08. 30. DINNER

grilled clams

As usual, seminar weekdays consist of a bit of agonized venting over the untranslatability of particularly sexy phrases and a whole lot of musing over what we will eat after the agony is over. Today we were scheduled to go to a traditional fish market because them hickory shads is in season and I’ve been going on about them for ages. Unfortunately we spent a little too much time agonizing and by the time we decided it was enough, we were too tired and hungry to put in the effort to pick out fish at a market. So we put that off for another day — which we didn’t actually end up doing, but that was fine the way it was, as shall be seen in a later post. Anyway, instead we suggested grilled clams, which you usually have near the sea, of course, but the other girls in the seminar are angels and since they know the neighborhood, they mentioned a place very close by called “Auntie’s Clams” or somesuch. Snicker, snicker, yes, but honestly, it was so great. Maybe “clams” isn’t right because you also get a couple mussels and conches along the line, but hey, bivalves or not, it was all equal in excellence.

바지락칼국수: handmade noodles with clams

Jesus God this was legendary. The general consensus was that this was even better than the grilled clams. I won’t go that far because I am passionately in love with grilled clams, but whereas those are usually excellent, this is definitely the best 바지락칼국수 I have ever had. The restaurant our family used to love a couple years back that closed down while we were abroad, that was good, but this was unbelievable. It’s got so many clams in it, and the broth is phenomenal, so rich and inexplicably complicated and just perfect. Also it comes in a ridiculously huge bowl as evidenced by its contrast in size with the top of a bottle of soju. Ugh seriously, Auntie. You go girl.

assorted fruits

The fruits are self-evident so I won’t caption them. This is a bit of a famous place in this college area, apparently, it’s a tiny fruit store that lets you order as little of the fruit as you like, then they cut it up for you and you can take it home if you like. What a stupidly good idea for a college town. Also the fruit was amazing, you wouldn’t think it would be anything so special but everything was so sweet and we were all so full from the clams but we couldn’t resist polishing off half of what is pictured above. Still we felt a little ashamed about not being able to demolish the entire load. I love this seminar.

08. 23. BREAKFAST

갈비탕: clear beef rib soup

Clear beef rib soup. It is ridiculous. I love it. The hotel we stayed at had two options, either you could reserve a room with a kitchen unit, or you could get a room without one but with breakfast service for free. Since obviously we weren’t going to be cooking anything anytime, we went for the latter. The hotel is situated amazingly, ours wasn’t the super magnificent best suite in the building exclusive partytime room or anything but we had this utterly gorgeous view, and those pictures aren’t going to be on this blog but seriously, this was such a great vacation. They served breakfast in the little cafe attached to the hotel, charming cushions, flowered wallpaper and everything. For all that the breakfast menu was stubbornly Korean, but I liked it. You need something hearty for a day’s worth of sightseeing. The catch was that they brought the food out to the table while it was still boiling fiercely, and since I am not so good with hot foods I had to let it sit for a long excruciating while until it was edible, and even then it was incredibly hot, but ugh so good. James Franco, where are you when I need you?

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. 19. LUNCH

냉면: cold noodles

What is with all this blurry, honestly. It’s offensive. I think after this things get a bit better, though. I had this in the basement food court of the department store attached to the mall because my mother insists that they have better food there than at the food court at the mall itself. I think this is true, but cold noodles weren’t really the best choice to exemplify the fact. I didn’t even know they had paella, or I would have been all over it like yellow on paella. My brother and I had just watched the X-Files movie, which we weren’t really keen on with a burning fiery passion but we thought it might be good for a laugh and we all have fond memories of the voice actors who dubbed for foreign series. “Scully, Scully, it’s me, Mulder.” “Mulder! Where are you, Mulder?” Oh man, golden times. Anyway the movie was predictably ehhh. But as xkcd has it, the science they use is every bit as interesting as the headlines sound — which is probably a bad sign for science but incredibly hilarious. There was a woman sitting in our row who snickered at all the right spots, though, so that was encouraging. Until the movie continued in that vein and she, my brother and I all fell silent because we were like “…Are you kidding me.”

08. 10. LUNCH

냉모밀: cold buckwheat noodles

The 10th was our day off. We couldn’t travel anywhere because everyone had conflicting schedules and it would have taken way too long to get anywhere worthwhile just to come back after a day, so instead we decided to spend a day in the city eating whatever the hell we wanted. It was to compensate for all that money on hotels and transportation that we weren’t spending. For that I think we were scrimping a little, because the restaurants we went to were mid-range, maybe mid-high at the highest but I think I’m going to say mid- because that’s, you know, correct. If I’d been given the reins I’d have looked for someplace like that crab restaurant that I went to last time, someplace completely ridiculous and over-the-top, but unfortunately I’m the gluttonous one in the family and I think people know not to let me handle the choosing of the food, or all the budget goes down the drain in record time. Anyway, lunch on the 10th was at a Japanese restaurant — Nari.

