Dweji — EAT IT AUCKLAND

I want to keep Dweji a secret that is all my own, but the secret is already getting out and I want them to do well as they deserve every accolade. The little cobblestone Osborne Lane development on the backstreets of Newmarket is home to some of the best places to eat and drink in the area. Right now the best place to eat Korean is at Dweji.

This is not my first visit. The first time I ate here was in the depths of winter, the perfect season to enjoy hot Korean soups served in big dolsot pots. That time we ordered the gopchang soondae guk, a soup of blood sausage, spring onions and, gulp, pork intestines. This was proper homely, Korean mum cooking. Only I didn’t grow up with a Korean mum feeding me. ‘The aroma is a bit confronting’ I warned my husband as I breathed in the steamy vapours of the soup. Having grown up eating tripe, I wrongly assumed pork intestine to be as palatable. My newly discovered aversion to pork intestines stems from, without going into too much detail, using pork butts in surgical training which unfortunately smelled exactly like the soup sitting in front of me. If it weren’t for this, I would have otherwise loved this dish. It was hearty and comforting, not too spicy (but if you must every table comes with an array of Korean seasonings including gochujang to adjust the soup to your liking). It was chock full of meaty bits and pieces, some thinly sliced pork belly, Korean blood sausage and the aforementioned rings of pork intestine. The texture of the intestines themselves was not displeasing, it reminded me of spongey tofu. The boiling hot dolsot pot it comes in kept the soup warm for ages.

I also ordered two small sharing plates of dweji twigim (deep fried pork jowl with sweet and sour sauce $18) and tteokgalbi (charcoal wagyu beef patty, soy marinade, sesame seeds $22). Both dishes were phenomenal and made me glad I had no ethical or religious reasons that prohibited me from eating pork or beef. The dweji twigim was made of thin crispy pieces of pork jowl which had a nice, porky aroma (there’s no other word to use really) the crispy and rich jowl offset by a delicately plum flavoured sweet and sour sauce. It was topped with a light sprinkling of peanuts, chilli and spring onion adding some heat, fragrance and crunch. Our final dish the tteokgalbi had beautifully smoky chargrilled tones with a sweet and savoury marinade. The patty was unbelievably lush and juicy with a faint hint of pink in the middle. It is deceptively simple looking but this dish is a flavour power house.

So guess what? I ordered the tteokgalbi again the next time I visited, and it is still as good as ever. But I do dig a restaurant that updates their menu. We punters want to try new things after all. A few new soups and dishes have been added and this time I steered well clear of the intestines and went straight for their signature soup, the dweji gomtang ($25/$31). This is probably the best pork soup I’ve had in recent years, deeply savoury and moreish, with bloated pearls of nutty rice soaking up all those flavours. The look and feel of the soup was so clean. How the Koreans have made thinly sliced pork belly not seem unhealthy is witchcraft. The wafer thin slices of boiled berkshire pork belly was light and tender. I enjoyed the soup as is, ladling spoonfuls into my own bowl, and then working my way through the various table seasonings and seeing how perilla seeds, tiny pickled shrimp and gochujang alters the flavours of the soup on the palate.

Korea has monstrously hot summers and have aptly invented many a cold noodle dish to combat the heat with. I tried my first cold soup-based dish called mulhwe. The resemblance of this dish to an iceberg in uncanny, a mound of icy dashi granita, fluffy lettuce and cucumber hiding a treasure trove of raw kingfish, squid and prawns, all floating in a sea of cold gochu sauce and delicate rice noodles. It was delicious and unlike anything I’ve had before. It was very refreshing and intensely umami in flavour. Mulhwe is something everyone must try once, although I suspect once tried you’ll be returning for it again. I know I will.

Dweji
2/8 Osborne Street, Newmarket, Auckland 1023
+64 21 259 7873
@dweji_akl