Tender Fillet Steak Course in Korea with Mum

It was quite a long time ago, one summer, when I went out for steak with my mum in Daejeon, a large city in central Korea. We usually just ate somewhere near home, so we did not often make a point of going to a proper steak restaurant. But that day I suddenly fancied meat, and my mum happened to have time, so we went together. When you go to a steak restaurant in Korea, it is not usually just a slab of beef on a plate. Soup, salad and bread often come out one after another, almost like a little set course, and the structure feels a bit different from a steakhouse in the US or Europe. The reason I still remember that meal is because the fillet practically melted in my mouth — but I will get to that slowly.

Inside the restaurant

When we walked in, there was an old piano sitting inside the restaurant. Judging by the menus piled on the keys, I do not think anyone actually played it, but tucked between the cement wall and the wooden chairs, it worked rather well as part of the decor. Light from the window was falling across the piano, and honestly, I had not expected that sort of atmosphere from a neighbourhood steak place. I might go for samgyeopsal after work without thinking much of it, but deliberately going out for steak is not something I do all the time. Maybe that is why just sitting there already felt a bit different.

Table setting

Once we sat down, the table was set like this. A steak knife with a wooden handle, a fork and a spoon were neatly laid out on the mat, and the water came in a green beer bottle. My mum asked, “Is this alcohol?” so I poured some out, and it was just water. Every table had the same bottle, so I assumed it was the restaurant’s style. It is a tiny detail, but it did help make the place feel a bit more put together.

The course begins — soup and bread

After ordering, the first thing to arrive was soup. In most Korean steak restaurants, this is the usual order: you start with soup, then the plates come out one by one until the main course. That day it was cream soup, with a little parsley and pepper sprinkled on top and some finely chopped bits inside. It was not a huge portion, but before the main dish it only needed to wake up the appetite, so it was enough.

This was the bread served with the soup. Two slices of baguette came in a rattan basket, with a light sprinkle of parsley on top and a hint that butter had soaked in. Still, it was not the soft, garlicky baguette style that many Korean steak places serve these days. It was more of a basic baguette: crisp on the outside, but a little dry inside.

But once you dipped it into the soup, it became a different story. The cream soup soaked into the crisp outside of the baguette and took away that dry texture completely. This is exactly why soup and bread so often come together in Korean steak courses. Separately, both can feel a bit plain; together, they work nicely.

Salmon salad — the plate my mum claimed for herself

After the soup came the salmon salad. At a Korean steak restaurant, it is quite common for a salad like this to be included before the main dish. There were five or six generous slices of smoked salmon laid over green leaves, with capers tucked here and there between them. The dressing was cream-based, but it went well with the soft salmon and did not feel too heavy. My mum has always liked raw fish, so she looked ready to eat nearly the whole thing herself. When I saw her picking out only the salmon with her fork and said, “Have some vegetables too,” she replied, “I came here to eat this.”

Close-up of the salmon

Up close, the salmon looked rather good. The grain was clear, the colour was evenly orange, and each slice had enough thickness to give it a proper bite. You could see capers hiding between the leaves, and whenever one burst in your mouth, that sharp little acidity came through. If it had only been creamy dressing, the salad might have felt one-note, but the capers balanced it out.

When you lifted a slice of salmon with the fork, the leaves came up with it and the dressing dripped down. The best way to eat it was to wrap the greens slightly with the salmon, because you got the soft texture of the fish and the crunch of the leaves in one bite. My mum, of course, kept picking out just the salmon without bothering with that.

Sirloin steak salad

Just as we were almost finishing the salmon salad, the next plate arrived. This time it was a steak salad made with sirloin, seared hard on the outside while the inside stayed pink, then sliced thinly and placed over the greens. A few slices of onion were scattered over the top, and from the orange seasoning granules on the surface of the meat, it looked as though they had used a bit of spiced seasoning. Having this straight after the salmon salad meant I was already starting to feel slightly full before the main dish. Up close, the cut surface showed the beef was cooked about medium: browned on the outside and reddish-pink inside. The only slight shame was that there was quite a lot of onion, so sometimes you bit into onion before the meat.

One piece of sirloin up close

When I lifted one piece on the fork, the cross-section was clear. The outside was nicely browned, while the inside had a vivid pink colour, closer to medium rare. Once I portioned some onto my plate, it was two pieces of meat, onion and a little bit of salad — for the middle of a course, that amount did make sense.

