancake), Gochujang crispy chicken chunks, Sindang-dong tteokbokki (rice cake) with Eomuk (Korean fish cake), Kimari (fried seaweed roll), Kimchi Mandu (dumpling), Corndog and Jumeok-bap (Korean rice ball).

Perfect for sharing as there will always be something for everyone.

Kimari, umami fried seaweed encased in crisp batter wrapped around soft glass noodles.

Crunchy crispy chewy robustly savoury flavoured fried battered chicken.

Soft tender chewy savoury sweet eomuk or Korean fried fish cake.

Pro-tip: Dunk eomuk in the clam soup below, and it becomes softer and tastier with an additional layer of savouriness.

The pot of Jo-Gae Stew, clam soup came on a portable gas stove that kept the soup simmering hot.

They were generous with the sweet flower clams which were stir-fried with garlic, chilli padi, ginger, and a splash of soju. The ingredients were then simmered in a savoury blend of fermented bean paste and rich beef bone broth. Served accompanied by zucchini, enoki mushrooms, and soft tofu.

This soup is great for clam lovers. The soup was full bodied and shellfish umami savoury, salty. It differs from the Malaysian / Kuala Lumpur lala soup which is heavily loaded with ginger (which is ginger spicy), sweetish and spiked with Chinese rice wine.

Ben ordered the Creamy Shin Ramyeon, as it is the trending dish, he said.

To me "trending" the worst reason to try a dish but just went along loh... 😁

It is what it is (Nongshim instant noodle 😝 ) but I like it!

It's thick curly instant noodles done soft spongy, enveloped in a creamy milky savoury sweet soupy sauce with umami from seaweed and a bit of spiciness. The spam (luncheon meat) added its own savoury salty porcine taste. I forgot to mix in the egg 😂

Anyway, I wanna come back for this noodle and also try other Korean street food dishes.