What We've Been Eating

First off, we'd like to apologize for taking so long to put a food-related post on a blog called "A & B Eat Their Way Through SoKo"! Now that's out of the way, the grub is GREAT! We've only eaten a small percentage of the types of food available here (Alyssa more than Ben, having gone to eat with her co-workers) but we have gotten to try most of the big staples of Korean cuisine.  As you can imagine, our infantile Korean skills have meant that unless a menu has pictures we probably order with an apology and enough helpless looks to magically procure a meal from the kitchen. Thankfully, we have never been disappointed and waitstaff are usually eager to help out us foreigners.  Plus, since coming to Korea we have learned the names of some important food items and how to order different kinds of meat, so we are on our way to restaurant competency : )

Most mornings we forego the typical Korean breakfast of rice and kimchi in favor of toast and instant coffee, or possibly pastries at a nearby coffee shop on the weekends. Lunch and dinner in Korea are very similar meals, usually featuring soups/stews, BBQ meat or bibimpop.  Rice is considered the foundation of any meal (even when it is a small percentage of what you eat) and it is almost rude to leave any rice on the table.  On the other hand, it is pretty much impossible to finish all of the other food that is given to you at a meal.  Korean cuisine is so heavy on side dishes that it’s easy for Westerners to at first feel confused and intimidated at the quantity and variety of foods before them.  A typical meal is accompanied by one or two small soups (perhaps spicy tofu or seaweed), shredded fresh cabbage salad, pickled radishes, a plate of garlic cloves, possibly some seasoned seaweed, and at least two or three varieties of kimchi (spicy fermented cabbage, potatoes, greens etc.). Sam (pronounced sahm) is a common template for Korean meals, and refers to food that you wrap in small leaves of lettuce for bite-sized wraps.  

Duck Sam

We have had veggie sam, pork and beef sam as well as sam filled with things that we still can’t quite identify…  Tables at sam restaurants each have their own little grill, and when sam comes with meat it is served raw so that customers may cook it themselves. Bibimpop is served in a bowl with lots of veggies (cucumber, bean sprouts, carrots, kimchi etc) and sometimes meat, all over a healthy portion of rice with a fried egg on top.  “Chigae” (pronounced chee-gay) is Korean for soup, and many meals are soup-centric, with a big bowl of meaty, savory, brothy soup simmering at each table, in which you cook your own raw meat and vegetables.

One of the more ridiculous meals we ate was at a Japanese restaurant with no pictures on the menu.  We rather effectively asked the waitress what was good and she pointed to the reasonably priced item written in purple, so we agreed - 2 of those.  About ¾ of Korean restaurants still offer traditional eating—tables near the floor, and mats to sit cross-legged on.  At this place we sat at a table with a hole beneath it so that we could sit on the floor but without folding our legs under us; the table was also in a small room of its own with a closed door.  5-8 minutes after ordering, our waitress slid the door open and set a variety of plates in front of us ranging from mystery white chewy food to familiar kimchi and hard boiled eggs.  We took a couple pictures and began to taste each plate.  

Then, as would become habit for the rest of the meal, every 10 minutes or so, the door would open again and our waitress would bring us yet another plate.  Sashimi, tempura, a whole fried fish for each of us, octopus, squid, seasoned raw clams. She kept bringing us more food and at one point, she pointed to one of the items on the menu and one of the plates on the table and its price was as much as the purple item we originally ordered! Not only was a lot of the food rather off-putting but at that point, we began to worry that we had somehow ordered way too much food than we could eat (which would be normal), but worse, than we could afford.  It was not our favorite nor our most comfortable meal but astonishingly all that food ended up being included in the mysterious purple item that we initially ordered.  We paid and began to walk our stuffed selves home only to be stopped after about 20 feet when a man came running out of the restaurant and flagged us down.  We turned and approached him, still afraid that we had underpaid for the meal.  After lots of charades and guessing, it turned out he was the owner/chef of the restaurant and he wanted to introduce himself.  We also think he was offering us food or money to teach his kid English... We haven't been back.

The next night, we wanted to make sure we had something a little more familiar so we went to the local Korean pizza chain - Mr. Pizza.  They do have Pizza Hut in the area and I have seen a Dominos or two but Alyssa's students said that Mr. Pizza was the best.  Perhaps part of its allure is the menu’s embellished descriptions of “majestically flavored vegetables that pair beautiful with sweet aroma of roasty chicken, perfect for nature loving woman…” We decided on a bacon/potato pizza that was quite different but altogether very satisfying.  We had to choose between three crust options, "gold, nude or cookie".  We had no idea what any of them were but decided on gold, thinking well, we’d rather have a gold crust than a naked one or one that is in any way like a cookie.  Gold, as it turned out, meant the crust was stuffed with mashed sweet potatoes.  It was REALLY good.

Bacon and Potato Pizza w/ Gold Crust

So far we are still settling into the apartment and working on collecting the standard kitchen utensils and ingredients (rice cooker, chili paste, soy sauce, sesame oil...) and it's taking a minute to get started cooking regularly at home, though that is our goal.  We are much more prepared now but have been eating out quite a bit these last few weeks. We have made two meals so far.  First we made spicy seasoned pork and veggies (bok choy, mushrooms and other greens) over rice and it was pretty good.

Then last night we made kimchi fried rice that blew the spicy pork out of the water!

 We also have a homemade chili sesame sauce sitting in our fridge that we just put over our fried tofu lunch! Yum!

Can't wait to practice more and update everyone with more stories! That is about two or so weeks of food condensed into one post and we hope that you won't have to wait so long for our next food post. :) We hope you enjoyed the pictures posted throughout here and for a slideshow of our meals, check out our Flickr.

A+B