The Best Hangover Cure

Last weekend, HJ and I went to eat pyo haejangguk (뼈 해장국), which is one of our favorite Korean dishes. Haejangguk is widely known as a stew that partiers eat the day after having too many drinks. Even if you haven’t had drinks the night before, haejangguk is still a delicious sober meal.

There are different kinds of haejangguk. The one that we ate was called pyo haejangguk. “Pyo” literally means bone in Korean. Can you guess what’s in the stew?

Haejangguk comes to the table boiling in a traditional Korean stone pot and it is served with kimchi and rice. It’s so simple! Inside the stone pot are pork bones with the meat practically falling off, as well as some radish leaves and glass noodles. The broth is flavored with doenjang (Korean miso) and the pork bones. To add a little spice, the stew is topped with cracked peppercorns which are mixed into the broth as you eat. It has quite a refreshing taste!

Each restaurant makes their haejangguk a little different and I enjoy trying different places. Haejangguk is fairly cheap, as I have never paid more than 7,000 won (about $7) for a bowl. If it were up to me, I’d have a bowl of this stuff every day!