A Taste of Seoul

We promised a post about the food over here in Korea, so without any further ado, here it is...

First and foremost, Leslie and I have a love-hate relationship with Korean food. Korean gastronomy has numerous tasty dishes, however we've found it difficult to eat Korean food repetitively due to its strong and unique flavors. Maybe you would all understand our ordeal better through the following example: Say that you head out to your favorite Chinese restaurant and order a wonderful meal. You return home with your belly full and satisfied, the taste of fortune cookies still lingering on your palate. Maybe you have a few leftovers that you save for lunch the next day. But when dinner rolls around the following night do you ever say to yourself, "Man, I think I'll go have Chinese food again tonight." Hell no!, of course you don't, because the flavors are so strong and unique that they satisfy your Asian urge for a least a few days.

So, just substitute the word "Korean" for the word "Chinese" in the above story and you can see our problem. We like Korean food, but eating it everyday is taking some getting used to. It has very strong flavors that often do not vary that much from dish to dish, which is making the adjustment a bit more challenging. Although one thing that was an easy adjustment is the price. Korean food is cheap, I mean dirt cheap. If Leslie and I spend more than $10 total a meal of ethnic Korean food, we are really livin it up.

However, on the flip side, foreign food is expensive. You can find good Italian, Mexican, American, and Indian food in Seoul, but it'll cost ya! A large peperoni pizza from Pizza Hut costs around $20, and we had a sit down Mexican meal last week for a wallet vaporizing $46! But we have been making things like pasta and sandwiches at home which are definitely more affordable.

Now, on we go to a look at some of our favorite, and not so favorite, Korean dishes:

DISHES TO LOVE:

1. Mandu: Mandu is the Korean word for dumplings, and they are absolutely delicious. They are usually filled with a mixture of pork and green onions and then steamed. However, they also have Kimchi flavored dumplings (of course!), and those we haven't liked so much. But overall mandu are just great, the only side effect are the burps. Mandu burps are the absolute worst, like some small burrowing mammal crawled into your stomach and died. But if you can survive these burps of death they are definitely worth it!

2. Ramen: Ramen comes in all shapes, sizes, and colors in Korea, and usually is quite tasty. You order it in restaurants with all sorts of toppings, or you can buy it almost anywhere for about 50-70 cents and just add hot water for a quick snack of salty-spicy goodness.

3. Gimbap: This is the Korean take on a sushi roll. The standard gimbap roll is filled with rice, egg, crab, picked radish, ham, cucumber, and one indistinguishable brown element that we have decided not to ask questions about. Gimbap comes in all different varieties and usually cost between $1 and $3 for a whole roll.

4. Bibimbap: This dish is awesome, I mean you can't deny that the name itself "bibimbap" is by far one of the coolest words in existence. Bibimbap is basically rice topped with fresh vegetables, seaweed, meat, chili sauce, and a fried egg, all served in a hot stone pot. You just mix it all together and enjoy for only about $4.

5. Bulgogi/Kalbi: Oh yes, we haven't forgotten the famous Korean barbecue. Beef, lamb, or pork marinated and then grill at your table over hot coals, rapped in a lettuce leaf with bean paste and other condiments, and then gobbled down like a lettuce wrap. Fantastic!

6. Green Tea Shakes: Ice cream + ice + green tea, what's not to love!

DISHES NOT TO LOVE:

1. Kimchi: This fermented chili infused cabbage condiment is as common on restaurant tables as napkins or salt shakers, and has quite a unique taste. While have had some kimchi that we like, it often has a fishy taste that the fermentation only seems to exaggerate.

2. Pickeled Radish: Kimchi's partner in crime is the just as popular pickled yellow radish, which has a bitter vinegary taste that always catches you off-guard, as the flavor contrast sharply with its innocent vegetable appearance.

3. Traditional Korean Flavoured Tea: Recently, Leslie and I went to a traditional Korean tea house in hopes of enjoying the old-timey Korean version of the beverage we love so well. However, upon first taste our excitement immediately vanished into mixture of fear, panic, and ultimately dispair. This drink my friends, was the by far the worst beverage, outside of cold medicine, that we have ever had. I mean, a luke-warm "gin and diet coke" made by a drunken frat guy would have tasted better. The tea was a syrupy, earthy, at times slightly crunchy hell-water, made of who knows what. Probably, some weird roots and rotting leaves or something. Oh and did I mention that it cost $5 a cup! Very disappointing to say the least. Oh well, can't win them all I guess.

We are going to post a picture slide show soon of some of the food we have eaten. We don't have pictures of all the dishes we talked about, and we also have pictures of many dishes we didn't talk about, but hopefully they should be interesting to look at. Take care everyone, keep an eye out for the slide show.