Last night I learned the Korean word for a rotating machine because Jinhui and I had dinner at a conveyor belt sushi restaurant. A quick thing you should probably know about me: I didn’t eat fish until I was in college, and up until even more recently sushi was not something I would have ever elected to eat. I mean smoked salmon or eel was alright and there were always California rolls, but I wasn’t a big sushi guy. Perhaps it was the fact the I’ve recently read Sushi no Shoto, but I’ve changed.
That being said conveyor belt sushi is totally awesome! The price was decent, and for the same amount we would have paid to get two or three dishes at Bennigan’s or TGIF we were able to sample 10 or 11 different dishes. The best deal for me was some manner of lightly grilled tuna, like it was grilled on the outside but the center was still raw as raw could be. Anyhow, there was something almost video game-esque about a dining experience in which one has to grab their food before it goes past them.
This is the Chuseok Redux, you’re sitting in a jazz club wearing a beret. Oh wait, that’s the Slow Jam Redux…the Chuseok holiday wrap up looks more like this:
Wednesday, the day before Chuseok, was spent making songpyeon (송편). The early stages of songpyeon construction are a lot like the early stages of bread making, only like 100 times stickier. That dough has the consistance of gum, and I now understand why people from the times of yore used a big ass hammer to make this shit. Anyhow we made an assortment of songpyeon in both green and white. I was personally in charge of the chestnut filled ones. We made the green ones first, and man were mine ugly. They were huge, cancerous behemoth looking pieces of crap, but I leveled up quickly, and by the time we made the white ones, mine were indistinguishable from the ones the seasoned veterans were making.
Other junk that happened on Wednesday involved me riding a bike around my immediate area attempting to score some sort of paper that was needed for ancestral memorial rites to no avail. Also my wife (along with my sister-in-law, and mother-in-law) cooked a lot of other non-songpyeon type food stuffs.
The following morning at way too early o’clock, I was roused from my slumber to clean up the house, and set the table so that Chuseok could commence. With such things taken care of, it was time for Chuseok related festivities, which were pretty much the same as Lunar New Year related festivities, only instead of eating rice cake soup we ate taro soup. Guests came to our house, chowed down on some food and drank some brews, and then they headed back from wence they came.
After quickly cleaning up our homestead we headed out to Jinhui’s grandfather’s house (her mother’s father), where since she was technically no longer part of the clan didn’t have to do any work. Me, being a man, only had to drink soju and eat food, so I did that. We then went with a totally awesome posse that included three random kindergarten students, some old Korean mens, me and my in-laws, and one of Jinhui’s cousins who totally looked like he could kick some ass (the dude was huge…like Hulk Hogan sized arms and junk). There we offered dried fish and poured one out for our dead homies our deceased ancestors.
With that out of the way we headed home, where I promptly fell asleep. It was 5:00 in the evening. At 10:00 Jinhui (who apparently had fallen asleep in the living room), and I both woke up and for the next 4 hours watched a ton of really random junk on TV and ate some ice cream. All in all it was a decent day, but I’m glad for Jinhui’s sake that this was probably her last Chuseok. I really feel bad for women on these holidays. All day long they cook and clean, with few chances to rest. Quelle domage! Anyhow that’s pretty much the end of my poorly written Chuseok related rant. There’s not really much else to say. Oh, I wore a hanbok (한복) because I own one and figured Chuseok would be a good excuse to take it out of the closet. Really now, this is the end. There is nothing else for me to say that I can think of at this time. But probably if someone leaves a comment I will remember more anecdotes of the events of the day. So…I’m finished now.
On Sunday morning, the family and I piled into my father-in-law’s automobile and we drove off to family obligation part 2 (part 1 being Saturday’s trip to Daejeon). The second part of this past weekend’s family obligations was some sort of meet and greet luncheon in which my clan offically met my sister-in-law’s fiance’s clan (Cripes that was a mouthful…or since I am typing, a fistful).
Anywho, we were at a restaurant in Jamshil known as 龍水山 (용수산) when we met the fiance’s family. Now, I have no real problem with her fiance. I mean he’s a nice enough guy. Hell he gave be a case of Heineken for my birthday! But, if I were a woman, and not married, but still retained all my personality traits, I wouldn’t want to date / marry the dude. He’s a little boring. Having a conversation with him is kind of like pulling teeth.
And now I know why. The meeting took about three hours, and in that time I don’t think his father said a single word. His brother didn’t either. His sister talked a little bit, but it was usually under her breath, and kind of creepy…like a witch or that chick in The Exorcist. She scared me. His mom was alright; probably the most outgoing, but still on the quite side.
Prior to leaving that morning, I had recieved my marching orders like everyone else in our platoon, but I had a special top secret mission, and that was: “Don’t make an ass of yourself.” Sitting there in the opening hours minutes, was pure torture. I wanted to jump up on the table and do the Charleston, or attempt to get the entire restaurant to join me in a musical number (hey it happens in musicals all the time), anything to destroy that dreadfully awkward silence.
