Kinja Eats: Jjajangmyun

September 10, 2018

Kinja is currently looking to hire an experienced Sushi Chef. We would prefer someone with previous and varied experience preparing both traditional and modern Japanese Sushi. We are also looking for help in the kitchen as well as an additional server. The ability to work well with others and handle constructive advice is a must. We are an easy going family owned establishment so we are looking for someone who can fit in to that kind of an environment. At the same time we take our business very seriously in that we provide the highest quality ingredients and dishes that we can to our customers. If you are interested in and qualified for this position then please contact us.

Daily Dish:

Jja-Jang-Myun

(Black Bean Noodle)

This Korean favorite is comprised of our delicious house noodles and stir fried mixed vegetables, topped with a thick, hearty black bean and meat sauce.

This dish pairs well with our house hot or cold sake as well as any of our other sake and soju selections. If you prefer something a little more mild try a cold beer, some hot tea or one of our many other beverages. To get the most out of this flavorful dish, try matching our Jja-Jang-Myun with some of our spring rolls or gyoza, made to order or straight off the track during operating hours.

Jja-Jang-Myun is a historic dish with roots in both the Chinese and Korean cultures. It’s exact history is a point that can be argued by many people to many different ends. To provide some easily accessed illumination on the history and development of this delicious dish, we will take a look and an excerpt from Wikipedia.

History

Jajangmyeon dates back to 1905, when it first appeared in Gonghwachun (공화춘; 共和春), a restaurant in Incheon Chinatown run by an immigrant from the Shandong Province of China. The restaurant is now the Jjajangmyeon Museum.

Although the name jajangmyeon is cognate with the Chinese dish zhájiàngmiàn (炸酱面), Korean jajangmyeon differs in many ways. Yong Chen, an associate history professor at the University of California, Irvine, argued that although the dish "began as the Northern Chinese noodle-and-ground pork dish zhájiàngmiàn, it is thoroughly Korean."

In the mid-50s in South Korea, soon after the Korean War, jajangmyeon was sold at low prices so that anyone could eat them without burden. Many merchants came and went to the port of Incheon, which was the center of trade, and many dock workers were working in the fish market. The new Korean-style Jajangmyeon has begun to gain explosive popularity among them and quickly spread throughout the country.

Name

Jajang (자장; alternately spelled jjajang 짜장) is derived from the Chinese word zhájiàng (炸酱), which means "fried sauce". Myeon (면) means "noodles". The Chinese characters are pronounced jak (작; 炸) and jang (장; 醬) in Korean, but the noodle dish is called jajangmyeon, not jakjangmyeon, because its origin is not the Sino-Korean word, but a transliteration of the Chinese pronunciation. As the Chinese pronunciation of zhá sounded like jja(rather than ja) to Korean ears, the dish is known in South Korea as jjajangmyeon, and the vast majority of Korean Chinese restaurants use this spelling.

For many years, until 22 August 2011, the National Institute of Korean Language did not recognize the word jjajangmyeon as an accepted idiomatic transliteration. The reason jjajangmyeon did not become the standard spelling was due to the transliteration rules for foreign words announced in 1986 by the Ministry of Education, which stated that the foreign obstruents should not be transliterated using doubled consonants except for some established usages. The in acknowledgment faced tough criticism from the supporters of the spelling jjajangmyeon, such as Ahn Do-hyeon, a Sowol Poetry Prize winning poet. Later, jjajangmyeon was accepted as an alternate standard spelling alongside jajangmyeon in the National Language Deliberation Council and, on 31 August, included as a standard spelling in the Standard Korean Language Dictionary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jajangmyeon

Thank you for visiting our site and learning a little about the delicious culture that we enjoy preparing and sharing with you. Come see us at our North Division location and ask for a fresh bowl of our flavorful Jja-Jang-Myun.

Dish of the Day Author: Kinja