At the Old Village Korean Restaurant in Seattle, you might come across a strange, pancake-like dish with an assortment of seafood and green onions fried into the dough. This is our “seafood green onion pizza”, what Koreans would call a “hae-mool pa-jeon”.
This is a popular snack or appetizer throughout Korea, representing something that is both simple to make and savory to eat. The “jeon”-style pancake is commonly eaten during rainy days, or enjoyed as a part of a larger meal to sop up leftover sauces. Aside from the seafood variety, jeon pancakes have also been known to be cooked with a wide variety of ingredients, one of the most common versions being the “kimchi pa-jeon”.