As Kim Jong Un met South Korea’s Moon Jae in, this dish became an instant hit in Seoul
Long lines formed on Friday outside restaurants in South Korea’s capital serving Pyongyang-style cold noodles after the dish took on a starring role at a historic summit between the North and South Korean leaders. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un brought a batch of the noodles for a dinner banquet on Friday, at the request of South Korean President Moon Jae-in. “We’ve made efforts to bring Pyongyang naengmyeon all the way from Pyongyang,” Kim said in opening remarks at the summit, referring to the North Korean capital. “So, hopefully, Mr President can enjoy Pyongyang naengmyeon from afar, though I suppose I mustn’t say ‘afar’ now,” Kim said with a chuckle. Naengmyeon is noodles in a chilled meat broth, topped with beef brisket, pickled radish, sliced cucumbers and half a boiled egg.
Moon had requested that the dish be on the menu at the banquet, and asked Kim if he could bring a takeaway batch from a famous Pyongyang restaurant, Okryu Gwan. North Korean officials were happy to oblige, the South’s presidential office said, adding that North Korea had even sent a chef from the restaurant to prepare the dish. Hungry South Koreans were clearly impressed and by midday #Pyongyang Naengmyeon was one of the top trending topics on Korean-language Twitter while the lines at restaurants specializing in the dish, like the Eulmildae in a run-down part of Seoul, grew.
“This is the longest queue I’ve ever seen,” Kim Won-seok, a regular customer at the restaurant, said of the customers lined up 40 metres (130 feet) just before noon. Major retailer E-land Mall was offering a 2 kg bag of “Inter-Korea summit special Pyongyang naengmyeon” for 6,900 won ($6.40).
WARY OPTIMISM
The noodles were an unusually hit at a summit that many South Koreans are viewing with wary optimism. Many South Koreans hoped the first visit to the South by a leader from the North, would be a turning point for peace on the war-divided peninsula. Some people watching a large television screen beaming images of the leaders to a crowd in front of Seoul’s city hall cheered and jumped with joy when Kim – whose nuclear and missile tests last year stoked fear of war – crossed the border to shake hands with Moon.
“I’m filled with emotion,” said Park Ha-seok, 60, as he watched the pictures being broadcast from the border village of Panmunjom. “I don’t expect a big change but this is a start.” The two sides are technically still at war because the 1950-53 Korean war ended in a truce, not a full peace treaty.
Lee Ji-eun, a 32-year-old doctor and mother of a baby girl, said the pictures had made her unpack an emergency bag she had placed by her front door about six months ago in case of war. “The bag has my daughter’s diapers, a portable radio and a gas burner,” Lee said. “Now I find it funny that I told my babysitter to take this bag and my daughter to flee to the basement if there’s war.”
Fisherman Park Tae-won, who lives on a South Korean island just 1.5 km from the maritime boundary with the North, said he hoped the summit would lead to a relaxation of restrictions on going out to sea. “Please, we want to go fishing out there as much as we want, without the curfew on fishing only once a day,” he said.
Choi Gwang-chun, who runs a restaurant in the South Korean town of Daejeon, is offering a special “unification liquor” cocktail made of Taedong beer, named after a North Korean river, and South Korean Halla soju, a distilled rice spirit named after a South Korean mountain.
“Those who order ‘unification liquor’ will also get a ‘unification pizza’ topped with nuts in the shape of the Korean peninsula for free,” said Choi, whose father came from North Korea.
“I plan to run this offer until the day South and North Korea unify,” he said. “I hope I don’t have to run it too long.”
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