You know that kind of silence that is unsettling? Yeah, we had that going on. Luckily my father-in-law has the gift of gab. He’ll talk up anyone about anything at anytime. Unfortunately there were a lot of one word responses, and even the most talkative person can’t do much with that…so he started talking to me. I shot my wife a look, “Is this okay? Can I respond to him?” I didn’t wait for her to wave me on to third. I saw an end to the dreadful silence and went for it.
Luckily at this point food arrived. And man did it arrive! I’ve lived in this country more than 3 years now, and at this particular restaurant I had eaten roughly 3 out of the countless plates of food we were served. For you see, this restaurant served us traditional palace cuisine. Hell yeah dudes, I ate like a king, and oh was it good! I’m not a real artsy guy, especially when it comes to food, so long as it tastes good, but this food not only tasted awesome, it looked fantastic as well.
I can’t really remember every single dish that was served and due to the nature of the event I didn’t really think it was appropriate to whip out a camera and be all like, “Dudes hold on a second! I wanna take a picture of this lotus flower wrapped sushi!” So I’m going to attempt to recall exactly what it was that I ate, from my memory alone…and my mind is not exactly like a steel trap.
I know there was 죽, and the aforementioned sushi that made use of lotus flowers. For me though, the standout dish was 신선로 (shinseolo) primarily due to the awesomeness of the dish in which it was served. Other foodstuffs served that day included rice with 팥 (sweet red beans) cooked in a lotus leaf, 구절판 (gujeolpan), 불고기 (bulgogi), and 잡채 (japchae). For dessert, we were served some 떡 (ddeok) as well as some 약과 (yakgwa) and a cup of 복분자차 (bokbunjacha / raspberry tea).
After the meal was completed, there was some more awkward silence and a period in which people attempted to set a wedding date, and from there we said our goodbyes. The fiance’s family departed first along with my sister-in-law. Then the rest of us got back in my father-in-law’s automobile and headed back whence we came.
I once heard that an army travels on its stomach. This apparently holds true for me as well. As yesterday Jinhui and I traveled to Jeonju for the sole purpose of eating Jeonju bibimbab (전주비빔밥). “Wyatt, can’t you get bibimbab anywhere?” Think of it like this, can you get Korean food in New York? Yes. On the average is it going to be as good as the Korean food you can get in Korea? Probably not. It’s the same theory at work here. Jeonju invented bibimbab, and therefore in theory can do it better than anyone else in the game. So anyhow we went to Jeonju because we were hungry.
Like most of our trips it began on bus. This time instead of heading to the airport, the bus headed south quite uneventfully and roughly two and a half hours later we were in Jeonju. Jeonju actually reminded me a lot of Albany, NY (from which I hail). There weren’t a lot of extremely tall building, limited public transportation, and it was possible for one to get most places on foot, but Jeonju had a lot of stuff that does not exist in Albany…namely bibimbab.
From the bus terminal we headed downtown (or possibly uptown I’m not really sure) in order to get our eat on. We ended up doing lunch at a restaurant named 가족회관 (and as a quick aside there are a lot more restaurants in Jeonju that use the word 회관 than exist in Seoul). Lunch was amazing! For starters while most restaurants in Seoul will hook you up with a side dish or three, the restaurant we chowed down in nearly broke the table they placed so much food on it. And then there was the main course. I have probably consumed over a hundred bowls of bibimbab during my stay in Korea, and this was hands down the best bowl of bibimbab I’ve ever had. The gochujang tasted a little different than the standard issue gochujang one might pick up in the supermarket, and that made a lot of difference. Guts full, we decided instead of simply heading back to Seoul…or Gyeonggido more exactly, we would make the most of our time in Jeonju and act like tourists.
So we decided to head to the 한옥마을 (Hanok Village). This place is a village of approximately 700 houses built in the traditional Korean style. Sounded like a decent place to visit, but the road to the Hanok village was paved with outstanding historical monuments and tourist photo opportunities. For starters we had 전동교회 (Jeondong Church), a Catholic church built on the grounds of some martyr inducing executions.
Following or inspection of the grounds, we went across the street and checked out Gyeonggijeon Shrine. This shrine contains pictures of various Chosun kings, and holds a special place for King Taejo, the founder of the Chosun dynasty. Taejo, wasn’t always called Taejo and he wasn’t always the king. There was a time period when he was known as Lee Song-gye. Now as you may or may not know, there are countless Lees, Yis, Rhees, Ris, 이s, and 李s in Korea. They do not all share a common ancestry however, and people trace their families to different clans.