assorted sashimi

So let me try to pretend I know what I’m talking about by trying to document which kind of fish is what. From the instantly recognizable red tuna, it goes counterclockwise — red tuna, flounder (광어), snapper (or bream, I have no idea) (도미), sea bass (농어), salmon, then different parts of flounder, snapper and sea bass respectively. This is quite a chore, looking up fish names. And in the middle, abalone, my love! They say the price of abalone’s been going down since the oil spill, but I am not seeing this reflected in my day-to-day life and I demand that it be reflected accordingly.

some sort of fantastic

I am not entirely certain what that was. It was like — a citrusy salad type thing with salmon and something crunchy on top that is such a bad description but honestly, I had two of those and I couldn’t figure it out. Maybe there doesn’t need to be an established name, amirite? Maybe it’s just the citrusy salad type thing with salmon. Who cares, it was pretty damn good.

assorted sushi

The eel was great, that’s not so surprising, but the thing to the left of it was also amazing and that did shock me. It was a kind of slightly-spicy tuna salad on top of rice, but it was really awesome and also something you don’t see that often. As for everything else, eh, I’d eat it if it was in front of me but I wouldn’t go looking for it. Especially not the shrimp. Any place that offers shrimp in its arsenal of sushi automatically gets a raised eyebrow from me — it is such filler material that it’s much too obvious to mention. Come on, guys! You can do better than shrimp!

assorted tempura

And now it is time to treat to one of my brilliant and incredibly not catchy neologisms. From the really bored person that brought you “Googlefeasting”, “Babelwhacking” and “boredcore” as well as a couple others even she doesn’t bother to remember, that’s how uninteresting they are, here it is — “THE TEMPURA HORIZON”. It refers to the point of time in a course meal, usually Japanese, when the tempura is brought out. That event marks the point from which there is no longer anything in particular to look forward to, because you know that the good stuff is ending, and even if there are some okay dishes after the tempura it’s still depressing because you are no longer “eating” a meal, the tempura signifies that you are “nearing the end” of your meal. Obviously it was modeled on the event horizon, since this is a similar point of no return. This feeling is somewhat similar to the sinking sensation you get at around half past three on a Sunday afternoon, knowing that you have school on Monday and that even though Sunday isn’t quite over yet, it is definitely ending. Wow, I think this is one of my better works. Stop trying to make the tempura horizon happen, self. It’s not going to happen.

알밥: rice with tobiko

And as much as I love 알밥, there is no denying that after the tempura, it is all just going to go terribly, terribly downhill. Not in terms of the quality of the food, mind you — but if you’ve ever experienced a Sunday afternoon, you already know what I am talking about. You can have inordinate amounts of fun on Sunday evening and still have that worry gnaw the pit of your stomach at half past three. But enough about that, here is my meal and I am going to have to put off backdating things for a bit because I am off to the dentist’s office. Whee!

08. 06. LUNCH

instant udon

Hey, it doesn’t look half bad like this. Granted, the shrimp tempura is more a congealed mass of something crunchy and the entire thing tastes like a greasier, slightly less MSG-rife version of instant ramen, but sometimes you just crave it. Also it’s super easy to make so that’s a plus to start with. My brother’s a fan, so we always have a pack of these lying somewhere around the house. Somewhat like how I will never call home a place that doesn’t have multiple cans of tuna hidden in the cupboards. Even if I haven’t touched one in quite a while, it’s the thought that counts. Oh gosh it seemed like it was going to rain, there was lightning and thunder and lots of wind, and then all of a sudden it died out. What is wrong with you, weather? Why are you such a coward? Bring on the gale!

07. 26. LUNCH

Vietnamese summer rolls

Saturday seminar class is great because afterwards we get to pig out like the totally fit and health-conscious college girls that we are. So I think this qualifies as summer rolls because it’s wrapped in lightly cooked rice paper — wait, is that the only prerequisite? At any rate that is what I am going to call them. I would have taken a picture of the wrapped result, but you’re kind of fully occupied when you’re trying to keep that wobbly vegetable mess of a baby safe in its placenta on your hands, so that sort of presence of mind is not going to happen. By the way, this restaurant is amazing. It has fantastic food and the most atrocious service that I’ve ever seen. They nearly refused to seat us, then they wouldn’t stop sneering. If we could have left tips, we definitely wouldn’t have. But the food was so incredible that we decided to put up with all the haughtiness.

seafood rice noodles

I don’t think I’ve ever gotten rice noodles with seafood instead of beef, and it’s actually not bad. The flavor is a lot stronger, and it’s more forthright and spicy than with meat, but it’s got a nice feel of its own. Also I ended up eating pretty much every single mussel in it, and the one shrimp, so I am satisfied with myself. I pretend that was my prerogative for sitting in front of the bowl.

pineapple fried rice

And not in front of this, which you might possibly know that I would murder an acquaintance or two for. Unfortunately it was on the other end of the table from mine, and even the picture wasn’t taken by me, I had to ask a favor, but the two spoonfuls I had were really, really, really, really, really good. No, but I’m not complaining, seriously, I hogged the mussels. And I was too full for much more of the fried rice anyway. Even if I’m not sure that I wouldn’t have stuck a toothbrush down my throat if I’d been offered more.

