CHOUPUFFS in Plaza Damas was my go-to place for Korean comfort food but recently the shop was renovated, its name changed to Ju Ga & Cook and the menu expanded. It even has a showcase of different kinds of kimchi you can take away, including cabbage, radish, cucumber, choy sam and green onion.

Each time we watch a Korean reality food show like Three Meals a Day Mountain Village, we crave a Korean meal so we are happy we can now get our fix at Ju Ga & Cook.

It serves one of the best sundubu jjigae (RM20) I have ever had. It’s a soft tofu stew, with a kelp and anchovy-based broth spiced up with gochujang and red pepper powder.

The bubbling hot stew has minced pork, enoki mushrooms, onions and egg which added sweetness and complexity to it. It’s a stew to be relished with the Korean rice speckled with red grains.

Marbled soybean paste stew (RM28) has a similar soup base, but with deep flavours coming from the doenjang, or fermented bean paste added to it. It’s a beef brisket stew, slightly fatty and chewy. The soup has a balanced sweetness from zucchini, pumpkin and onions. We enjoyed this fiery beef stew with rice.

I liked the texture of the seafood pajeon (RM18) which reminded me of a good Teochew oyster pancake (oh chien), slightly sticky and chewy, with crispy edges. Pajeon means green onion pancake and ours had squid and mussels studded in it. It was delicious.

Noodles are my kind of comfort food so it’s hard to resist a bowl of kalguksu, or handmade knife-cut noodles, especially if there are clams and mussels in the soup. These crinkly, chewy noodles are best eaten as soon as they are served, or else they soften when they are too long in the smoky, sweet broth and taste like our pan mee.

On another visit, the handmade noodle soup with perilla seed (RM20) piqued our interest. Perilla seeds are a rich source of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids that are so good for heart health as well as allergies and inflammatory conditions.  So, we had a yummy bowl of soup with tiny mussels and al dente noodles coated with perilla seed powder. We slurped up the soup.

Spicy gimbap (RM15) lives up to its name with a thick ring of hot green chilli tucked in this Korean sushi roll, together with pickled radish, cucumber and egg. The roll glistened with fragrant sesame oil on the seaweed wrap. It tasted so good.

On our third lunch outing here, we chose the gimbap with Tteokbokki (RM26), a popular street food of rice cake tubes. The dish is a gimbap rolled up with carrot, pickles, egg, crab stick and cucumber. I expected a more zesty, thicker sauce with slices of fishcake for the tteokbokki but the flavours fell a little short.

We had the marinated grilled pork shoulder (RM30) too, served with a purple cabbage salad. The meat was smoky, sweet and juicy, though I would have liked more fat in the meat.

On Friday and Saturday there are special dishes like ginseng chicken soup (RM35), braised half-dried pollack (RM35) and spicy beef soup (RM28). It’s open daily from 8.30am to 8pm and closed on Sunday. 

Ju Ga & Cook is at E-0-5, Plaza Damas, Kuala Lumpur. Call 03-6206 5435, 014-930 5529 for delivery and takeaway. – October 24, 2020.

* Eu Hooi-Khaw has been writing about food for the longest time, covering all aspects, from restaurant reviews to cooking and recipes, as well as the healthy side of it. She has written for major newspapers and magazines, published the cookbook Fresh Ingredients, and also writes for her website hooikhawandsu.com.