Jeong's Jjajang

Earlier this year, Jeong's Jjajang revamped their menu slightly and introduced a crowd favourite in the form of Korean fried chicken.

For $15, you get 8 to 10 pieces of freshly fried chicken which has a shattering crisp crust on the outside and tender and juicy on the inside. You gotta top up $1 for their Yangnyeom or spicy sauce which is a good blend of sweet and salty.

I think that their fried chicken is good considering that they do not specialise in fried chicken and have a fairly extensive menu. The best part is that they serve a boneless version at $8 which is perfect for folks like me who love their fried chicken but find it a hassle to gnaw at it!

Jjm was pretty good! Noodles were chewy, sauce was flavourful with generous portions of soft onions and pork. It was served piping hot so it was extra shiok.

Tangsuyuk was crisp and served in thick meaty chunks, they are once again super generous with portions, but I found some pieces a tad dry / hard. The sauce was quite tangy, reminded me of lemon chicken sauce. I liked that it was served separately on the side instead of being poured directly onto the meat - we get to decide how much sauce we want!

At this price point, it is really v value for money given the quality and portions, I would definitely come back for the jjm and also try their other dishes!

Jeong jjajang is our latest go-to joint for authentic and inexpensive Korean food these days. Besides the much raved jjajangmyeon, they also serve a really good jjampong.

The key to a good bowl of Jjampong or Korean spicy seafood noodles soup is the seafood or pork based soup broth. Jeong Jjajang's soup broth is tantalisingly addictive. You can taste both the signature feisty peppery notes of the gochugaru and the subtly sweetness of seafood in every spoonful of their fiery red broth. I know some of you may equate stomach churning spicy to enjoyment but the spice level of Jeong’s broth is manageable and enjoyable.

Each bowl of Jjampong also comes topped with a generous serving of shrimps, squid and mussels. You will definitely not regret making a trip down to this ulu kopitiam in Bukit Merah!

Jjajangmyeon ("JJM") was a dish which middle aged Koreans would remember having on special days of the year for families to share on special occasions. It is now one of the most popular cheap and quick takeaway meals in Korea and is usually ordered to celebrate moving into a new home.

This Korean-Chinese noodle dish looks deceptively simple - a bowl of thick chewy wheat flour noodles is topped with a thick sauce made of chunjang, diced pork, and vegetables. It is however really hard and time-consuming to do a good (or even decent) renditon. First,the chunjang has to be sauteed with loads of oil to caramelise it and eliminate its slightly bitter and earthy taste. Its however rather easy to burn the chunjang and make it even more bitter. The fried chunjang paste is then stir-fried with diced onions, pork and various vegetables and thickened with starch water. The sauce is then laddled over a bowl of noodles and topped with slices of preserved radish and cucumber.

Unlike Korea, JJM is a relatively expensive dish in most Korean restaurants in Singapore. Miss K just couldn't stand paying the price of ramen for the Korean equivalent of our bak chor mee.

We were therefore really delighted to find out about Jeong Jjajang. For less than $10, you get a really good bowl of JJM which strikes a good balance between sweet and savoury, and is topped generously with shrimps and squid. Its seriously a steal at this price!

We also shared a 𝗦𝗲𝗮𝗳𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗣𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗮𝗸𝗲 ($10). Its gargantuan size surprised us. Light and crispy, it was delicious. The pieces of squid littered throughout the pancake amped up its tastiness considerably.

We thoroughly enjoyed our meal and at the fraction of the price in a Korean restaurant, we’d definitely return.

We ordered the 𝗦𝗼𝗼𝗻𝗱𝘂𝗯𝘂 𝗦𝗼𝘂𝗽 (U.P. $9.00, Promo $6.90, comes with a bowl of rice) as our second main. Comparisons with Buk Chang Dong Soon Tofu (kopi tiam stall in the heartlands opened by a popular Korean restaurant) are inevitable.

The orange-hued soup at Jeong’s carried the same spicy and savoury notes, and is on par with BCD’s. Where it lost out is in the tofu quality. While the tofu tasted good, it wasn’t as silky smooth as BCD’s.