Welcome to the Korean
cuisine critique. Here you'll find ample spice, an equal amount of
kimchi, and ever-flowing soju. I hope you'll enjoy and 맛있게
드세요.
As much as I couldn't
believe it when I heard that you can eat out every meal of every day
and it'd be cheaper than buying groceries, it seems to be true. Any
meal of an abundant portion will range from $4 to $7 with an insane
amount of food for 2 people going for $11. I took the glutonous
route earlier today and ordered a meal which consisted of the
following: a bowl of soup, an even larger bowl of a different soup
with long, thick, hearty noodles and crab meat, another large bowl of
stir-fried rice, pork, and vegetables topped with a raw quail egg
yolk, a triangular rice cake stuffed with a fish fillet and wrapped
in seaweed, another rice cake stuffed with dried fish fry wrapped in
seaweed, and a drink. All for $11. To put that into perspective, I
walked a mile to the store 3 nights ago and bought a fist-sized piece
of red meat for $8, proceeded to walk back home only to cook it
without any seasoning. Nowhere near as good for the substantial
amount of effort. The most interesting part of the aforementioned
meal was the rice cake stuffed with fish fry...not fish fry like the
Zatarain's that we batter fish fillets in back home, but fish fry as
in baby fish larvae. There were millions of them, none larger than
the graphite tip on a pencil but they were all dried and dehydrated,
glazed with slightly sweet flavor. That taste mixed with the salty
brine of the fish themselves makes for an interesting and wonderful
zest. I ate a juvenile squid on Friday dried and prepared in this
same manner. It's a popular children's snack that can be picked up
in any one of the thousands of convenient stores around Busan. I
suppose it's akin to beef jerky in the States.
Kimchi – the unofficial
(and probably official) dish of South Korea. The stem of Asian
cabbage is sliced into bite-sized pieces, mixed with numerous spices
and a variety of sauces, then set aside to ferment and pickle. For
how long? A week or two should do it but I've heard it'll keep for
as long as 6 to 12 months. Does it taste bad? Not really. Does it
taste good? Not really.
As for table
manners...Koreans have completely abhorrent manners by Western
standards. Good thing we don't live in the States though! It's
actually nice to live in a place where you can make a slight mess
with your food, use your hands, and slurp up last drops. It makes me
feel like I stand out less when struggling with chopsticks, spilling
rice grains, or dripping soup.
If nothing above whets your appetite, you can always eat here when you come to visit me.
One last observation; the Korean love for onions may just rival that of any Cajun's. I'll leave you with a photo
of a simple meal that I prepared this past week. It's some species
of fish with some species of mushroom with broccoli and cherry
tomatoes. It doesn't even cover an average dinner plate and is about
$16 worth of groceries plus the trip to and fro and the cooking.
Thank Buddha for the restaurants around here!
And at the request of two
fans critics, you may have noticed a few changes to the blog.
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