My wife is a member of the Jeonju Lee clan…which happens to be the same one that begot Taejo. So there you go, my wife is related to the kings of the Chosun period. I know in reality she is probably about as related to them as John Goodman was to the King of England in the movie King Ralph, but it was still kind of odd. In addition to checking out Gyeonggijeon, we visited the adjacent grounds (the name of which escapes me at the moment). This area had a lot of buildings there were apparently used to house visiting dignitaries and supplies for various rituals.
After paying our respects to our ancestors we headed out towards the Hanok Village, but we were briefly waylaid by the fact that there was some sort of festival going on. So we checked out some performances, watched some kids ride a cow, and saw a photo exposition about life in North Korea…you know all the normal festival stuff.
Finally we made it to the Hanok Village. The Hanok Village as I mentioned before contained 700 houses all in the traditional style. The area itself was kind of odd, since some of the houses were actual homes, and others were clearly for tourists. So I felt a little weird when we would walk into random yards. “This one’s for tourists right?” “Yeah.” “Alright, just checking.”
Among the sites we visited were place were paper was made (Jeonju has a long history of paper making…a fact I learned at a paper museum) and an alcohol museum…that gave out free alcohol. HELL YEAH! That’s my kind of museum. Seriously the museum was awesome. It was not too big: just a couple rooms with alcohol related historical artifacts, and then out in the yard a couple ladies with free alcohol. The brews I sampled were as follows: 모주 (some regional brew I’d never had before that tasted like cinnamon), 국화주 ([菊花 not 國花] a brew made from flowers…this brew I had consumed once before and it tastes like 백세주 a little bit), and 송화주 (another flower based alcohol that had a really hot aftertaste). The brews were decent…made all the more awesome due to the fact that they were free.
We also visited a house that depicted life in traditional house during the Chosun period. Apparently I was supposed to be allowed to play traditional percussion instruments there, but no one was about to instruct us. There were goats though. Oh I’m sorry, they weren’t goats, they were 산양 (mountain sheep), but they looked just like goats to me.
After our time in the Hanok Village, we headed up a hill to an area named 오목교, which as far as I could tell was a place were a historical figure once hung out so the powers that be decided it was important. Anyhow from there we were able to take decent pictures of the village below. And then we went to 풍남문, which was the only surviving gate from original city walls. With that stuff all check off our touristy stuff to do check list we decided to grab some dinner.
Dinner was 돌솥밥. The food wasn’t that bad, but the service was pretty lousy, and you know how that can taint one’s dining experience. The only other thing worth mentioning about dinner was the fact that I purchased a 청국장 ice cream sandwich there. For those of you that don’t know what 청국장 is, it’s a kind of fermented bean paste that stinks to high hell. A lot of Koreans even think it’s too gross to consume. I enjoy it myself, but the stuff does stink, and it’s one of those things that doesn’t really lend itself to ice cream. It’s like pizza and ice cream. I like both of those items as well, but I don’t want to eat them together. The ice cream didn’t really smell or taste anything like 청국장, but it didn’t really taste good either.
Our time was running out (we had 9:00 bus tickets), so we decided to check out 객사 and then head back to the bus terminal. At 객사 we caught the tail end of some women’s rights group having a demonstration to put an end to prostitution, and from there it was back to the bus station. Some two and a half hours later we were back in Gyeonggido and our adventures in Jeonju were over.
Additional photos can be seen here if you’re into pictures of food and junk like that.
Yesterday was Saturday and like all good Korean residents I kicked off the day by working. After a brief period of educating people, I met up with my wife and we headed to 신촌 to grab some lunch. Sometime during the summer we saw a restaurant that offered 냉까스 (cold donkatsu) on one of those cooking shows on television…only they never explicitly told which restaurant it was. After much internet searching we discovered that it was a restaurant known as 家門의 우동 in 신촌. So yesterday we headed out there to check it out.
The food was decent. The 냉까스 in particular was really refreshing. The prices weren’t that bad either, though the portions were a little small. If you’re a big eater, you probably wouldn’t be satified ordering just one dish. Since it was lunch time, and neither of us are people who could pound a Hungry Man dinner and still want more, we were good to go.
After lunch we decided to go check out the sex museum in 신촌, but it either closed, moved, or we had horrible sense of direction and could not locate it. We did locate the Ralph Lauren tour bus where some girl with way too much eye makeup took our photo in exchange for my wife trying on some sort of Ralph Lauren perfume (see the picture to the right). With the sex museum a bust we decided to go ride in a plastic duck on the Han River.
The Han River was nice, but not nearly as action packed as the Han River depicted in the film 괴물. Anyhow Jinhui and I forked over 10,000 won and jumped into a boat shaped like a duck and paddled around in the Han River. The duck boat was actually really fun. There was a cool breeze and the river didn’t stink too badly so it was kind of awesome. Though it would have been more awesome if we could have traveled outside of the little fenced off duck boat area. Anyway we took some pictures, so if you want to see some pictures of me inside a plastic duck riding down a river, check this link.
