The characteristic of the restaurant I visited while traveling across the country for 16 years… Near government offices, old signboards, far from highways

Eat to live.

Eating food is an essential activity for survival.

In’Song of the Sword’, novelist Kim Hoon described the shortage of military power in the Joseon Navy against the Japanese enemy. “The meal was like time. Even if I starved, the oncoming meal was unavoidable. The meal was as precise as a wave and rushing incessantly. (Omitted) The meal was not cut with a knife and was not aimed with a gun.”

Live to eat As the standard of living has improved due to economic development, an era has come when it is commonly said that people live to eat, not to live. TV shows overflowing with various dishes and restaurants introduction, and’Mokbang’ is a popular YouTube content.

One year after the first outbreak of Corona 19. With the strengthening of social distancing measures, the steps to find restaurants have been slowed down a lot, but restaurants are still our main concern. The problem is to find a real restaurant in the countless number of self-proclaimed’food restaurants’. Here is a couple of the same age who have traveled around the country for 16 years in search of real restaurants. Like the Michelin Guide and Zagat Survey, we met BRT’s CEO Minjong Yeo (57) and editor Kim Eunjo (57), whose goal is to create a unique Korean restaurant guidebook, and listened to the stories related to the restaurant.

―What is the’Blue Ribbon Survey’?

▷Representative of Yeominjong = If you are an international metropolis, there is a world-class restaurant guidebook that represents the city. Blue Ribbon Survey is Korea’s first and best restaurant guidebook. For the first time in Korea, it adopted a’survey’ method that collects majority opinions. This is to collect more objective data. It was named’Survey’ in the sense of synthesizing the opinions of many people.

―Why’Blue Ribbon’.

▷ Editor-in-chief Kim Eun-jo = In the English-speaking world,’blue ribbon’ is also used to mean delicious food. ‘Le Cordon Bleu’, a culinary, bakery, and wine technical school in Paris, France, means’blue ribbon’ in French. Meant. The knights wore a blue ribbon like a medal, and as the magnificent dinners enjoyed by the knights spread to countries in Europe, the blue ribbon also had the meaning of’the best dish’. I named it blue ribbon because it would be nice to put this name on the restaurant guide.

―How can you define food?

▷ Editor-in-chief Kim = Gourmet is about enjoying the taste. I think this is gourmet, not eating food, but enjoying delicious food. The skills of the person who cooks, eats, and serves food must form a’trinity’. If you make good food, serve it well, and the person who eats it feels worth it, that’s’gourmet’.

―This is what readers will be most curious about, but please tell me the secret of finding a restaurant.

▷ Representative Female = There is nothing to worry about. You can look at the’Blue Ribbon Survey’. The answer is all there. When asked to recommend restaurants, I recommend the’Blue Ribbon Survey’ (laughs).

▷ Editor-in-Chief Kim = I have the know-how that I have developed while visiting restaurants nationwide for 16 years. This is a story before navigation was developed, but if you call a restaurant known as a restaurant and ask for directions, it is highly likely that it is a restaurant. This is because several people call and ask for directions. Of course, these days, they will answer “Please search for a navigation system.”

▷ Female representative = There is also a signboard. On the signboard, there is a place where the energy of the restaurant is oozing. It’s a difficult part to explain in words, but you’ll probably notice it when you look at the signboard. Such places are likely to be restaurants.

▷ Editor-in-chief Kim = There is a high possibility that there will be restaurants near the provincial office. This is because many business meetings are held nearby. It is also a good idea to ask the taxi driver.

―There is a myth that restaurants are difficult to find.

▷ Editor-in-Chief Kim = That’s right. Suppose you are going to a local restaurant for Jaecheop-guk. Is the closest place to the highway exit really a restaurant? Most likely not. When competitors open one by one around the original restaurant, these restaurants are located close to the highway exit. This is because customers have to attract customers before they arrive at the real restaurant. Those who come without knowing the exact information, such as the address, have no choice but to head to similar restaurants that are easy to visit. For similar reasons, restaurants located along the national highway are not restaurants. It’s easy to find.

―I went to restaurants all over the country, but is there an interesting story?

▷ Representative Female = When I first started this job, I had to open an atlas and search because there was no navigation. I visited 10 restaurants a day, but when I couldn’t find the way, I heard a lot of nagging from my wife. I have eaten 7 to 8 meals a day. Are you a glutton? Not at all. After eating one bite, they moved to the next restaurant. For example, if you go to 5 restaurants, shouldn’t you have five meals? You might think that you can eat one-fifth serving, but that’s more difficult. It’s better to eat all the meals at the first restaurant and then eat a bite at the next restaurant.

