When Mihal Ashminov, Zelen’s co-owner and operator, suddenly found himself flush with cash after the unexpected sale of his last busniess, the idea to “open a Bulgarian restaurant,” he says, “just, you know, came from nowhere.” He goes on, happily retelling the story of Zelen’s spontaneous begining. “Really, we just had all of the money and we didn’t know what to do with it.”

Before he had time to realise that his would be, not only the first Bulgarian restaurant in Korea, but the first in all of Asia, he was handed two plane tickets and rushed off to Sofia. Without stopping even to visit with friends or family, in less than ten days he had bought all the dishes and decorations and found a chef crazy enough to accpet his offer. “Hey, you wanna come with me, some guy never saw before, and work in a restaurant in South Korea.”

Fast forward to a few months later. Amid the freny of the final days before they were set to open, Korean immigration had suddenly decided that his chef had to leave the country immediately or face arrest and deportation. Ashminov grudingly sent him back but was so commited to his vision that he kept paying his chef salary while he fought with immigration to get him back in the coutry.

This kind of dedication, the kind you need to not only break into the tiny niche market of foreign restaurants in Korea with a cusine half your custormers have never heard of, but to do it with integrity and passion, is the stuff great restaurants are made of.

Ashminov, slender and handsome with a coy smile, points from the balcony of his hillside dinning room to a motorbike parked in the alley. “You see that thing? Every morning I get at 5am and drive to Noryangjin market and get the fish, and another get the vegetables.  All of it I check by my hand.” He is suddenly interupeted by a racous cheer from the sports bar that has just opened less than ten meters from his balcony. He apologizes  for the noise, lamenting that patrons of his new neighbour’s have been known to cat call out the window to his female customers as they dined on the balcony. But he is unfazed by it all, happy to ignore the din of drunken chatter and move on to better things: ”The lamb,” he says, “has just come out of the oven.”

Looking over Zelen’s menu you’ll notice that he has not given into the temptation to cater to Korean palates or pander to cheese-and-bacon crowd. On a few days notice you can have rabbit, pheasant, a whole side of lamb for no less than six. The dill for the ”Tarator,” a cold yogurt soup, is grown on the roof and the yogurt made by hand. The rabbit, bought locally, takes so long he says ”because I take it and put it in a very big pot, I pour in like a whole bottle of white wine and I let it soak from one day. Then I cook it at a realy high heat for a few hours and then turn the over down and let it cook slowly, overnight.” Every thing unabashedly authentic, without compromising freshness. But that alone is not enough to set Zelen so far apart from its contemporaires. Havning eaten there no less than four times, I have not once heard the dreaded and all to common plea that “the lamb is not available.” One of the best results of all of Ashminov’s efforts is that he so rarley disappoints.

At my last meal in Zelen, the seafood salad arrived watery and desparatley underseasoned, a big fumble in an otherwise perfect meal. When I suggeted sending it back, my dinner mates were reluctant. “We dont want him to think we dont like the place.” Others wary of the Gordon Ramsey response people have come to expect in great reastaurants. I, on the other hand was opitimistic. I called our man over and gently suggested that there may have been a mistake. With out pause or question, our plate was wisked away and returned moments later, redressed and reseasoned with a truly genuine and reliveingly causual apology. “See,” I said, “he’s the kind of guy who doesn’t want his customers eating shitty food, he’s happy that we sent it back because now he knows we’re happy.” Perhaps I had been unduly prejuidiced by the unqctuois braised lamb, his modest winsome glow or the two bottles of perfectly paired Pinot, but I belive that you just can’t make a place like Zelen work in Korea, unless you have to have unwavering intergity and dedication, all of which Mihal Ashminov has in spades. If you don’t belive me just try his food.

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