Following the insanity that was riding around in a boat shaped like a duck we met Jinhui’s friend in 강남 and had some dinner and then some brews. The dinner was standard issue (삼겹살), but the brews were awesome. Since I never really hung out at all in 강남, I am probably like the last person in Korea to know about this place, but the venue known as The Beer Factory is awesome! They have all manner of microbrewed beers. I partook in a brew known as Morphine 8.4, which boasted 8.4% alcohol content. This was slightly less impressive than it sounds because it was served in a cup about half the size of the normal 4 point something brews. Anyhow brews were consumed and it was awesome.
That’s all I’ve got to say. Please go about your business.
Ah ramen (or as it is known in Korean, 라면)! The food of the college gods. Well, in Korea (as well as other Asian nations), ramen is a perfectly acceptable food item that has no stigma of total poverty attached to it…instead it carries with it the stigma of a lack of time or a lack of cooking skill. Today for your pleasure, and no other reason, I give you this 1960s ad for ramen.
This past Friday (May 5th, 2006), in South Korea, there were not one, but two national holidays: Children’s Day (어린이날) and Buddha’s Birthday (부처님 오신날). Due to these holidays, neither 진희 nor I had any work to do. Therefore, we reserved some bus tickets to the southern reaches of the Korean Peninsula.
The day started for us at the crack of dawn. The bus we were taking to Busan left the bus terminal at 6:30 in the morning, so we were up at 5:00. Showers were taken, final packing was done, and then we were on our way to Busan. We walked to a bus stop. We took a bus from the stop to the subway station. We took the subway to the express bus terminal, and from the terminal we were off to Busan. The trip from Bundang to Busan was completely uneventful. The wife and I slept most of the way there, save for the short period during which the bus pulled into a rest area for a quick potty / eat stuff on a stick break.
Approximately five hours later we were at the bus terminal in Busan. It wasn’t long before my ears were assaulted with the local regional dialect. I am still amazed that a country as geographically small as Korea can have such diverse and different dialects from region to region. I suppose that the different regional dialects can be attributed to the mountainous geography of the country. Anyhow back to Busan’s dialect…I personally found it extremely difficult to understand and had to really focus to understand what people were saying. It’s really difficult to explain it, so I’ll turn your attention to this here website explaining the dialect of the area.
From the terminal we got on a subway train and headed towards Haeundae (해운대), a beach area. The subway system in Seoul is much easier to use than its counterpart in Busan. The Busan system seemed to have only three different lines, with very few stations at which one could transfer. Additionally the subway trains seemed to be much more narrow and definately shorter than those in Seoul. None of this was really a problem, since we got from point A to point B (b is for beach) with no problems what-so-ever.
Haeundae was simply amazing. The entire area had a very laid back and relaxing vibe (good God I sound like such a hippie). Due to the fact that the beach area was surrounded by large buildings and such, Haeundae and the surrounding area kind of reminded me of Repulse Bay in Hong Kong. 진희 said she was reminded of San Fransisco for the same reason.
After a walk on the beach and a quick snack of the regional delicacy, 어묵 / 오뎅(ohmook / odeng) we decided to head to the nearby area known as 달맞이길 (Moon Viewing Road).
Inspite of the fact that we visited the Moon Viewing Road in the middle of the afternoon, the place was still quite nice. Basically it was a walkway up a hill, and at the top of the hill there was a pavilion overlooking the ocean. All in all it was really quite pretty. After seeing the lack of a moon at the summit of the Moon Viewing Road, we decided to head back into the city proper and then onward to an island in the south where there were ferry rides. So we jumped on a bus and took off for further adventure.
BUSAN FUN FACT: Just as there is a brand of milk known as Seoul Milk which can be purchased in Seoul, Busan has a similarly named milk. Dubbed Busan Milk (or 부산우유 in Korean) it is virtually identical to all other milk. As a quick aside, Seoul Milk is also sold in Busan.
After a quick bus ride we disembarked near Busan station and began making our way towards Taejongdae (태종대), the afore mentioned island with ferry rides. As we walked we asked various citizens of Busan for directions, all of them responding with vague, “It’s that way. No, it’s not too far,” type directions. So we walked and walked. We went past the area dubbed 상해문 (上海門 / Shanghai Gate), which inspite having a Chinese theme going on with the street lights was extremely Russian (all manner of Cyrillic signs were there). We walked past the dry fish market with a sign with a giant cartoon character squid statue attached to it. Oh what smells rose from that area! We crossed a bridge. On and on we walked. “That way! Not more than 10 minutes!”
Apparently Busan residents have some sort of The Flash-esque speed going on since after walking a good five kilometers or so, we gave up and got on a bus. The bus to the island took approximately 15 minutes. Anyhow we unfortunately arrived a little to late to ride the ferry since the stop running at 6:00 in the evening. Therefore instead of riding on a ship, we sat on a dock and took some more photos. After a short period of looking at waves, we decided to head back towards the city and stop in and have dinner at a fish market.