07. 21. LUNCH

짜장면: noodles with stir-fried black bean sauce

This is to actual 짜장면 what Spam is to meat. It comes out of airtight packaging and is suspiciously easy to cook. Also you don’t necessarily have to cook it at all but otherwise people look at you funny. I would think of other analogies but it is not really worthy of my time. I’ve been having an unusual amount of 짜장면 this vacation, for some reason — I must be craving salt and grease. Wow, the radio show is playing the theme from Indiana Jones and I’m torn between wanting to sing along and trying to figure out what it signifies in the context of the story. I am so preoccupied right now, aren’t I. Well, to be fair, when I look over this blog for my own pain months from now, I’m not going to be doing any reading. Just staring. And salivating.

07. 13. DINNER

appetizer with shrimp and clam

Actually it might not be clam. It might be abalone. But it might be clam, and I’m going to say that it’s clam, because this is not really the most important part of the post. So here’s the deal; every time we can, which is probably once or twice a year at most, the old comics club from high school meet up and proceed to squander away our earnings on some ridiculously outrageous item of food we happen to be obsessed with at the time. We did it before with beef, multiple times — this time around, it was crab. To be exact, crab sashimi. This is our version of an eating disorder, we go and we stuff our faces and then we purge our purses. It’s rather edifying, honestly.

steamed eggs with crab and mushroom

By this point, we were already in tears. It was just so warm, and so soft, and why do all words used to describe food always sound so drastically perverted? I especially feel Pedobear lurking around the edges of this one. But enough about Pedobear while talking about a hulking beast of a meal.

appetizer salad with some fantastic dressing

I’m not completely certain where the crab was in this. The meat appears to be pork. Or we thought it was pork. But at any rate, it also had cherry tomatoes and walnuts and pecans and croutons and an amazing sweet-sour dressing. It is going to be increasingly more difficult to add commentary to these pictures, so forgive me if you are spared my nonsensical babble. It is better for all of us.

crab gratin

Also, this is for reference, but the restaurant we went to was called Kora, and its website can be found at koracrab.co.kr. Their site insists that it’s only three hundred meters from the exit of the subway station to the restaurant, but this is a blatant lie. We walked at least twenty minutes just to get to the intersection.

crab soup

We suspect that this misinformation is their way of separating the desirable customers from the less desirable ones. Those who belong to the restaurant most likely will come by car, and thus have no problem reaching it whatsoever. Those, on the other hand, who choose to come by subway, don’t exactly deserve to be eating there. But we made it, through the fire and the flames. Suckers.

crab sashimi

This was our raison d’etre. It was actually a different sort than we’d expected, because we were thinking of a different species of crab, but nonetheless it was really good. I’m rather a fan now. It’s far from chewy, more a gelatinous glob, but it slides off the shell amazingly and the flavor is delightfully. odd. Oh, god, did I just reference what I think I referenced?

grilled crab

My promise of staying silent for this entry has been woefully compromised. Look, here, I’ll make better on it starting now.

steamed crab

crab, sweet potato and squash tempura

crab and noodles and mushrooms oh my

This was the last course, and when we could manage to speak for the joy that clogged our throats, we were very, very, very well satisfied. There was a small plate of fruit afterwards, which was rather disappointing a dessert considering the dimensions of the meal, but we made up for it by getting a dessert of our own that we started craving in the middle of the meal. This seems to be a popular pastime; talking about things you want to eat while eating something really good. Kind of like how I love watching food-related programs during dinner.

녹차빙수: green tea shaved ice with red beans

Ugh, this was so good too. My most recent frame of reference was the piece of crap from Burger King, but independent of that, it was an excellent specimen. The almonds especially, and I liked that they didn’t have fruit, which is only truly necessary when the other ingredients aren’t pulling their weight. Which they totally were. The almonds especially. We were actually going to get drinks from a convenience store and sneak them into a movie or something, but by this time it was magically ten at night and we had to disperse for fear of not being able to take public transportation home. And so we got this out of our system for another long while. The next item of interest is, currently, ostrich meat. If we can find it here out of the zoo.

07. 10. LUNCH

짜장면: noodles with stir-fried black bean sauce

It’s true, I confess, this is the same picture that I used on the very first day. But so what? If I had the same food at the same food court, logically am I not eating the same thing? Of course it’s not as biologically sound an argument as Craig Ferguson’s plan of eating the same hamburger twice, but I think it’s decent enough. Never mind that the sauce was more watery than before, and also didn’t come in separate bowls, as well as the side dishes being slightly different. These are but trifles! The spirit is the same! Also, we had tickets for the Red Cliffs movie, so we were in a bit of a hurry. I realized in the elevator that I’d forgotten my camera, but like I said, I am not a slave to this blog. I declare it. I defy you, stars!