Gov't sets standard menu names for Korean food

From: Yonhap News | Nov. 06, 2009

SEOUL, Nov. 5 (Yonhap) -- South Korea said Thursday it will seek to standardize the names of dishes at Korean restaurants domestically and around the world to help foreign diners know what they are ordering.

The new menu scheme will be first introduced at local restaurants frequented by foreign customers, Seoul's agriculture ministry said. Efforts will also be made to have the system adopted overseas.

The ministry has come up with recommended standard spellings and descriptions for 124 dishes, beverages and desserts in English, Japanese and Chinese. French and Spanish will be added to the list in the near future, it said.

"There has been a considerable need to establish a uniform list of names for traditional Korean dishes, as restaurants both in Korea and abroad have been using whatever names they saw appropriate," a ministry official said, "without following correct Romanization or phonetic conversion processes or trying to concisely explain the meaning."

For example, the ministry recommends that restaurant owners describe "gimbap" as "dried seaweed rolls."

Currently some eateries called the rolls "kim bap," or by longer names as "rice rolled up in dried seaweed," which the ministry says has caused confusion.

"Bibimbap" should be described as "rice mixed with vegetables and beef" and "samgyetang" as "ginseng chicken soup" under the new menu standards.

The ministry said that linguists, government officials and experts from the Korea National Tourism Organization took part in the establishment of the standard names.

It hopes that restaurants will begin to start changing their menus late this year, but there will be no penalty for restaurants that choose not to adopt the new system.

The names can be downloaded from a government Web site (www.foodinkorea.co.kr) and be printed for use. The site will also include basic recipes and pictures, the ministry said.