Vegetarians, animal rights activists, and those of you that can not stand the thought of consuming sea creatures, please skip this next Busan Fun Fact.
BUSAN FUN FACT: In Busan (and perhaps other coastal areas in Korea) it is possible, and fully legal to eat whale meat (which is exactly what the picture to the right is a picture of). That’s right, while in Busan I chowed down upon Shamu. So how does whale taste? Great! It doesn’t have a real fishy taste to it, and it’s not quite a meat taste. It’s kind of hard to explain. The blubber is kind of buttery tasting, and the skin is really chewy. The only draw back to whale meat is the cost. The small plate shown in the picture cost 20,000 won (roughly $20US).
Ok…it’s safe to come back now! In addition to the above, we also had some extremely fresh 회 (raw fish). Submitted for your approval is the following video of our dinner plate.
That pink, moving stuff on the plate is 해삼 (海蔘 / haesam) also known as a sea cucumber.
With dinner out of the way we decided to check out the area known as 용두산공원 (龍頭山公園 / Dragon Head Mountain Park). This park is the home of the Busan Tower and is very similar to 남산 (南山 / South Mountain) in Seoul…only there were palm trees, a statue of 이순신, and a statue of a dragon with a light in its mouth. On the mountain, 진희 and I had a soft drink and looked out over the night skyline of Busan. When we decided that we had had enough, we got on a subway train and headed back towards the bus terminal to get a room for the night. Since we had to be on a bus out of the city early the next morning, we thought it would be best to stay near the bus terminal.
We ended up staying in a fairly sleazy place. It was the kind of hotel where the only things on the television were Japanese porno films (and to the person that left a comment about 현영 voice, I know now what you were talking about when you brought up porn from the land of the rising sun). Anyhow we drank some brews and then headed off to sleep. Thus concludes day one of our southern pilgrimage.
The complete photo set can be located here, in the event that you wish to examine other photographs of my wife and I in the city of 부산.
Sometime last week 진희 and I acquired, through fairly dubious means, tortillas and assorted other materials required to play the eat tacos home edition. Sunday being the first day in a long time that I’ve had any time, tacos were totally prepared and junk by yours truly.
Since beef is like gold here, or perhaps gold is cheaper…I’ll have to check with my sister-in-law, we opted for chicken tacos. So this morning we had a quick trip to Carrefore to pick up chicken and assorted vegetables that we were lacking. Of course a shopping list that included four items ended up being about 10 items, but it’s all good.
Back at the homestead I hit the kitchen like I was Jamie Oliver…or at least a fry cook at Burger King. I got to work chopping up some meat and then got my pan fry going on. 진희 was assigned the tasks of chopping a tomato, chopping a cucumber, and washing some lettuce. Things were going extremely well, until I realized we had nothing remotely close to taco cheese. Playing the part of taco cheese were three ripped up slices of processed American cheese, and honestly it didn’t fair too poorly.
So we served up my taco creations to her parents. Neither of them had ever encountered a taco before, but went to town on them. It was kind of funny to watch their reactions to a kind of food I have consumed countless times, and I’m sure it is how various people here feel when subjecting me to various food items. Food items that are common and throughly unremarkable to them seems unique and exotic to me. This time I got to be on the other end of the table.
Anyhow the tacos turned out fairly well…except for the fact that taco type cheeses do not exist here in Korea and we had to substitute ripped up pieces of processed cheese slices for more appropriate cheeses. Anyhow it turned out well, and everyone was please. The end.
This commercial is utterly sureal. Bizarre shark puppet attacks kids and moms partying on a raft at the beach which prompts the kids to chow down on shark shaped frozen treats. This commercial from the 1980s is for the 죠스바 brand popsicle, which is still avalible in the mean streets of Korea (though at a price slightly higher than the ￦100 that is shown on the bar in the commercial). Like every vintage commercial I’ve come across this ad features the He-man yelling, “I HAVE THE POWER”-esque reverb on all vocals.
I remember reading somewhere (most likely an ESL textbook that I was teaching from) about the how pizza differs from country to country, and how each country puts their own unique spin on pizza toppings. So I decided that I would do some sort of investigative reporting expose on some of the more unusual (from an America perspective) pizza toppings that I have seen here in Korea.
We kick things off with this advertisement I found taped to my door many moons ago. The pizza on top is not really that special…your standard issue, cheese crust heart attack pan pizza. I wish to bring the lower pizza to your attention. That’s right, “Chili Dog” pizza. And here I was thinking that America had the most heart attack inducing pizza toppings in the world. Hot dogs and hot chili sauce on a pizza. Where do I sign up?
Next up we have cute as hell 문근영 (Moon Geun-Young) in a television for Mister Pizza. This particular ad features Miss Moon playing the role of a reporter discussing Mister Pizza’s latest offering Shrimp Nude Pizza. The commercial itself shows that someone in the company (or at least the ad company that created the ad) realized the name of this pizza is slightly rediculous. The pizza itself is also fairly rediculous as it features cream cheese and shrimp as toppings.
