Del Monico

On the third floor of the Kebabistan building in Samsandong, a block away from McDonalds, Delmonico is a restaurant that I’ve noticed for a long time, but never bothered going in. What a shame. This restaurant, with excellent wine selection and home roasted coffee, is probably one of the best in Ulsan. Classy, and yet casual (sadly with purple pillows) Delmonico takes Italian food and does it right.

The bread (slightly sugared) comes with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, always a crowd pleaser. We ordered two pizzas and a risoto. The pizzas arrived in 10 minutes, even though the restaurant was crowded with couples on blind dates, and groups of women discussing blind dates. The pizza was incredible. I’ve been stumbing around Asia now for longer than is healthy, trying to find a decent Italian Pizza. Finally, I can go home! The sauce…oh, the sauce. The prices are comparable (for pizza) to any other dive in town, but this place does the pizza properly. Too many times have I paid 15 000 won for something that should be sold frozen in a convenience store,  but Del Monico does it right.

The rissoto was good, but not great and none of us ordered the pasta. At 15-20 000 won for a plate of noodles, I’d rank it on the expensive side of the Italian places in town. After the meal our coffee arrived. Usually, the ‘dessert’ coffee is either instant, or ancient. But here they acutally use siphon coffee, which is basically a grade nine science experiment. The coffee boils and gets siphoned through a big glass thingie into another glass thingie, then back into the first glass thingie. It was fun to watch, but to be fair, the coffee was weak.