Auckland Korean Food Tour | Korean Street Food + Quirky Korean Food With a Kiwi Twist + Gamjatang

We're in Tamaki Makaurau, Auckland for this video and it's going to be all about some epic Korean food. Tamaki Makaurau, Auckland is one of the most diverse cities in the world. We can't wait to share some of the best Korean he has to offer. Tamaki Makaurau, Auckland is home to over 200 ethnic communities which means the food seen here is incredibly diverse. Over the next few weeks we'll be exploring Auckland's food culture and showcasing the range in cuisine that can be experienced in Aotearoa New Zealand's biggest city. In this video we're hunting down some of the best spots to eat Korean food. We take you into the kitchen of a contemporary Korean restaurant giving traditional flavours and dishes a Kiwi twist. Eat delicious hotteok, a popular Korean street food from a family run stall. And dive into a steaming pot of Gamjatang, pork spine stew. We're hunting down Auckland's best Korean eats. Hit subscribe and get ready for some mouthwatering food. I'm Thomas and I'm Sheena and we're Chasing a Plate. We hope you're hungry. Let's eat. This video is going to be all about incredible Korean food that you can find in Auckland. So Auckland has a thriving Korean community and the number of Korean restaurants has really grown over the past few years. So in this video we're going to be eating traditional Korean food, we're going to eat some contemporary Korean food and also some Korean street snacks. And we're heading to a contemporary Korean restaurant called Gotchu. We've arrived at Gotchu, our first restaurant and we've grabbed a seat at the best spot in any restaurant to sit I reckon which is at the bar with a full view of the kitchen and everything that's happening in there. Now this video is going to feature all sorts of Korean food. So traditional street food and contemporary Korean food. And Gotchu has a contemporary Korean menu. We've eaten here before. The food is delicious. The flavours are banging and the food is super playful. So we're looking at the menu and ordering up a feast. Two of the corndogs please. Before we start eating I've been lucky enough to be allowed to jump into the kitchen. So I'm in here watching all the action taking place. Getting totally in the way but having a great time doing it because seeing this food come out of this very high standing kitchen is amazing. I love being in kitchens like this and watching the efficiency they manage to push food through with. Everyone works in this seamless method without talking. It's amazing being right in here with the camera getting some really cool shots of our incredible looking food being prepared. First lot of dishes have arrived and I'm so excited to get into these. Let me show you what we've ordered. So this here are fresh oysters. So kaipara oysters. Kaipara is a harbour north of Auckland. They're served with leek oil, kimchi juice and pickle. Then we've got some fresh cucumber. So it's been slathered with cashew cream which is that beige colour there. And then on top of that, that orange sauce, that ssam sauce, so ssamjang is fermented soybean mixed with gochujang which is a Korean red pepper chilli paste. And then this one here I'm really excited to get into. So this is venison tartare. So raw venison and it's been mixed with Asian pear. There's some salted, cured, I think it's just cured egg yolk over the top. And then these crispy things here are kumara crisps. So kumara is sweet potato. I'm just going to dive right in and smash one of these oysters. All right, get my little fork in case I need to dislodge the little sucker. Oh, holy moly that's good. The oyster's very creamy. The pickled radish is slightly sweet and tangy and then that kimchi juice. Oh, it has like an acidity to it. It's obviously the juice that's from the pickled radish. Oh, that's good. Wow, perfect start. Now I'm really excited about this. So this venison tartare dish. I remember eating a dish in Seoul at a market called Gwangjang Market which is a popular food market in the city. You can go to this restaurant and eat a dish called yukhoe which is steak tartare and they serve it with matchstick pears and octopus and egg yolk. And so this is sort of Jason Kim. And Jason Kim is the executive chef. He's the one over there prepping up the meals. This is his version of yukhoe. So it's venison tartare. It's got the Asian pears. But it's also got that awesome kiwi element to it. So the crispy kumara chips on the top. So the kumara is the sweet potato. That is sensational. The pear is sweet. The venison melts in your mouth. They've used Korean soy sauce in that as well. So there's a saltiness to it. You've got the crunch from the kumara chips. That's insane. We've got three dishes. The