▷ Editor-in-chief Kim = When the’Blue Ribbon Survey’ was first published in 2005, a list of 2000 restaurants was selected and 1,000 of them were included in the book. These days, social network service (SNS) has become active, so taking pictures in a pretty state before eating when ordered food has become a’natural culture’, but it was awkward at the time. There was also a restaurant boss who was angry about why he was taking pictures. These days, when it comes to taking pictures of food, the bosses are more active, such as turning the bowl around and holding a pretty angle.

―The taste is subjective, but how do you choose a restaurant?

▷ Editor-in-Chief Kim = There are clearly individual differences in the standard of restaurants. Dan I think there are restaurants that people like in common. Let’s say there are restaurants A and B that serve seolleongtang. If they serve the same seolleongtang, but only restaurant A is crowded, there is a reason for that. People unconsciously think that restaurant A is better than restaurant B, so they visit a lot. In other words, the public knows the taste intuitively.

―Is there a trend for gourmet restaurants?

▷ Editor-in-Chief Kim = There are about 650,000 restaurants in Korea with signs. Less than 1% of them are included in the Blue Ribbon Survey. There are 1,500 in the Seoul version and 3500 in the local version, and as they are published every year, there is a trend by year. Around 2005, when the book was first released, Western food represented by Italians began to become popular. Around 2010, French cuisine entered Korea in earnest. At the time, there was only a hotel Western restaurant, but chefs who studied in France returned to Korea and started opening a restaurant specializing in authentic French cuisine. From mid-2010, original Japanese and Chinese dishes began to bloom. It overlaps with the time when young people started to travel abroad in earnest.

―Please explain in detail.

▷ Editor-in-Chief Kim = Tourist oil paintings were made in the 1990s, but package travel was more popular than backpacking until the early 2000s. Since then, backpacking has become popular, and many backpackers are young people who can speak foreign languages. It was in the late 2010s that the food culture they experienced in the country flowed into Korea. For example, the menu has been diversified from Chinese food represented by Jajangmyeon made by Chinese, to maratang and dim sum. Japanese food has also become diverse, from one color of (Koreanized) Japanese food served with super red pepper paste to an izakaya, a tavern. As these restaurants opened, Seoul’s food became more diverse.

▷Representative female = The province is following the trend with a gap of 15-20 years from Seoul, but the pace of change is getting faster. In the 2010s, as chefs who studied abroad returned to Korea and opened restaurants, the base of gastronomy is expanding.

-Recently, many restaurants have been closed due to urban redevelopment and Corona 19.

▷ Editor-in-Chief Kim = Every year, we evaluate the changes in old restaurants,’old-fashioned’. What is interesting is that old-established artisans that opened before the 1970s do not disappear well. Although the door is closed due to external factors such as rental fees and redevelopment, there are not many cases where the door is closed due to a lack of business. In the past, restaurants in Pimatgol were not closed at all due to redevelopment, but were moved to other neighborhoods and continue to operate.

―It seems that the corona has also influenced food a lot.

▷ Representative Female = An atmosphere that reduces eating out is detected due to Corona 19. As a result, consumers seem to think that even if they eat once, they should eat in a nicer place. I’m looking for fine dining.

▷ Editor-in-Chief Kim = As the entire restaurant industry became difficult due to Corona 19, it became very difficult to analyze trends this year. Even last year, the genre (boundary) collapsed. When we share a restaurant, don’t we share Korean, Chinese, and Japanese dishes in this way? Last year, “stateless restaurants”, or casual dining, gained popularity. For example, Korean food was served on pasta and sashimi was served, and such restaurants were increasing. It is difficult to distinguish between Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and Western dishes.

―What is my future goal?

▷ Representative Female = Although mobile is a common era, we continue to write books out of paper. This is because I think that it is highly reliable to be published in a book. Of course, we will increase the proportion of mobile services. I want to create a’blue ribbon survey’ that deals with various fields such as delivery food, quick home meal (HMR), and convenient restaurant meal (RMR).

▷ Editor-in-chief Kim = When you visit the’Blue Ribbon Survey’ homepage, the goal is to enable you to check restaurant information and make reservations at once. To do that, you will have to work harder.

▶▶ He is…

Born in Seoul, graduated from Seoul National University’s Department of Electronic Engineering and graduated, and worked as a researcher at Samsung Electronics. He is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Korea’s first restaurant guide’Blue Ribbon Survey’. Currently, it is focusing on the’Blue Ribbon Survey’ mobile platform.

▶▶ She is…

An editor who loves travel and food. I was born and raised in Seoul. He majored in psychology at Seoul National University and advertising design at Hongik University. Since 2005, he has been the editor of the Blue Ribbon Survey. He has published a number of books and translations related to gastronomy.

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