229-231 High Holborn, London WC1 (020 7430 9006). Meal for two, including wine and service: £100
If the planet is about to be wiped out in a nuclear Armageddon caused by a soft-cheeked twentysomething with a lousy tailor, I refuse to go on an empty stomach. But just what to eat? How best to celebrate what is either, depending on your viewpoint, the impending failure of international diplomacy or the most gargantuan, delayed-adolescent hissy fit in history?
No contest: it has to be Korean. If Kim Jong-un is determined to press the button and take the rest of us with him, I want to go with the flavours of his food on my lips. Think of it as an act of defiance. Welcome, then, to a lovely table at the end of the world. Which happens to be in a basement space next to Holborn station. Look, I tried to get myself attached to an LSE student tour of North Korea, but it didn't happen. I know. As a journalist I've failed. Holborn will have to do.
As far as Britain is concerned, Korean food is the also-ran of Asian culinary traditions. We didn't colonise Korea (China, Malaysia, Singapore) or go there on our holidays (Thailand). The restaurants here arrived to serve an expat community clustered around New Malden in south London. There are a few more in the centre of the capital, of which Asadal is, apparently, regarded as one of the best. Online it gets lots of thumbs-up icons, smiley emoticons and stars from reviewers who may not all be from the restaurant itself.
Not unreasonably: an unpromising doorway leads down to a sultry space of downlighters, wood carvings behind glass and varnished-wood tables inlaid with gas-powered barbecues. On a rainy night when the airwaves are full of stirring patriotic songs out of Pyongyang, it's a pleasant place to be. If only eating there wasn't so knackering. Gosh but there's a lot of admin with Korean food. Everything has to be dredged or dipped and rolled and dipped again. Fiddle here. Turn there. Flip this. And if they think you're getting it wrong, a waiter will be at your side taking over, heaving with body language which says: "You have no idea!"
Which, I suppose, I don't. I have eaten Korean food before, most memorably in the last place in LA's Koreatown where the barbecue was over coals. But that was run by scary women who seemed furious to see you and weren't about to help. Here they are at least friendly.
We start with a kimchi set, which is only one dish of fermented, chilli-spiked cabbage, alongside another of chilli-drenched cucumber and one of a crunchy root vegetable I fail to identify. It's three takes on the same flavour. Kang poong gi is a deep-fried chicken dish drenched in a sweet chilli sauce which tastes like every cheap plate of Chinese American food I've ever eaten – that sugary infantile hit which helps grease you down the road to insulin dependency. Bin dae duk are small, dull, crisp-shelled pancakes that have the virtue of having taken a bath in the deep-fat fryer. So far this Korean food is the holy trinity of salt, fat and sugar.
The barbecue dishes – half-inch thin medallions of rib-eye the colour of a Tory grandee's trousers, some pearlescent butterflied king prawns – are much better. While they sear over the gas flame we are shown the rituals: pile into crisp lettuce leaf, add some shredded and sauce-smeared spring onions and a bit of spicy bean paste, roll up, then dredge through a couple more sauces. And if by that point your will to live hasn't entirely departed, finally you can eat. You try keeping the thread of a conversation going through all that.
A classic bibimbab – a rice dish with minced beef, vegetables and more chilli paste which cooks over a hot stone as it sits in front of you – was, amid all the edible bureaucracy, a moment's comfort food.
There is no dessert to speak of other than fresh fruit, and a wine list with some truly awful choices at inflated prices. It's probably best to order beer. In short, as a restaurant experience it was more interesting than satisfying. Not that I really mind. Hell, it's only dinner. It's not like it's the end of the world.
Choosing your words: the craft of good writing with Jay Rayner is 6.30pm-9.30pm, Tuesday 21 May 2013. See theguardian.com/masterclasses for more information
Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk. Follow Jay on Twitter @jayrayner1
