Korean Food

Aside from the live squid swimming in front of many restaurants, or the spicy food that puts New Orleans spicy cajun to shame, the food here is...growing on us.  We do like seafood, but only certain types and cooked in certain ways.  Kelly and I already have weak stomachs from a bad sushi experience last year, and the stong aroma of many seafood restaurants can be tough to stomach at certain times of the day.  Seaweed is usually an instant stomach churner for me, and once I put it in my mouth I can feel my mouth start to numb and salivate more in preperation for a stomach acid explosion of biblical proportions.  If one piece of seaweed can give me the sensation of being full for over 4 hours then that is a good indicator my stomach is restricting all access for that sort of stuff to come in and ruin my day.

     Korean restaurants, in general, have great food and an even greater atmosphere.  The traditional restaurant that we have seen just about on every corner is known as a Galbi restaurant.  Essentially, a galbi restaurant involves a table with a grill built in the middle.  You usually order a variety of meat that you personally grill, and there are many side dishes including rice and the ever so popular kimchi.  The first time we went to a galbi restaurant we were, needless to say, leary about the bomb the food was about to drop on our digestive system.  After we started grilling the meat and enjoying the very spicy and challenging side dishes, we realized that the food was a lot better than expected.  The most difficult experience of these type of places is mastering the steel chopsticks.  If you think you have chopsticks mastered in the states at chinese restaurants then you got another thing coming.  Steel chopsticks are in a whole other realm than wooden ones. 

Kimchi

Kimchi is the Korean icon here as it is pretty much eaten at every meal.  Kimchi is very very spicy and while there are many forms of it. Its greatest form is in the form of pickled cabbage.  Apparently this stuff is one of the world's "healthiest foods".  While it may be healthy, it sure is a pill to swallow as you are gauranteed to drink about 2 liters of water by the end of the dish.  The way I understand it, Kimchi is pickled cabbage and fermented in the ground for months in these Kimchi pots.  I recently had heard that one of the most common illnesses in South Korea is stomach cancer.  The reason is because the food here is so spicy, it will literally destroy your stomach. 

         Kelly and I did have one bad experience the other night at a galbi restaurant.  We were at one of my favorite places, as it has some of the best meat I have had in a while, at least.  We were with a couple of friends and we decided that after we had indulged in the delicious ribmeat we came to love we should branch out and try another dish.  This particular restaurant did not have pictures on their menus so we had to go off plain intuition.  This moment was one of those moments where intuition failed us.  When we pointed to order another platter of raw meat, the server gave us a weird look as if God himself  had given us a moment of escape of the perils that lie ahead of us.  We ignored the servers questioning and ordered the dish anyway.  When he came back with the tray of meat, I immediately thought it looked like chicken.  As we placed the meat on the grill we came to the conclusion that it was not chicken.  Without a doubt there was cut up intestine on the grill, and several other pieces of what looked to be organs.  We choked down as much as we could until two gentlemen sitting next to us noticed our trauma.  They were nice enough to take our animal guts for themselves giving us their delicious rib meat.  I could not stop thanking them.  Needless to say, there are dangers out there at galbi restaurants and you need to keep your head on a swivel.

Kelly and I at another galbi restaurant popularly called "The Lettuce Palace" by the foreign teachers.