first is the black pudding corn dog. So on the inside, black pudding. On the outside is a cornmeal batter. And then it's been dipped in panko crumbs. And you dip the little hot dog in a leek mayonnaise. This smells so good. So this is the gochugaru. So it's stuffed full of pork mince, raclette cheese. And then that dark sauce on the outside is a spicy Worcestershire sauce. Then you've got some shaved cabbage over the top. And then finally, their famous milk bun. So this is a bit of a favourite on the menu. Stuffed full of spicy pork and kimchi. And then you dip the pork bun in this beurre blanc. Which is a butter sauce. I'm going to go for a corn dog first with this leek mayonnaise. Look at the beautiful golden corn dog. Oh, look at that mayonnaise. Beautiful. So this is a black pudding corn dog. So a sundae, basically, which you get in Korea. So little black pudding sausages. That is very good. That leek mayonnaise is very strong. So it's got a fresh burst from the leek mayonnaise. And then the black pudding is not too strong. Which is very nice. You still get a black pudding hit. And the batter is nice and thick. So you get real crunch, softness from where the batter's been cooked. And then a beautiful creaminess from the black pudding or the sundae in there. Let's get some more of that mayo on there. And so the sundae or the black pudding is a blood sausage. So it'll be a pig's blood sausage. But sundae, so the Korean version, has glass noodles running through it as well. That is good. Very good. I'm so intrigued by this gochugaru. So it's been deep fried. This whole parcel of mince and raclette cheese. So it's going to be saucy inside. And then it's just coated in this Worcestershire sauce glaze. And then you've got that cabbage over the top. So I'm just going to cut this bad boy in half so we can have a look at the cross section. Oh my gosh. You can already see the cheese oozing out. Look at that. So it's stuffed full of that cheese. Wow. Okay. Check out this cheese ooze. Oozy cheese. Really flavoursome pork. It's perfectly seasoned. And then that crunch from the cabbage. It tastes like junk food, but in the best possible way. That's so good. It's time to get into this milk bun. So it's very squishy, this thing. So I reckon, rip and dip. So, let's see what's on the inside. Woah, look at that. So stuffed full of pork and kimchi. You can really smell the sweet caramelised onions and garlic in there. Okay, so it comes with this beurre blanc sauce. So beurre blanc is a butter sauce. Let's just dip. Look at that. They sort of punch you around the face. Super strong, bold, robust flavours. So that beurre blanc, a real hit of butter. And then this milk bun. The bread is so soft. And then that filling. The pork is very tender and then you've got this spicy kick from the kimchi. Unreal. See what I mean by best seat in the house? So Jason Kim, executive chef of Gocheur, is making us bingsu. Now bingsu is a famous Korean dessert. Thomas and I have eaten many a bingsu in Seoul. And so it starts with this block of shaved ice. And this block of ice is actually rice milk ice. So that forms the basis of this dessert. And they've got this awesome ice grinder or shaver. And it shaves these really fine ice flakes. Look at it go. We've got this beautiful bowl of flavoured snow essentially. It's so delicate. And then Jason said there are some goodies hiding underneath. So let's see. What have we got? Oh, we've got black sesame custard. And then also some rice cakes. The rice milk flakes just explode in a puff in your mouth. Those chewy rice cakes and then that black sesame custard. Custard anything I'm addicted to. So that is great. There's also I think some like crispy rice puffs or something in there as well. Oh man, we are going to demolish this. We've headed up through the city on foot. And this next place shows some of the diversity of Korean food here in Auckland. So we've just had that very modern take on Korean with some kiwi twists. Now we're going for street food. So this is street food exactly like you'll find on the streets of Seoul. It's at a little stand right here on the street corner. It's really neat to have a sort of street food style stand right here in the heart of Auckland. Because New Zealand doesn't really have a street food culture. So this is super exciting. And this stall here specialises in one of my favourite Korean street foods. And that is hotteok which is a Korean style filled pancake. So they've got a full menu here with savoury and sweet options. I've gone for sweet cinnamon and sugar hotteok. Look at this beautiful golden hotteok. This thing looks amazing. And I love that there's this little street food stall. And it feels like you're in Korea because we have these a lot when we're in Korea. They're