9 Course TRADITIONAL Korean ROYAL Cuisine (What Korean Emperors Ate)

I love looking at the beautiful ancient architecture, I love seeing how daily life used to function, and I'm really curious

What did they eat back then? So today I'm gonna find out, but to do that

I think, I think I need to change into something more appropriate.

Here we go

How do I look?

Got a quite a few stairs, and as I walked into the restaurant...

I guess no one told them the emperor was showing up today. I'm at the Hanmiri restaurant here in Seoul.

I'm about to embark on a nine course imperial food adventure.

And, of course, the number nine is very significant because number nine in Chinese culture and in Korean Culture; it means longevity.

And if you're the emperor you want to be the emperor for as long as you can.

This is literally what the emperor of Korea would eat back in the day. And for my meal, I'm asking for a plain number B...

which includes: stewed beef ribs, king prawn, pan-fried beef, assortment of 9 korean wraps...

Korean royal fire pot, grilled tender loin and pine mushroom, special seasonal dish, marinated abalone, and grilled ginseng beef.

A meal fit for an emperor, literally! No, I don't know if the emperor actually wore this when he ate because, um...

It's beautiful, but it's very cumbersome.

I mean getting their sleeves on your food seemed really easy to do in this get-up.

Oh, and check this out guys. When the emperor, back in the day, wants to take some food photos for... I don't know, ImperialGram?

He has to get his phone out from his sleeves because this is this is where they keep stuff...

there's no other pockets, and then take his food photos.

And... upload!

All right! Let's, literally, roll up our sleeves and dig in.

First course: pumpkin porridge.

All the silverware here...

This is made out of brass and that's because there's a fear of...

poisoning for the emperor and the brass will change color when it comes in contact with poison.

So this is very traditional dishware.

It looks like has a little date floating on top

I guess this is how the emperor of Korea used to get a date.

Okay, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I don't think there's actually any rice in here. This is just all pureed pumpkin.

Oooh..!

That is really pumpkin-y... That tastes like Halloween--in a good way. Flavorful Halloween!

Sweet. Really, really creamy.

I'm supposed to eat a spoonful of the pumpkin porridge and then a spoonful of the water Kimchi.

Wow, it's very vinegary and peppery. And then another spoonful of this, so you just, like, go back and forth.

I don't know which one is chasing which

This is really good.

I forgot something. I just ate that pumpkin Congee*(porridge), and I wasn't paying attention to the spoon...

I don't know if it changed color or not!