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. 09. LUNCH

회덮밥: rice topped with sashimi among other things

This wasn’t as good as the 회덮밥 that I had at 도도야 (that was the name of the restaurant behind Di Matteo) but it was certainly passable. The parents were eating out for lunch after their game of golf, and initially they offered to buy us lunch because they were at the food court across the street, but then they realized that firstly, they were with their friends, and secondly, they couldn’t be bothered. I’m not really bitter about this because I did get this meal delivered home by them instead, but I thought it was amusing. Anyway, 도도야 does it better, does it the best out of any place I’ve eaten at so far.

07. 12. DINNER

광어회: flounder sashimi

My mom and my brother went out for dinner to meet an acquaintance of mine’s mother and her daughter. So basically it was a party of connections once removed. With the heart of a saint my mother felt some pity for me and Dad, stuck at home with nothing in particular to eat, so she gave me money to get something from — oh, the suspense — across the street. She suggested sashimi. I couldn’t possibly say no. The good thing about white-fleshed fish as sashimi is that they’ve got a flavor of their own that you don’t get sick of as fast as you do with red fish. Not that I’ve ever gotten sick of sashimi made with red fish, but you get my drift. Actually salmon might be my least favorite. Not counting the usual deck of lies, like octopus, egg, shrimp and all the other ridiculous accoutrements that are only there to give you less for your money. Anyway, white fish are also chewier, and flounder is probably the steady-seller of this genre. I am also not a fan of eating sashimi with the vinegary hot pepper paste that people who don’t know what sashimi is all about will often say goes best with the fish. Based on my keen powers of observation and the confessional statements gathered from a few such people, the only reason there is to prefer that over soy sauce is that they prefer the taste of the sauce to the taste of the fish. Which completely negates the point of eating sashimi in the first place. You could have a fridge full of that freaking sauce for the cost of a plate of sashimi. And then I could have the fish and the world would be well. I am a purist. I insist upon this classification.

06. 23. LUNCH

참치덮밥: rice topped with tuna sashimi among other things

Lunch was had at SNU, where I proved to myself that — surprisingly enough — I do not automatically go for the meat on the menu. Actually the tags for this blog kind of indicate that as well, apparently I’ve been having a lot of fish. Or is it because beef, pork and chicken are all under different tags? That could also be the reason. Anyway, when during lunch I said that I wanted to marry tuna when I grew up, I was only partly joking. Especially white tuna, I would even propose to it first. I might have already, but I think I mentally blocked out the part where it didn’t respond and just lay there on top of my rice like a cold slab of dead fish — oh, wait.

06. 20. DINNER

회덮밥: rice topped with sashimi among other things

So basically I have a problem with taking pictures when I’m eating out. This is a tragedy because I’d somehow managed to convince myself that it wasn’t embarrassing because I actually look like I live here and therefore me taking pictures of my food makes me look like a pathetic amateur photographer with a food blog, which is more than half true (pathetic, with a food blog), and not like some clueless tourist who’s fascinated by what’s on the table. Anyway, today I met some friends and went shopping for earrings where I shop for earrings. So many shiny things. And then we met up with my mother and we all went and had dinner at a tiny restaurant behind Di Matteo (another of our favorites) that served Japanese and Korean food. Apparently it’s a big haunt for professors and celebrities, mostly professors. The 회덮밥 was amazing, it came in a clear plastic bowl and was incredibly tame. As much as I love Sushi Bagel, you can only stomach so much raw salmon, no other vegetable but cabbage, the pepper paste a slightly cloying sweet. The picture above (originally from yup1984.com) doesn’t really look like what they had, but I think the ingredients are more or less correct. Tobiko saves.