Restaurant: Hwang Geum Ryung Burger “황금륭 버거” (Jeju, Korea)

Hwang Geum Ryung Burger “황금륭 버거” • 10 Shindo-Ri, Daejeong-Eup, Seogwipo City, Jeju, Korea • 064-773-0097

Category: Burger

Rating:  (3)

Hwang Geum Ryung Burger “황금륭 버거” is a wildly popular tourist restaurant famous for it’s 10″ diameter, 3 pound burger located on a remote farm located in Jeju, Korea. The restaurant itself is in an old, rustic Korean style log cabin sparsely decorated with picnic style tables and benches.

The burger itself is proudly presented as using local farm products and is an almost perfect example of today’s popular “farm to table” concept. Aside from the sheer size of the burger itself, what differentiates this burger from typical burgers is that it uses pork instead of beef, which consists of 70% Jeju black pig and 30% Jeju white pig. The pork is marinated with locally grown rosemary, lemongrass, lemon scented tea, basil and camphor. Those same herbs are also used in baking the buns as well as for one of the three sauces that go into the burger. The sauce that uses the herbs is a mustard sauce with mayo, egg and garlic. The other two sauces include a milk based white sauce as well as a fruit sauce that is tomato and apple based. What’s also unique about the burger is that it uses a lot of vegetables inside including shredded cabbage, radishes, kohlrabi, carrots, cucumbers and apples which have all been slightly pickled. By the way, the apples are the only item used that are not locally grown.

If all of those ingredients in that combination sounds a little weird, well it kind of is. After taking my first bite, there was an overload of flavors and textures. As I continued to eat, I realized that this isn’t really a burger but more akin to a roast pork sandwich with a lot of fruity overtones.

Although it is appreciable that they are selling a product that is literally “farm to table” and one that is quite unique, for my palate, the burger or what in my opinion should be called a sandwich is too heavy with fruits and vegetables and not enough meat. In my opinion, the heart and soul of any good burger is the patty itself and by that definition, this burger fails to impress. The pork lacked in quantity as well as quality, being too thin and too dry and lacking in flavor. I’ve had Jeju black pig before and it’s right up there with the likes of Berkshire pork which also happens to be black. Sadly, it was impossible to tell that this was a premium pork product due to all of the overwhelming number of flavors going on between the sauces and vegetables as well as the patty being too small in ratio to the bun and other ingredients used.