Mad For Garlic = New Favorite Restaurant!!!

Two nights ago while Shane (one of my fellow teachers) and I were strolling through Mok-Dong (one of the city's many suburbs) looking for one of the infamous bootleg dvd salesman (there are 2 or 3 in the city who apparently have the best bootleg dvds/cds for incredibly cheap), we stumbled upon the restaurant "Mad for Garlic". Mad for Garlic is a group of restaurants here in Seoul (there are a total of 5 in the city, I believe) about whom I had read many positive things. Shane had eaten there once or twice and confirmed its deliciousness. So, with some money in our pockets, we decided to treat ourselves to a nice dinner. I had no idea that I was in for perhaps easily one of the top 15, potentially top 10, meals I have EVER had in my life. Everything on the menu looked so good that we couldn't decide on any one particular dish. So we agreed to split as many things as we thought we could eat (and yes, we did eat everything). Here is a brief picture documentary of our meal. 

*apologies for some of the dark photos. I didnt want to use my flash inside of the restaurant.

Classy entrance with nice outdoor patio seating.....

As you walk in you are greeted with literally a barrel of garlic cloves and some of the night's featured wine....

Very rustic, European middle-age/medieval inspired interior decor....

Obviously you can see they specialize in wine.....

So, of course we had to order a bottle (Vintage 2002 Casa Silva Merlot, Angostura, Chile)....

Here is Shane enjoying our selection.....

For our first course, we ordered steamed mussels in a garlic and red chile pepper sauce...

Here is the sauce, post-mussel consumption.....

Here are the huge chunks of fresh garlic and red chiles nestled on the bottom.....

We saved the sauce and used it as a dip for our "Garlic Snowing Pizza" which consisted of sweet garlic, shrimp and pineapple. Those big pepperoni looking objects are shaved garlic flakes that have been seasoned and then toasted. Underneath the mozzarella cheese is a sweet pineapple sauce and on top is fresh shaved parmesan. 

Our first entree was the mushroom risotto which had spinach, mushrooms, a roasted garlic puree sauce and topped with roasted chicken. 

Our other entree was a crab and lobster meat linguine in, of course, a garlic cream sauce topped with fresh rosemary. Arguably one of the best pastas I've ever had.

 

Here is the end result:

                                             

I am a little disappointed to find out, however, that Mad for Garlic (though not quite yet) is in the process of franchising itself internationally after it was recently purchased by Sun@Foods, which here in Korea owns the Tony Roma's franchises. I suppose it's nice that more people will be able to have this sort of dining experience, but it seemed a little more special thinking these restaurants were unique to Seoul. In the end though, I was basically blown away by both the atmosphere and food, and certainly plan on making Mad for Garlic my mainstay for special occasions.

(yikes, that last sentence sounds like a magazine review...). I wonder if MfG will give me a free meal if I send them a link to this post......