sort of a thing that you can't resist. You walk down the street, you see a little stand, you go oh hotteok. And you've just got to have one as a snack. Often in Korea they're sometimes a little bit smaller than this. This one is ginormous. You can get sweet and savoury like Sheena said. We've gone for sweet. That's the classic one that we love as a sort of a snack during the day. So it's a wheat flour batter which is very sticky. They take that batter, they stuff it with whatever you have chosen to have. And then it goes on the hot plate. And on the hot plate they have an implement that squishes it down. So it sits on top of it, squishes it down and makes it this beautiful uniform golden colour. Oh my god. So stuffed with sugar, cinnamon and some crushed peanuts. And that is so good. It's beautifully sweet but not too sweet. And the cinnamon is strong, there's a lot of it. This is top notch. Beautiful little crunch on the outside. Almost a phyllo pastry type crunch. So there's a little bit of oil on that hot plate. And it's just got this little crispy cracking crunch on the outside. And then a much more softer centre with that sugar, cinnamon and peanut filling. That takes me right back to being in Korea. That is an awesome hot dog. And I just love it. Look at this cool little stand. It's just a little window on the side of the road. So it's a little walk past, grab a snack. They've got a cool menu. Oh that is a great piece of Korean street food here in Auckland. We annihilated that hot dog. Man it was good. We had a great time chatting to the family that run that stall. They've been operating for over 10 years. Dad's from Seoul, Mum's from Busan. And man, they make a mean hot dog. Now we're heading across town to our next spot. We're going to a traditional Korean restaurant for gamjatang. Which is pork backbone stew. We've made our way over to the north shore of Auckland. And there's a little bit of a Korea town going on here. And we're here for this restaurant to have gamjatang, which is pork spine soup. And I am so excited for this. Let's go get some pork spine soup. Huge. We've ordered this giant pot of gamjatang. Which is the pork spine soup or stew. And it is bubbling away at the table on a gas burner. I am in love with Korean stews and soups. They're just like a warm hug. They're so comforting and satisfying. So let me sort of talk you through what this one is made up of. So on the top here we've got some chilli. The green is perilla leaves or sesame leaves. Then we've got some spring onions. And then like the brown stuff are crushed sesame seeds. And then underneath we have the pork spine. So lots and lots of, oh there we go, here's a bit that I can show you. So pork spine. So a lot of bones obviously with a bit of meat clinging onto it. There's also some potatoes and I think some cabbage in there. And this fiery looking soup, look at that. So fiery red. It's a pork broth soup. And it's flavoured with things like garlic and gochugaru which is Korean chilli flakes. And gochujang which is chilli paste. And to go with our stew we've got a bowl of rice each. And then of course because it's a Korean meal banchan which are side dishes. So all sorts of things. We've got kimchi, mung bean sprouts, there's some bean curd skin. I can't wait to get in. I've loaded up my bowl with some of this soup. And I just want to taste of this fiery broth. It looks fiery and it tastes fiery. So it's quite spicy and that's because of the chilli flakes and the gochujang which is that chilli paste. But man it's got a tonne of flavour. You can really taste the sesame seeds. I love grabbing a bite of rice and just dunking it in that soup. Holy moly that is good. It's comfort food so it's hearty, it's satisfying, it's warming. Now I've got a big piece of pork here. So lots of bones obviously but a tonne of meat still. It's tender as anything. It just melts in your mouth. And those pork bones have been simmering away for hours and hours. It just falls apart. Oh man this is tasty. A tonne of vegetables in there as well. The perilla leaves add a real aniseed type kick. And then tonnes of cabbage and some other greens in there. Oh this is good. I'm going to break up a piece of this potato which sort of sopped up all of that soup. We'll get some rice as well. Wow that is good. Oh it looks so fiery and spicy with chilli but it's not crazy burning. It's got a beautiful heat to it but it doesn't destroy your mouth. And that potato has just drunk all that soup. So it is flavour right through the potato. Oh this is so good. Auckland has some amazing Korean food. We've covered some cool ones in this video. We hope you've enjoyed it. Remember to subscribe. Drop a comment down below. Let us know what you thought of the video. Thanks for watching.