Seoul Yummy (Ion Orchard)

Seoul Yummy is extremely popular for its stews and the unmistakable black pan was present on almost every table when we were there. We opted for the Signatures Combo ($48.70 for 1 appetizer, 1 main and 1 dessert). Army Stew (Budae Jjigae) is supposedly one of their must-orders, and we chose the meat (as opposed to the seafood) version. Our Army stew came with a hunk of frozen chicken, pork and beef, assorted vegetables and ... wait for it... sausages, luncheon meat, baked beans and maggi mee -- all of it dumped unceremoniously into a huge pan and left to simmer. Note that the maggi noodles are actually concealed underneath the meat.

The next step is simple, just chop everything up and wait for the meat to cook through. For the steep price, not only are the ingredients cheap and poor in quality,  they don't even give you a lot of meat. We struggle to see how this pot of Army Stew should even cost more than $10. Many fans have raved about the broth, which we found to be quite tasty and not very spicy, albeit a little on the salty side.

For appetizers, we had the potato pancake. This was pretty decent and we could feel the strips of potato in the pancake. And like most Korean restaurants, you get free flow banchan! Always a small plus.

We chose the chocolate and banana bingsu for dessert. The chocolate ice cream was nice and creamy, the bananas were coated in caramel and sprinkled with crunchy bits. Well in fact everything was yummy except for the bingsu, which was coarser than what it should be. Sigh, what a let down!