Restaurant Owner Responds, "We Also Buy Including Fat"
Jeju Island, which was previously embroiled in controversy over ‘fatty pork belly,’ has once again become the center of a dispute, this time over a restaurant selling beef heavily covered in fat.
On the 16th, a post titled “Jeju Island still hasn’t come to its senses” was uploaded to an online community. The author, who claims to be a Jeju resident, explained, “(The place I visited) is a fairly popular meat restaurant,” and shared a photo of a beef sirloin with more than half covered in fat. According to the author, this is a menu item priced at 100,000 won.
A 100,000 won Korean beef assorted grill ordered at a meat restaurant in Jeju. [Photo source= Community capture]
When the author told the owner, “There’s too much fat on the sirloin; I think I need to cut half of it off,” the response was, “When we purchase the meat, we buy it including the fat, so if we remove the fat for customers, it’s a loss. Just eat it as is.”
The author added, “When I said, ‘It wasn’t like this when we had a gathering here and spent 1,140,000 won before,’ the owner said, ‘I’ll give you some chadolbagi (thinly sliced brisket) as a service.’ I was offended and said I wouldn’t eat it.” The author also claimed, “When I protested, saying it was unfair and threatened to post about it on SNS and other sites, the owner told me to post it with the restaurant’s name.”
“When I left, I saw that the group table was set with A-grade meat,” the author wrote, “The owner must be making a lot of money. I’m not a tourist but a native Jeju resident. Jeju really has a problem.”
Previously, it was publicized that a famous Jeju restaurant sold pork belly with a high fat content. As the controversy grew, Jeju Governor Oh Young-hoon decided to conduct on-site inspections of about 70 pork specialty restaurants and livestock distribution companies in Jeju to prevent recurrence. However, his remark that “differences in food culture should also be taken into account” drew criticism with comments like “Is Jeju’s food culture only about eating fat?”
According to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety’s dining cost price information, as of March, the average price of one serving (100?250g) of pork belly in Jeju was 17,000 won, a 1.5% increase from 16,750 won in December of last year, four months earlier. This is the highest price among all cities and provinces nationwide.
A 100,000 won Korean beef assorted grill ordered at a meat restaurant in Jeju. [Photo source= Community capture]
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