CousCous: Tunisian Food in Seochon
So last week when I got the bar hours wrong, my friend and I were left being two ajummas who lunch without a place to lunch. Luckily, we were in her neighborhood, and she had us covered. CousCous serves simple but very nice Tunisian food. It’s a sweet little restaurant hidden back in the golmok (alleyways).
The prices are very reasonable and the food was, to this American palate anyway, pretty authentic. They have a great selection of sets, including a brunch set, which is unusual for a non-Western restaurant in Seoul (of course they don’t open until 11, so it would be a bit of a late brunch).
We ordered set C and added a brick and two Turkish coffees. It was just enough food for two hungry ajummas, and although the menu claims their sets are portioned for two to three people, I wouldn’t try it with three. Still, our bill came to 50,000 won for the both of us, and with the coffee factored in, that’s a pretty good price.
The hummus was creamy and very mildly flavored, but not bland. Unfortunately, I wasn’t really a fan of the bread — too soft and spongy without a lot of flavor — and the bread really is half the point of hummus, isn’t it?
The tagine had a lovely color on it and was cooked just right — not dry or soggy, just moist eggy goodness.
The brick was a real work of art. The pastry was so thin and crisp around the edges that you could see straight through it.
The couscous comes with your choice of lamb or chicken with chickpeas, peppers and a hard-boiled egg. Everything really was cooked perfectly — so much of this fare can go mushy or soggy if you don’t do it right, or can very easily be over spiced — I’m from Texas, where we tend to cook everything all to hell and over spice with the best of them, so I don’t always mind that (especially the latter), but everything at CousCous walked that fine line of just enough.
Except the Turkish coffee, which was exactly what it’s supposed to be: a cup of piping-hot, undiluted, sticky-sweet java. I was especially thrilled with this because, when I was in Europe last month, Turkish coffee was one of the things I was most excited to get my hands on. It was terrible there, so to have this kind of authentic Turkish coffee in my own backyard is pretty exciting.
Between the quality of the brick and the perfection of the Turkish coffee, I might be tempted to trek back uptown for the brunch set sometime soon.
I hope my friend will forgive me for announcing her little neighborhood find like this. I just couldn’t get over that coffee.
CousCous Tunisian Home Kitchen
서울특별시 종로구 체부동 95-1
95-1 Chebu-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul
Monday- Sunday 11am-11pm
Closed the second and fourth Tuesday of every month
