A place for comforting Korean stews - Masizzim (313@Somerset)

I've always been keen to try Korean stews locally but there were two major obstacles preventing me from doing so. First of all, many places I've been to so far tend to have such stews in sharing sizes which effectively meant that for someone like me who eats out often on my own, there was no way I could have finished the food singlehandedly. Even if I could, some restaurants had the rule that there must be at least two persons present before certain dishes can be ordered (yes, I'm referring to a particular bijin nabe which I've yet to try because of this rule). Secondly, a lot of the stews tend to use beef which I can't eat for religious reasons. It was really difficult to find a place which offers stews using anything other than beef and in a size friendly to singles.

Imagine my excitement when I heard about Masizzim at B3 of 313@Somerset. Not only do they offer the pork ribs stew, they even have it in single and double portions! Given that they emphasized the word "jjim" which means stews in Korean and claimed that their stews are delicious i.e. "masi" is short form for delicious in their name, there must be something about their stews worth boasting about. As such, there was no way I could have let this slip off my radar and thus decided to try if it was good as it was said to be.

The atmosphere of the restaurant can be considered as simple and no frills. From the outside, the restaurant looked a bit dark due to its extensive use of black and brown colours. It was pretty down-to-earth and not the flashy type of upscale eatery which you might have second thoughts entering if you are either dressed really casually or eating alone. Considering how I dress really simply due to sheer laziness and the hot weather, a place which allows me to be myself rather than worry about how people would look at me when I'm eating alone will end up in my favourites list. In this sense, Maizzim is a place which I would have no qualms coming back to. As seen in many Korean restaurants, K-pop music was blaring from the sound system which I have no problems with. If you are in a group though, it may be difficult to hear one another speak due to the music. One peculiar thing I noticed though was, I kept hearing 2NE1 songs while I was having my meal but saw Big Bang's music videos on the TV screen. Perhaps the owner has a particular preference for YG artistes? ^__^

First up would definitely be the pork ribs stew. There are three types of meat stews to choose from i.e. pork, beef and chicken. Note that for the chicken stew, the default option is spicy so for those who can't really take spicy food, you might want to keep this in mind. Personally, I'm not too good with spicy stuff too but I would probably come back another day just to try the chicken stew.

I really liked the pork ribs which were well-marinated and absorbed the flavours of the slightly spicy soup which goes well with the multi-grain rice served together. Although I ordered the single portion, there were more than 5 pieces of the pork ribs and they were mostly soft ribs which meant that there was more meat than the typical spare ribs used in bak kut teh. The meat texture in turn was soft and you could detach the meat from the bones very easily.

After choosing your meat, you can then select the spiciness level. For a "beginner" like me, I chose Level 1 which was slightly spicy in my opinion. For those who are OK with spicy stuff, you might find this not challenging at all so by all means challenge yourself with a Level 4.

Next, you get to choose between Korean udon and glass noodles. I'm not sure what Korean udon is and how it differs from its Japanese counterpart since I ordered the latter. However, I was rather disappointed to see the flat and thick version rather than the thinner one in my stew because it tends not to absorb the gravy/soup/sauce as well as the latter. True enough, I didn't like how the glass noodles tasted. As the thick glass noodles was rather stretchy and difficult to lift from the pot, I was conscious of the fact that whenever the glass noodles snapped backwards into the pot, the gravy seemed to spurt outwards to my neighbours and myself. Might be worth considering that if you want to avoid this messy situation.

If you find that your stew is not filling enough, you can add other things like Korean rice cakes as a top-up. I didn't add any this time since I wasn't sure of the portion size. I guess if I am just ordering the stew without other dishes next time, I might want to try adding the rice cakes.

The squid and leek pancake was a hit with me too. I really dislike versions of this with lumpy spring onion or leek strips (too dense or moist so it loses its crunchiness and flavour), negligible amounts of seafood bits, seafood cut into such small bits that you can hardly taste anything or too much egg in the pancake mix thus causing it to be dense and sink rather than be crispy and light. Fortunately, the version here has very generous amounts of leek and squid in long strips. Coupled with a crispy edge and the pancake not being too thick and dense in the middle, this has got to be one of the better versions I've tasted so far locally. The only drawback was that the sauce seemed to be a bit heavy on the vinegar so the sourish taste overpowered the savoury soy sauce's flavour. Nonetheless, on the whole, it was still good enough to be eaten with the pancake.

Last but not least, to round up the meal, I ordered the peach tea in a bid to remove the spiciness left behind by the stew. Strangely enough, I didn't taste much of the tea flavour but rather this felt more like peach soda to me. It still served its purpose of relieving my palate of the stinging sensation from the stew but I don't think I'll be trying this again. I was more keen on trying their sikhye but it only comes in a 600ml size which again is not a single-friendly item so I can't order that unless I'm in a group or would like to take away the remainder if they allow me to do so. I haven't asked the staff about whether this is OK though.

On the whole, I think the experience at Masizzim turned out quite well and I was quite satisfied with the quality of the food. I wouldn't say that it has a very extensive menu but I have no issues with this lack of variety and would prefer them to focus on their specialties rather than be a Jack of all trades. Now that I've finally found a place where I can get pork rib stew in a single portion, I think I may go back to Masizzim again very soon whenever I have the craving. Next time, it might be good to have the spicy chicken stew with the potato pancake. I just hope that the spicy chicken stew doesn't use breast meat which gets really tough if you cook it for a long time.