Horse meat at Mawon Jeju 마원

Day 1 of 4-day trip to Jeju

My first horse meat was an unusual but great experience. I’d only recently heard that horse meat was a thing in Korea and that Jeju was the place to go. The place was pretty special in itsself, set in an old, large wooden house in the countryside with a garden and views to Hallasan. It was a lovely evening too, but there were no tables available outside so we sat at a long table inside.

Mawon serves a tasting menu with the meat cooked in many familiar ways, just using horse meat at the main ingredient; we had soup like galbijjim, raw (carpaccio and Korean tartare), and grilled chunks, among other ways. It was all delicious, though the best for me was the plain grilled meat as this was where I could really get the flavour; very lean, quite tender and unique. We washed it down with a few bottles of Cheongha, a Korean drink much like sake.