The main course — fillet steak arrives

Finally, the main course arrived: fillet steak. A thick piece of fillet sat right in the middle of the plate, with a brown sauce drawn around it in a half-moon shape. Two or three cloves of roasted whole garlic sat at one end of the sauce, while coarse salt and pepper were sprinkled on the other side. Fillet comes from the inside of the cow’s loin, and it is known for having very little fat and a very tender texture. Among steak cuts, it is one of the softest, the sort that barely needs a knife when cooked well.

Fillet details

Looking down from above, the grill marks were clearly stamped into the surface, with pepper grains dotted here and there. From the side, it looked about two finger joints thick, and it had that round, firm shape you expect from fillet. A little fat was seeping from the side, giving it a glossy look, and when I got right up close you could see how firmly the outside had been seared. Juices had gathered in the cracks on the surface. The sauce was a deep brown demi-glace style, and the roasted whole garlic beside it was half-sitting in the sauce, looking properly glossy.

Side dish — grilled vegetables

The side for the steak came separately, not on the same plate. In the small dish were grilled courgette, onion, mushroom and red chilli. They looked as if they had been fried in oil, but there was barely any seasoning apart from a little pepper. If this had been a Korean barbecue restaurant, the table would probably have been covered with ten side dishes, but at a steak restaurant, this was it. My mum looked at it with a face that said, “Is this really all the side dish we get?” but Western-style food in Korea is often like that, so there was not much to be done. Still, when you keep eating meat and your mouth starts to feel a bit heavy, picking at these vegetables does help.

Cutting into the fillet

Right, time to cut into it.

The moment I put the knife in, it took almost no effort. Fillet is a tender cut anyway, but this was soft enough that the knife slid through it. The cross-section had a clear pink centre, fading towards brown at the edges, and the medium rare cook was spot on. When I cut another piece, you could see the juices gathering inside, then spreading across the plate and mixing with the sauce. My mum saw the red centre and asked, “Isn’t this undercooked?” I told her to try one piece, and she picked up her fork with a very doubtful look.

One piece dipped in sauce

I cut off a piece, dipped it generously in the sauce and lifted it up. The demi-glace ran down the surface of the beef, and when I put it in my mouth, the clean flavour of the meat and the deep sweetness of the sauce came through at the same time. Fillet has little fat, so it can sometimes feel a bit plain, but this sauce balanced that out nicely.

The taste — beef that collapses before you chew

Once it was in my mouth, the beef seemed to fall apart before I had even properly chewed it. I had felt it from the moment I cut it with the knife, but on the tongue it was even clearer: no effort needed, just a soft collapse. With only a little coarse salt, the natural flavour of the beef came through cleanly. With the sauce, the sweetness and savoury depth built up in layers, so I alternated between the two. I might go for samgyeopsal fairly often after work, but to eat steak properly like this, you have to set aside time and go out for it. That is why meals like this feel a bit special when they happen.

The honest downside — the portion was small

The biggest thing that stayed with me from this meal was the portion size. On paper, the course sounds fairly generous: soup, two kinds of salad, a side dish and the main. But the fillet itself, which was the whole point, looked like less than 150 grams, so once it was finished I felt a bit wanting. Yes, I had already had bread and salad by then, but being filled up by those is not the same as being filled up by meat. If you really like beef, that feeling of finishing the main and still wanting more lingers for a while.

Beef prices in Korea — why is it so expensive?

Korean hanwoo beef is three or four times the price of imported beef, and even when restaurants use imported meat, tariffs and distribution costs make it far more expensive than in its country of origin. Still, when you pay more in Korea, the flavour usually holds up. Hanwoo has fine marbling, and if it is cooked properly, the juices really come through. Even with imported beef, once it has been handled by Korean chefs, it is rare for it to go badly wrong. My honest view is that beef in Korea is expensive, but it often does feel worth the money.

Rare and medium rare — not everyone agrees

I can eat both rare and medium rare, but this is definitely one of those things people feel strongly about. Even among Koreans, plenty of people are not comfortable with beef that is red in the middle. My mum used to be one of them, but after trying one piece that day, she carried on eating quietly with her fork. My wife does not eat beef, so I hardly ever get the chance to go out for steak with her. I always find it a bit of a shame that I cannot share this taste with her, and perhaps that is why this day out with my mum stayed in my memory even more.

The way home

In the car on the way home, my mum quietly said, “Bring me here again next time.” I laughed and said I would. I did think about trying to persuade my wife to come along as well next time, though since she does not eat beef, I doubt it will be easy.