School Lunch
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| Typical Layout |
Every day for lunch at school there is a basic pattern to what is served. There is always rice, usually some kind of meat (fish, chicken, pork, etc), kimchi, a vegetable side dish, and soup. You serve yourself, which I'm actually glad about because I like to take small amounts of things until I have tasted them and know that I like them, because I made the mistake early on of assuming that if something looked good, it would also taste good, and vice versa. Negativo, chief. That is not the case! Some of the best looking dishes I've tried I wouldn't probably feed to the dog, yet some of the strangest looking ones have been great, so it's really a crap shoot. But I definitely can't say lunch is ever boring! 
Some things I've had include...
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| Pajeon A fantastically delicious Korean-style pancake made from a batter of egg, flour, rice flour, green onions, and any other kind of veggie you want to add |
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| Marinated new potatoes These little spuds are so good and so soft! They melt in your mouth and the sauce is amazing! |
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| Miyuk Gook Skin crawling seaweed soup that tastes like drinking the ocean. "Mi-YUCK!" is right!! It turns out this is the traditional Korean birthday soup, as if I didn't already dread my birthday enough each year! |
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| Soondae Terrible, horrible, no good, very bad Korean blood sausage. I tried one bite for the first and last time today, for the sake of not chickening out. But when I was battling to keep my throat from closing up while chewing, chickening out didn't seem like it would have been so bad after all.... What you are looking at here: the sausage looking things are coagulated pig's blood mixed with vermicelli and stuffed inside intestine, the big gray blob is pork liver, and those things that look like human heart valves are soft bones. Hungry??? |
There has been a plethora of other really good and interesting things on the lunch menu, but I can't remember them all off the top of my head. These are just some of the ones that stood out in my mind.
Stuff I've Made
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| Welcome to my kitchen! This little corner of my apartment is where all the culinary masterpieces hail from. And no, that is not an oven down there, that's my washing machine. You see that little hot plate/electric burner up on the counter? That's where the magic happens. |
Needless to say I don't have a whole ton of room in my apartment, and the kitchen is no exception. I do, however, like to try and make food at home every now and again, so I have mastered the art of getting creative. Despite the humble accommodations, though, I have managed to make myself some pretty decent meals here!
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| Kung pao-ish chicken and spicy ramen soup |
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| Chicken and glass noodle pot stickers |
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| Home-made ddukbokki (rice pasta in red pepper sauce) |
I'm not gonna lie, the only thing that was 100% home made was the ddukboki, everything else I more or less just heated up, but still, you saw my kitchen. Ddukbokki is a really popular Korean dish made from dduk (rice cakes/rice pasta) and gochujang (red pepper paste). It's a big street food dish and I had it one night in Seoul. And I love it! So I looked it up to see what it was all about and I found out that it's actually pretty simple to make. So I went to the store and got all the ingredients, came home (2 hours later. No joke. It's hard to buy ingredients when everything is in Korean!) and made it! It turned out really good so maybe I'll whip some up for everyone while I'm home over winter break! 
Dining Out
When you don't speak the language, it can be difficult and even daunting to try and go out to eat. So for about the first week, week and a half maybe, I was mostly eating at home. Finally after getting real tired of inventing new ways to maneuver my tiny kitchen, I decided it was worth it to try and dine out. Luckily, I quickly discovered that most Korean restaurants have pictures on their menus so it's easy to "point and grunt" to get what you want. I feel a little bit like the Sloth from The Goonies every time I walk into a restaurant.
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| "Huh-huh! Chooooooc-laaate......" |
Since I've been dining out, I've had a mixture of Korean and American food. My most recent adventure has been pizza connoisseur! There are about 3 gazillion pizza places near my house, so I decided to go on a search for the best one. I've pretty much narrowed it down to a 3-tier hierarchy of great, good, and not as good. Papa John's is by far the best and most expensive, Mr. Pizza is middle of the road, and Pizza School is cheap but not as tasty. I'm pretty sure I will most likely stick with Mr. Pizza because I can hang with middle of the road taste for a middle of the road price. Also, their motto is "Love for Women" which I think is hilarious. Someone told me that it is because their pizza is low calorie so women like it, and I'm not sure if that's true or not, but either way it's fantastic.
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| Welcome! We love women! |
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| Told ya! |
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| Prettiest pizza I think I've ever had! |
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| Just like home! |
Aside from pizza, I have also had many Korean dishes. Most everything I've had outside of school I have absolutely loved. And not everything is seafood like people said it would be - in fact, I would say most things aren't seafood. So I'm real glad about that!
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| Plate counter clockwise from the bottom: Myun (buckwheat noodles), rice, songpyeon (Chuseok sweet rice cakes), salad, gamja jorim (Korean potato side dish) Side dish top left: bulgogi (beef and vegetable dish) Side dish center: cheese and egg wraps Side dish top right: cabbage and fruit salad with sweet sauce |
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| Bibimbap (noodles, rice, veggies and red chili paste) |
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| Ddukbokki soup with ramen noodles |
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| Roasted chicken and Cass beer from a street vendor |
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| From left to right: Sundubu jjigae (spicy tofu soup), rice, granite rice bowl This soup is served super hot and when it arrives, you crack a raw egg into it (see them in the basket by the soup bowl?). The heat from the soup cooks the egg and it all tastes really good! |
Other Random Snacks and Such
Luckily, Koreans are big on snacks, cuz so am I! I am a big-time grazer. I don't tend to eat a whole lot in one sitting, but I will eat lots of small things constantly throughout the day. I haven't had a problem here because there are so many cool, kooky, and innovative snack foods! Take a look.....
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| Single serving instant iced coffee You can mix it with water or ice cold milk - either way it's really good! |
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| Milk shake in a bag These things are ah-mazing! They are creamy, delicious, and 100% no-spill-portable! (Oh, and did I mention they only cost about 1,000 won?? Nice.) |
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| Peanut buttered roast squid Not my fav, but definitely a novelty! |
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| Turkish ice cream Ok, so this one's not Korean, but it's still really good! It has a really weird, kind of chewy texture like taffy, but melts in your mouth like ice cream - yum! |
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| Bite-sized, custard-filled donuts They have stands selling these at almost every subway transfer station. So good and so accessible = Danger!!!! |
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| Puff snacks There is a street vendor on my block that sells these corn puff things by the bagfull. They're simple, yet good and kinda taste like Kix cereal. |
The only problem I've had so far (aside from my blood sausage gag reflex) is that almost everything in Korea is sweet. Chips, bread, crackers.... it all has a sweet flavor to it, so I've really been craving salty stuff lately. They say you are what you eat, but personally, I think I'm sweet enough already! If anyone would like to care-package some salty snacks my way please feel free to shoot me an email and I'll get you my address a-sap!
Kidding. But seriously tho.
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