08. 22. LUNCH

fugu skin and mixed vegetables

I HAD FUGU. I couldn’t resist beginning with excitement, but honestly it isn’t anything to write home about. I was on vacation down south (no, not that far down south) from the 22nd to the 24th, and we stopped by our father’s residential city on our way so that we wouldn’t end up skipping lunch or something equally ridiculous. And there’s a semi-famous (= well-known but only in the near vicinity of the surrounding neighborhood) fugu restaurant there, so I couldn’t say no. But this story is not going to be very thrilling because we didn’t even have fugu sashimi — the lunch sets don’t come with that option, curse the stars — and isn’t a great deal of the fish not even dangerous anyway? Anyway, this lightly boiled fugu skin dish was the best out of the entire meal, I think, the skin is so chewy and fun and we had no idea what those vegetables were but they were also enjoyable.

deep-fried fugu

This is when I started realizing that what people say about how fugu would be a good deal less popular if it weren’t poisonous is all solid truth. Basically it tastes like any other whitefish out there. So it tastes like cod. Surely there is some distinct flavor of its own, but deep-frying isn’t really the most effective way to call forth the subtle nuances of the gustatory sensations, so yeah, it tasted like cod. And I’m not the biggest fan of cod — it’s good when it’s made into pancake form (tee hee) but the fish itself isn’t all that interesting. I’d much rather have whitefish as sashimi than cooked. But the fried fugu was crispy and really hot and by no means was it bad. It was just, you know, it tasted safe.

복어지리: clear fugu soup

It’s boiling! It’s boiling! So in the grand tradition of all fish-related restaurants, we got a huge pot of soup. Except this time we didn’t even order sashimi so — you know, the actual meat on the fish is supposed to be prepared as sashimi, and the leftover bits get tossed into the soup, so in this case — it’s a higher class of soup than customary, I guess, but we were just missing out on fugu sashimi. Which saddens me a little. But the 지리 was pretty good.

복어매운탕: spicy fugu soup

This was better, though. You can probably tell from the picture, but it also comes with dumplings (ten-o’clock) and noodles (three-o’clock). You can also see some of the fugu in the twelve-o’clock direction. I like the bits near the skin the best, since the meat isn’t as packed and dry as it is in other places. I feel like people who like chicken breasts like whitefish, it’s pretty much the same thing, flaky and boring. I mean come on. Seriously. But it was a good meal, especially for the paltry price of eight dollars — I’m not complaining! But one day I will have fugu sashimi and then properly state that I’ve had the blasted fish.

08. 16. DINNER

물만두: boiled dumplings

And lo, for he looked upon the river with tragedy heavy in his eyes, and he asked the Southern Barbarian King, What means this, that you sacrifice your people, that you send them into the river thus? And the Southern Barbarian King answered him, The river is wild, and we must tame it with the appeasement of flesh. Zhuge Liang heard and was displeased. He spake unto the Southern Barbarian King, Listen well; I need but a sack of flour, a basket of rotten vegetables, and two tons of meat. The Southern Barbarian King heard and was amazed, but prepared the ingredients as he was told, and Zhuge Liang saw that it was good. He invented the dumpling and the river was quiet, and all the lazy students alone at home praised his name in years to come.

07. 11. LUNCH

steamed dumplings

It is a testament to my — have I already begun a post this way before? Deja vu — my workload this July that I had no idea I was using mismatched chopsticks while eating this meal. Actually I just kind of inhaled it. It’s surprising what will fit into your mouth at once. What’s even more surprising is how many of that your mother fit into her mouth last night. Yeah. Oh, I went there. I went where multiple men have gone before. And I went there last night. I-I still have heatstroke. Forgive me.

07. 06. LUNCH

steamed dumplings

Dumplings for lunch every single day! Hurrah. Tomorrow’s lunch will be boiled dumplings, I guess. Anyway these are from a new pack, they’ve got kimchi inside so they don’t need soy sauce, which is great because it’s such a hassle. On the other hand, they are steamed, which means that for the love of God they will not cool down even when you poke holes in them to try to let the heat escape. Which makes for difficult eating, but hey, it’s good food. Though I do like non-kimchi dumplings a bit better, it’s a nice change of pace. Precisely what I needed after spending all morning trying to pick out a laptop for myself. It’s so incredibly hard, and I’ve narrowed it down to seven models or so from three companies, but augh the frustration. Why can’t I just call someone up, tell them exactly what I want, and if they can’t build it for me then at least they can give me what fits the bill? At any rate I will be happy that I no longer need to use a Dell.

