Review: Miss Chuncheon

All it takes to join Shanghai’s micro-kitchen craze is a tiny space, half a kitchen and a solid niche cuisine. Miss Chuncheon on Fumin Lu offers simple and fair bowls of Korean comfort food, neither of which are defining or distinctive enough to be considered a breakthrough.

Korean meals always start with banchan -- small appetizers and sides found in everything from lunch boxes to Michelin-grade barbecue meals. Miss Chuncheon’s small bowls of pickles suggest a departure from tradition, but the rest of the menu is a comfortable blend of classic rice bowls, stews and hot-plate options, all offered at very fair prices.

A vegetable bibimbap (RMB32) layers sticky rice, fresh beansprouts, mixed vegetables and salty red doenjang (soybean paste). They’re stirred with a raw egg immediately before eating, which marries the contents into a steaming and sizzling cauldron of Korean flavors. A bubbling pot of kimchi soup (RMB32) is presented with the funky, distinct flavors of fermented cabbage that Korean is famous for.

Both the teppan-style hot plate of tender squid rings in a pepper and garlic seasoning (RMB48) and the kimchi pancake (RMB42) with sweet pickle and savory scallion reaffirm that Miss Chuncheon has nailed down the key components of traditional Korean food, which is the most appealing factor of the restaurant.

Simply serving reasonable food at reasonable prices might not be a big enough draw for the classicists or the adventurers. If Miss Chuncheon were to create something more experimental, we’d be lauding this newcomer to the micro-restaurant scene. But as it stands, there are better examples of Korean food all across town.