Here we have a pizza menu (again taped to my door many moons ago) showing some of the more popular pizza toppings here in South Korea. In addition to things such as cheese and pepperoni there are offerings such as 마요감자 (mayo and potato), 가지 (eggplant), 콘 (corn), 포테이토 (”potato” actual steak fries), and 고구마 (sweet potato).
And last but certainly not least there was this advertisement (again taken off my front door long ago in a galaxy far, far away). While this ad does not offer up any other unusually pizza toppings, it does confirm that both potato and sweet potato are a common enough topping to be offered by several different delivery services. In addition, I personally like this menu due to the fact they each pizza was given it’s own cute mascot. Oh they are so cute!
I was unaware of the fact that Chow Yun-Fat (周潤發 / 주윤발) could speak Korean. You were too? Well he can, and he does, here in this 1989 commercial for that most insane of all junk food, Milkis. For those not in the know, Milkis is a carbonated milk beverage, that tastes surprisingly good. Anyhow if you like Hong Kong action stars, the 1980s, helicopters, the Korean language, and carbonated milk beverages, definately check this commercial out.
Today’s nostalgia from a country I only recently started living in, and a time that I never lived through ever, is this 1970s commercial for 오뚜기 brand curry. I particularly enjoy this commercial due to the fact that for a good 2 years or so I lived on this stuff, since it’s incredibly easy to prepare (as is clearly evident in the commercial). Only since my marriage has 오뚜기 curry gone from being a staple food to that special treat. “Tonight’s curry night?! Awesome!” Also it’s nice to know that 漢字 were still widely enough in use as to appear in a commercial geared towards housewives circa 1975.
I am offically a geek. Instead of speading a perfectly decent Friday night getting trashed on the stuff, I spent it seeking out this 1959 (or possibly 1960 since netizens did not seem to be in agreement) animated spot for 眞露소주 (Jinro Soju). Perhaps I’m not a geek and I’m just someone that doesn’t feel like turning into some sort of Bluto / Brutus rip-off. Anyhow, enjoy.
I enjoy Korean food, and eating here is great, but I had one big gripe when it came to eating out in Korea. That complaint was the lack of variety especially in regards to foreign food. I mean things like Chinese food, sushi, Thai and Vietnamese food is fairly easy to come by in Seoul, but when it comes to regions outside of Asia (or lousy American chain restaurants) the foreign cuisine choices can be found to be lacking. The thing I missed the most was the lowly taco and his companions: refried beans, the burrito, and the nacho. Fearing that I would not be able to consume such foodstuffs again (until my next trip home), this past summer I gourged myself on all manner of Tex-Mex cooking. Apparently it was not needed, since Seoul does have a Mexican restaurant, and it’s not half bad. And since I feel a sense of duty to you people I’ll let you know where it is and junk.
Getting There: In Seoul, take line number 6 (the tan line) to녹사평 (綠沙坪 / Noksapyeong) and go out exit number 1. From here, cross the street using the overpass. On the otherside go down the hill. You’ll pass a Lexus dealer, a used foreign bookstore (which in and of itself is worth the trip to Noksapyeong), a hamburger place called ThunderBuger, and a couple real estate agents (부동산). The restaurant has a yellow sign which simply proclaims “TACO” on it (I believe in red letters, but I could be mistaken).
The Food: The menu has nearly everything you’d expect to find at a Mexican restaurant: tacos, burritos, nachos, and so on, but lacks the deep fried offerings (no chimchangas) and no enchiladas). Prices are fairly reasonable: ￦3,500 for a standard taco, ￦6,000 for Nacho Sumpreme, and the taste is spot on. Second hand information informs me that the owner spent an extended period of time in Tex-Mexico and during that time there learned the secrets of the taco.
The Atmosphere: The restaurant has a vibe very similar to any in and out restaurant located near a college campus in the United States (or at least any college campus in New England or New York). It’s a small place with a couple tables, and a counter. Additional seating can be found on a second floor, which is completely invisible from the outside of the building.
Additionally the staff all speak English, and the menus are in English as well so langauge should not be a problem, making ordering a snap. Food can be eaten at the restaurant of order to go (”take away” for the British people that happen to be reading this).
So if you have a hankering for some tacos head over to “TACO” in Noksapyeong.
Everyday at approximately 12:00 in the afternoon I do something that those of you living outside of Asia might find strange and amazing: I eat lunch. Incredibly I know, but it’s true. Sometimes I will eat lunch at my house, and sometimes (this is where it might get unbelievable, but I am not lying to you people) I eat lunch elsewhere. Today was one such day. On this particularly day I headed to a Lotteria.