07. 05. LUNCH

군만두: fried dumplings

We are lazy in this household, and so under the pretense of going grocery shopping, we had lunch at the food court across the street. We did actually, you know, grocery shop, but we were ill-prepared enough to not have brought any shopping bags, and so we killed the Earth a little more today. Being green is so in, I’m not much for displaying causes on clothing but I’d wear some of those environment-related designs because they’re very good-looking and also it’s a good cause I’d be paying for. But unfortunately being green is in to the degree that whenever someone wears an environmental t-shirt, it just comes across as them following a fad. I’m not sure if that’s worse than buying them just because they’re pretty, but hey. That’s not the point. The point is that fried dumplings are greasy heaven. I tried an Oldboy reference (“A red and blue dragon. What does it mean.”) but it was mealtime and really noisy, so basically it went unheard. I wept. But then I came home and while I was translating, Wikipedia took me from “pulmonary medicine” to “Danny Messer” so the world is well. That Carmine Giovinazzo. Sometimes he makes me regret that I don’t watch CSI: NY. Oh, and Gary Sinise, but you know. Carmine Giovinazzo.

06. 25. LUNCH

물만두: boiled dumplings

The big problem that I face this summer is whether it is worth the trouble to make decent things for myself to eat. If I am purportedly on a diet, everything I cook for myself will be a smaller portion than usual, and it’s just not rewarding to make half-bowls of fried rice, or tiny servings of pasta. Which means that if I’m going to make anything at all, I should do it when other people are home. The problem with that is that I am usually either preparing to go to class or just back from class, during normal mealtime hours. I’m either too busy or too hungry to think about making food. So I just settle for throwing in a handful of frozen dumplings into boiling water. Which is very unambitious and I’m sure I’ll get tired of the repertoire sometime soon, but at least I need time to settle into this schedule before I can work it fiercely.

06. 24. LUNCH

小籠包 (xiaolongbao): steamed pork dumplings

After class, I somehow made it over to where I was meeting a friend for lunch. That’s one of the big funtime partyland districts of Seoul, which obviously means that I have no idea what is there or where anything is or how I get from anywhere to anywhere else. I am probably the only college student who needs to be directed which subway station exit to take in order to get to the movie theater. But anyway, that’s why I had no idea about Din-Tai-Fung, this dim sum restaurant, but apparently it’s hugely famous. The food was great, so that makes sense. We also had noodles with shrimp and bamboo shoots, but that was mainly just to fill us up. The xialongbao was so amazing, though. Ugh that succulent juice inside your tender flesh gets me every time, she rasped suspiciously. As usual, I forgot to take a picture, but today I blame it on my addled brain running five and a half hours on a slice of bread. At least this time I took the picture from the restaurant’s official site so I can be marginally sure that it’s exactly what I ate. And then we went to watch Sex and the City, which did nothing for my mental state but by then lunch, a large box of caramel popcorn and a cup of ice tea helped matters. Also, objectification of the male body is fantastic.

06. 15. DINNER

boiled dumplings (물만두), cucumber kimchi (오이김치) and watermelon

I have missed these boiled dumplings like no other. I realize this entire blog is centered around being incorrectly elitist toward food, even when I’m eating garbage like chocolate cake and fried egg for breakfast, but I need to get this point across; most dumpling skins are wrong overseas. There only needs to be a barely-present, translucent film around the filling, you’re not burying the stuffing, you’re just trying to wrap it as lightly as possible. You’re hardly supposed to taste the skin at all. The only type of dumpling I have found overseas that matches this criterion was vegetarian, and that of course bummed me to no end. But hey. Now it’s okay. Also the watermelon (picked so painstakingly by my father knocking on half a dozen specimens and trying to determine which resulted in the highest note) was incredible.

06. 15. LUNCH

noodles with stir-fried black bean sauce (짜장면), fried dumplings (군만두) and sweet and sour pork (탕수육)

We visited grandma. She seems to be doing all right, in spite of everything, and I stole her sewing machine. Lunch was ordered from a local Chinese (as always, the word with a grain of salt) restaurant. The sweet and sour sauce isn’t on the pork yet because I took the picture hurriedly, but it was predictably excellent. As was the noodles. The fried dumplings were a bit thick and not quite crispy enough, but if you asked, I’d say that they were good. They were — everything and the quarter of watermelon, the weather, family, everything.