La Cocina 라 꼬시나

Wow. Just wow. So, my friend and I decided to lunch it at a newer restaurant here in Gangneung called La Cocina, which is a Spanish tapas restaurant. It's run by a Korean man called 이성용, who spent 6 months in Spain, training in Spanish cuisine. 

 The restaurant is located in Gangneung, 강릉시 난설헌로 228-13. 

The restaurant interior is nice too, cosy and a bit romantic. 

La Cocina has an extensive menu. Here is the menu, the prices are pretty decent for western food in Korea. They also have a nice drinks list which includes wine, sangria and soft drinks like Sanpellegrino. 

We went for the lunch sets as it was cheaper and we got to try a lot of the dishes on the menu. 

We ordered the US beef rib set and the paella gourmet set. 

To start, we were given jamon. Spanish cured ham. 

They had two huge legs of cured ham. It was exquisite. There were cuts from a white pig and black pig. In my opinion, the black pig was tastier but, both were absolutely fine! 

These looked amazing. I would totally bite into them if I owned it! 

Then, came the tomato and mozzarella salad.

This was so delicious, I wish I knew the name, but it's prawns in a really nice oily sauce. 

Two kinds of mushrooms, with bread. 

Chicken paella. 

Meat stuffed mushrooms.

Some kind of fried stick...it was so good!

Tomato spaghetti. 

US beef rib. 

The pictures really don't do this place justice.  The food was so authentic, it tasted so good! The only Koreanised thing were the pickles which came with the spaghetti. 

For the two of us, the total price came to 67,000 Won. 

US Beef Rib Set: 30,000

Paella Gourmet Set: 25,000

Sangria: 8,000

Sanpellegrino: 4,000

A nice touch to the atmosphere was the head chef speaking both Korean and English to his staff. There was a nice western feel to the restaurant. 

Overall scores:

Value: 5 Stars

Atmosphere: 5 Stars

Service: 5 Stars

Food: 5 Stars

Full Marks! 

I liked it so much, I'm going back for Valentines day!