Korea Cuisine

Korean food is delicious. No question. But having come from a number of countries with similar food, spice and cooking style -- we were used to a familiarity with menus. Not in Korea. :) Jason has eaten at Korean restaurants before, but I never had. And so our adventure began.

Koreans eat everything with a flat spoon and chopsticks. The fork is there as a nod to Westerners!

Korean food also always comes with a number of side dishes. In this picture is seaweed soup (warmish) (1), kimchi (or gimchi) (2) and hot sauce (3). This is a mini-version of what we normally served. Add to this a cross between Waldorf salad and coleslaw (4) as well as sesame noodles (5), a spicy green (like kale or bok choi) (6) and a spicy beef side (7) and you have the standard accompaniments to any Korean dish you order.

A note on kimchi. I thought it was good. Spicy. Like nothing I had ever tasted or even heard that it tasted like. The only draw back for me was that its pickled with vinegar. I don't like pickles or any pickled food, so I could only eat a small amount of kimchi at a time. Jason, on the other hand, who loves all pickled foods, thought it was very good.

But back to my lunch. This is a cold rice bowl, with mushrooms, shrimp, courgettes, carrots, and squid. You are supposed to mix the hot sauce with everything in the bowl and enjoy! The soup and kimchi are your sides.

I ate this dish a lot! It was delicious and I noticed that the only variation to it was sometimes it was served with a fried egg on top. Even better!