Friday, 29th March 2024 07:48
Home / Uncategorized / APPT Seoul Day 2: Culinary tales from South Korea

“This is literally the best thing ever,” live reporting blogger Kim Yuhl said as she munched on what was likely her tenth piece of kimbap in the last level alone.

Best thing ever?

I concur.

What is kimbap you ask?

Well the unschooled westerner would perhaps look at kimbap and it say it is just sushi. But my friend, I am here to tell you it is much more than that. So much more.

For the last three days, jolly Dutchman and Yuhl’s live reporting colleague Remko Rinkema has been bringing scores of Kimbap rolls to work. The first day he brought a mixture of regular kimbap, crispy chicken kimbap and tuna kimbap, but since then has taken the regular kimbap off the menu due to the popularity of the other two.

Rinkema would probably agree that since he has been bringing these tasty treats to work his popularity has soared. Prior to the kimbap he was ignored by most, but since sharing the riches with APPT Media Coordinator Fred Leung, APPT President Danny McDonagh and Assistant Tournament Director Sam Dawson, his stocks have gone through the roof.

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It looks likes sushi, but you just haven’t tasted it

Considering I and many of the team here at the APPT have been to Seoul quite a few times, I thought I would ask a few of them what their favourite food is. Far and away the most popular response was, wait for it… BBQ. This isn’t surprising. Korean BBQ is popular all around the world, but of course, no one does it better than the Koreans themselves.

Fried Chicken was also quite a popular answer, especially the chicken shared with Team PokerStars Pro Bryan Huang at the APPT Seoul player’s party two nights ago. Huang was talking about this chicken all day when he was at the felt, the thought of it maybe even distracted him a little bit, though that’s doubtful of such a consummate poker professional.

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This guy loved the food spread at the APPT Seoul party

Also on the menu for the many amateur food connoisseurs in attendance at APPT Seoul include the Beef Short Rib, which in Korea is known as Kalbi. This was personal favourite of Kenneth Lim – the man who supplies all the fantastic photography for the APPT and PokerStars LIVE Macau events.

So in conclusion, I would like go on record saying that Korean food is simply some of the tastiest food in the world. It’s fresh, it’s cheap and it’s quite simply god damn tasty. I would argue that poker players from around the Asia-Pacific, and the world, who haven’t been here to play APPT Seoul should just come here based on the food alone. If you happen to win six-figures? Well that’s the just the cherry on the top of the delicious Korean food.

At the moment the 40 or so remaining players are heading into the last two levels of Day 2 and are nearing the money. Soon they will be greeted with some food courtesy of the APPT and the Walkerhill staff. The food will be Western-style though and considering all the Kimbap I have in front of me, I’m going to give it a miss.

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