Gomtang tteokguk is a hot rice-cake soup served with radish and cabbage kimchi, cucumber salad, and rice. Tteokguk is traditionally eaten on Lunar New Year, symbolizing purity, prosperity, and the passing of another year. The soup combines a rich, milky beef broth with chewy rice cakes, slices of beef, green onions, ribbons of egg yolk, and dried seaweed. Seoul Gomtang in the East Bay serves a popular $19.95 version and also offers spicy soups, rice dishes, cold noodles, and fried pancakes. Planned redevelopment proposing a five-story building with 110 apartments may displace the small blue eatery.
The gomtang tteokguk is bubbling furiously when the server places it in front of you. As much as you want to, you can't eat the scalding rice cake soup immediately, but you can pick at the radish and cabbage kimchi, cucumber salad, and bowl of rice that have been delivered alongside it as you wait. I'm far from an expert in Korean cuisine, but my understanding is that tteokguk is typically eaten on the Lunar New Year, symbolizing purity, prosperity, and the passing of another year.
Not that I've tried any of those things. The tteokguk ($19.95) has had a hold on me since the first time I tried it as a takeout order during the early COVID-19 days. I was immediately taken with the relatively simple soup, which contains slices of beef, green onions, and ribbons of egg yolk along with the rice cakes and seaweed. It tastes as good on a sick day as it does on New Year's Day.
The little blue eatery may not be there much longer, though. Developers plan to construct a five-story building with 110 apartments on the property. The whole intersection has changed tremendously recently, in ways both disappointing and positive. The 90-year-old Lucky Florist flower shop closed a few years ago. The two motels on the remaining corners have been converted into supportive housing for homeless residents through the state's Homekey program.
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