Off the flight in balmy Cairns, checked in at the hotel, set up work exhibition stuff, and we’re hungry! The three of us walked down to Orchid Plaza near the hotel for lunch, and in this more or less Little Japan/Asia of a small mall, a particular hot plate menu caught Richard’s attention.
Corea Corea Korean Cuisine, not to be mistaken for any other place named Corea Corea that has nothing to do with Korea, serves Korean cuisine. Richard and I both love spicy food, so I was very happy to see a menu that has a chilli icon next to literally half its items. We ordered a different dish each and a little while later, our sizzling hot Korean hot plates came sizzling.
Spicy barbecued chicken on a hot plate, barbecued right and served with white rice and shredded lettuce. The spicy level of this dish was not very detectable probably due to my super high tolerance. Don’t be fooled by this camera angle though, because there’s quite a lot of meat under the lettuce pile.
See, a hot plate could look like this when you spin it around. The barbecued beef is one of the non-spicy dishes, which might be why I enjoyed the chicken more. Many of the hot plate dishes also come in hot stone pot format for a few more dollars, with the barbecued beef pot and spicy chicken pot at $14.95 each.
Despite my preference for super spicy food, I ordered the seafood pancake that didn’t come with a chilli icon on the menu, and despite the lack of a chilli icon, the seafood pancake did come with some sliced chilli in it, but despite the sliced chilli, the giant pancake wasn’t actually spicy at all. This is probably a bit heavy for a lunch for the average person (note: Vickie is not an average person), but the accompanying soy dipping sauce balanced out the greasiness of the dish well. Worth the slightly longer wait than the other two!
Overall, Corea Corea offers quick hearty meals for a good price. The only way I think I could enjoy this meal more was if the Cairns’ winter was actually cold!
Korean seafood pancake, haemul pajeon (해물파전).
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