I am now almost at the end of my restaurant reports from our sojourn in Seoul in the spring. Indeed, this is the last of my reports from (relatively) casual restaurants. All that remains after this is three reviews of meals at Michelin-starred restaurants. I hope to get started on those next week; here now is a look at our last meal out in Seoul before we left for Hokkaido. It was eaten at the Insadong branch of Crystal Jade, the Singapore-based chain that has outlets all over East Asia (I have previously reported on three meals that we ate at their Hong Kong locations, way back in 2016). Here’s how it went.

This was a meal more than two years in the making. We had walked past this location on a near-daily basis in the winter of 2024 and had kept putting off eating there for later, till finally there was no time left. This time we’d pledged not to make that mistake and had planned to eat there on a specific day in the penultimate week of our trip. Of course, when that day arrived we discovered that it was impossible to get in without a reservation. And wouldn’t you know it, they had no reservations available on our free days for the rest of our stay. Thankfully, the manager told us that we had a good chance of getting in on most weekdays if we showed up before they opened. And so we got down there at 11 am on the day before departure and joined a few others already in line. When they opened we all made it in.

This location is a Crystal Jade Palace, specifically. The group has various restaurant concepts and there are a bunch of them scattered around Seoul and Busan. I’m not sure what distinguishes them all from each other but I’m guessing the Crystal Jade Palaces are fancier than the others. At any rate, this one is pretty fancy. There is a fair bit of seating in the large indoor dining room and there are also some tables on their attractive covered patio. It being a nice morning, we opted for a table outside (not too long after we left it started raining) and perused the menu.

That menu is pretty large. So large that I’ve separated my usual menu pics into a separate gallery that I’ve placed down at the bottom of this post. The first gallery gives you a look at the restaurant and what we ate. If you want to see what else is on the menu, please scroll down. Okay, what did we eat? Though it’s a Singapore-based chain, Crystal Jade specializes in Chinese food. They have dishes from across China but, on the whole, the menu skews towards Shanghai and Hong Kong. That is to say they have a lot of dumplings (they’re particularly known for their xiao long bao) and other dim sum staples, as well as more elaborate fish and seafood dishes. This means you can have both reasonably-priced and highly-expensive meals at Crystal Jade. We were there for the dumpling/dim sum end of things and that is what we got.

The first dish to arrive was Pork Dumplings in Spicy Chilli Sauce. The dumplings were steamed, the sauce was basically chilli oil. A very good start. As we were devouring these the next few dishes arrived. These included Shanghai-Style Cold Eggplant Salad, two orders of their pork Xiao Long Bao (they come six to the order and we each wanted more than one), and Pork and Shrimp Shiumai. All of these were excellent but I’ll put in a special word for that eggplant salad which sees long batons of steamed eggplant dressed with chilli oil etc.. The boys likewise would tell you that these were among the best shiumai they’ve ever had (and they’re shiumai enthusiasts from way back). And, yes, the XLB are as advertised (Din Tai Fung in the US cannot compare). We’d barely made a dent in this lot before the next bunch of dishes began to arrive—thankfully, our table was spacious.

In the next wave were Scallion Oil Noodles, Egg White Fried Rice with Dried Scallop, Salt and Pepper Cuttlefish, Steamed Chive Dumplings, and Shanghai-Style Pan-Fried Dumplings. I’m sorry to be monotonous but these were excellent as well. The stars of this round were the outstanding fried rice and the cuttlefish, one demonstrating great subtlety and the other a perfect fry-job, with a light-crisp batter and cuttlefish not reduced to rubber inside. One order of dumplings would probably have been enough but I couldn’t choose between the two very different types if I was forced to. We were already pretty full at this point but there was not going to be any opportunity to come back on this trip. And so we got another order of shiumai for the boys and an order of the Pan-Fried Pork and Cabbage Bun for all of us. The latter come three to an order but they added a fourth on for us. As you might be able to tell from the picture, these are shengjianbao, and though I did not take a picture of the bottoms or the filling, you might also be able to tell that they were outstanding.

For a look at the restaurant and our meal, launch the slideshow below. Scroll down to see how much this cost and for a look at their menu (if you’re so interested).

Cost? With a couple of soft drinks added on, the total was 162,000 won. That’s $121. I am forced here to tell you that we paid $140 last year for dim sum at Jade Dynasty in Minneapolis that, leave alone the same zipcode, was not even in the same galaxy as this meal. And to be fair, very few places in the San Gabriel Valley would be in the conversation either (though they would not be as far off). The question for us after this meal was not if we would come back on our next trip (if it happens in 2028 as planned) but how many times. And also, if there’s any reason to go back to Tim Ho Wan next time. The missus and the older boy voted “no” on the latter question; the younger boy and I think we have to hit up Tim Ho Wan at least for those baked bbq pork buns. These are good dilemmas to have.

Alright, if interested in seeing what else is on their capacious menu, please launch the slideshow below. Or if you’re interested in knowing what’s next on the food front, here it is: this weekend I hope get out another report from Hokkaido as well as the review of dinner at Masque that I was originally supposed to post on Tuesday. Next week I’ll have another Delhi report, a Twin Cities report (we’re scheduled to eat at Diane’s Place tomorrow), and maybe the first of those three Michelin-starred Seoul meals. Let’s see how it goes.

Menu Pics