What is Lotteria you ask. Well my friends and loyal readers, Lotteria is a fast food restaurant owned by the good people at the Lotte Corporation. For reasons beyond my control, in the nearly three years of living in Korea, I had never set foot inside a Lotteria, so to say I was excited about the cullinary delights I would soon be ingesting would be an understatement. I mean just look at these menu choices!
I decided that I would go for the most Korean thing on the menu and with the absence of the legendary “Rice Burgers” (apparently they were a special limited time menu item that I missed the boat on). It came down to a battle between the Kimchi Burger (from here on in known as 김치버거) and the 새우버거 (shrimp burger). The 김치버거 easily took the 새우버거 down, so I ordered and prepared for the cullinary adventure I was about to embark upon.
The wrapper looks fairly innocent. If you can’t read Korean there is nothing here that would lead you to suspect this was anything other than your typical disgustingly greasy fast food hamburger. The Korean on the label proclaims that this is in fact 우리김치버거 (Our Kimchi Burger), but I have to disagree, since I paid for it, it’s my kimchi burger (please note I understand the Korean usage of the word 우리 and am just being sarcastic).
Opening up the wrapper it still looks fairly normal. Compared to the behemoth burgers other fast food chains offer up it looks a little small, but aside from that there is nothing here that screams “this hamburger has spicy fermented cabbage on it!” Some kind of breaded patty is slightly visable, but there is no kimchi to be seen. Perhaps someone in the back made a mistake?
Nope! There’s the kimchi (or at least one piece of kimchi), as well as the lettuce, the pickle, and the mayonaise. The patty looked sort of like those breaded chicken patties that were a staple of lunch in America elementary schools (or at least my elementary school) in the 1980s, it tasted sort of like something that came from the sea, yet the poster proclaimed it was 쇠고기 (beef). So I don’t really know what to think of it. This burger is truly a test of one’s intestinal fortitude!
So over all what’s my take on the Lotteria Kimchi Burger? Well it’s kind of small, so shortly after eating it I was hungry again. I had no idea what the meat was supposed to be. The kimchi that was there was so smothered in mayonaise that you could hardly taste it. The bun was better than those used at McDonald’s, but that’s about it. Unless you, like me, need to experience these kind of “only in Korea” dishes first hand, I’d say skip the 김치버거, and if you have a hankerin’ (I don’t think one is legally allowed to write the word “hankering” it must be “hankerin’”) head to McDonald’s and get their 불고기버거 (Bulgogi Burger) instead.
On a particular day in October of 2005, I went out with 진희. She asked me if I enjoyed 짐치찌개 (kimchi jjigae), which is a stew made of kimchi and other ingredients (meat, vegetables, and tofu are common) for those of you not in the know. I told her I did, so she suggests we travel to 잠실 to a restaurant (오모리찌개 전문점 if anyone in Korea cares) famous for their kimchi jjigae…made with 3 year old kimchi.
That’s right kids I dined upon 3년 숙성되 김치찌개 (Samnyeon Sukseongdwin Kimchi-jjigae). Inspite of my initial misgivings (”Food that’s three years old and isn’t alcohol? That’s insane!”) the 찌개 was some of the most delicious I’ve consumed, and I throughly recomend it to everyone.
I am seriously convinced that there was no such thing as pizza prior to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles hitting the airwaves in Korea. As anyone that has seen an episode…hell 10 seconds of an episode of TMNT could tell you that the Turtles enjoyed pizza. Only (in the cartoon) they enjoyed some rather bizarre toppings: jelly beans, ice cream, peanut butter, cherries and almonds, corn, French fries, all found their way onto pizzas consumed by heroes on the half shell, and in turn influenced the pizza of South Korea.
Today’s menu: 불고기 피자 (Bulgogi Pizza).
This particular dish is not that bizzarre. For those of you with limited knowledge of Korean cuisine, bulgogi is a Korean dish consisting of marinated meat. It’s the kind of dish that anyone (aside from vegetarians), even those with unadventurous palettes, seem to enjoy. So this pizza, in addition to traditionally pizza toppings (mushrooms, green peppers, corn), includes large brown strips of some kind of meat that is allegedly supposed to be 불고기. Real 불고기 is made up of thinly sliced meat (either beef or pork) and is fairly juicy. The meat found here was more like beef jerky. It was hard and dry and had to be ripped apart with ones teeth.
That is not to say that all 불고기 pizza is poorly executed. I have had some 불고기 pizza that comes much closer to replicating the deliciousness that is 불고기 in a pizza form…Rodchester Pizza, I’m afraid can’t do it though.
Sometime back in my high school days there was a cooking show entitled “How To Boil Water.” This show featured some guy learning how to cook extremely simple dishes. I would occassionally watch this program, but now that I’m living in Korea, I wish I had paid closer attention. Mainly because most of the foodstuffs they showed oh that show were cooked in a microwave or in a pan, which aside from my rice cooker and a two burner gas range, are the only cooking supplies I have.
Anyhow one cold winter Sunday, instead of traveling to 오리, to meet U-rim, I was told to stay home (”It’s damn cold my honey, I will come here.”) So I did just that. I stayed home, and cooked a dinner. U-rim with quite pleased with the outcome. Since that day she has told me to stay home and cook. Therefore, I have recently been cooking a lot more. Since starting, I have been longing for the days when I had an oven. The average household in Korea does not have an oven, which really limits the kinds of food one can prepare.
I can’t make bread. I can’t do roasts. I can’t bake. In addition, since I live in a major metropolis I can’t barbeque. This leaves me, boiling, steaming, pan and deep frying as a means for preparing food.
Well, it’s getting close to dinner time, so I should go wash my frying pan…again.
Today I was deleting a lot of old emails in my various e-mail accounts when I came across this awesome link my friend had sent me. It had been something I had seen when I was still living in America, and probably is a more accurate answer in regards to what I’m doing in this country. Sure I did want to experience living in another country/culture, and I do want to learn the Korean language, but let’s face facts, things like this are the real reasons why I live in Korea.
That’s right! I wanted some delicious instant noodles….jeez what were you thinking, perverts.
I believe it was either Newton or Einstien who said, “The day you forget your camera will be the day when the most photo opertunities present themselves.” Well that’s exactly what happened today. Today after work, U-rim and I went out to do some Christmas shopping (I’m not at liberty to say what we purchased since that would ruin the surprise) at one of the larger shopping areas here in Seoul, and wouldn’t you know, but there was a break dancing contest going on in that area. So I saw people poppin’ and lockin’ and doing the robot and head spins and every other break dancing move avalible.
In addition anytime shopping occurs, poor English is abudant. Some examples, some dude was wearing a satin bowling style jacket (gold colored of course) with a trout on the back and the phrase “I’d Rather Eat Meat!” The other thing I learned today that the big trend for winter fashion in Seoul is the word “Fuck.” I saw countless shirts, hats, pins, and probably pants that used the word fuck as a noun, verb, and adjective. Like the break dancing contest, these sketchy clothing items went unphotographed.
Finally on the way home U-rim decided she wanted pizza, so we went to Pizza Hut and ordered some rediculous Korean style pizza, again no photo. I did recieve some kind of calendar from Pizza Hut which has pictures of all the best random Korean pizzas, so if I ever get a scanner, you people will be in for a treat…or a shock depending on what you think is an appropriate pizza topping.
Anyhow U-rim is wearing a black tanktop and black tights and doing interpretive dancing, so I think that’s my cue to exit stage left. Peace out dudes!
Koreans put a lot of sketchy stuff on pizza, and up until now I have not documented any of it (probably because I don’t eat pizza that often). Anyhow, this was tonight’s dinner, 고구마 pizza. What’s 고구마 you ask. Well loyal reader, 고구마 is the Korean word for a sweet potato. You see those cheese stick looking things on the pizza? That’s mashed sweet potato which has been put on the pizza.
So what does a man eat on a night when his girlfriend is otherwise occupied, and he is not really in the mood to go through the hastle of cooking real food or heading to a resturant. If that man is Wyatt Dunn he consumes something like this. From left to right we got all the food groups covered. First you got your left over sweet pickled radishes (they might be 단무지, but taste a little different) you got when ordering fried chicken two nights prior, next you got some turkey spam that your mother sent you for Thanksgiving, but since she sent two cans you had one in your cupboard since the end of November, and finally corn (since all of these haphazardly assembled bachelor banquets must include a can of corn). Not to shabby, and a nice change of pace from the nonstop kimchi-fest my life has become.
Here’s some lunch I consumed some point in the spring of 2004 while working in Goyang. There are some days you just feel like eating a sandwich…in a small town like Goyang-shi this Family Mart pre-made sandwich is the best you’re gonna do. Luckily these desires to eat a sandwich don’t strike too often, and usually I end up getting kimbab instead.
This is not technically a Korean dish, but it was purchased here (and I am doubtful that it could be purchased anywhere else in the world). The photo was not altered in anyway, and that’s not mold. It’s just a bread they sell that happens to have a green slimey looking topping on it. It tasted surprisingly decent for something that looks like it does.
At first I thought it could have been some sort of bread produced using green tea (since that is a popular ingredient in baked goods here) but it tastes nothing like tea. For now green bread of Korea goes in my Unsolved Mysteries file.
There it is…1.6 liters of beer! Holy crap is this country out of control or what? Anyhow the beer itself isn’t that great, OB is the worst of the Korean brews I’ve sampled, but in a fucking 1.6 liter bottle you can’t really go wrong now can you?
Over here in Korea, it’s all about The Hite Beer. I recently acquired a bottle opener with “The Hite” on it. He is a mug of beer with big muscle arms and legs like Mickey Mouse with over-sized shoes. His face looks drunk….the Hite is my role model.
