Snail meal

That restaurant seen under construction in the last photo of this post opened last week. Here's that older photo again:

And here's the restaurant on opening day. As apparently required by custom, all windows are blocked up so there is no way to look inside. You just have to go in and hope for the best.

The name of the place is Ureongi Ssambap Jip 우렁이 쌈밥집 'Snail Wrapped-Rice House". Ureongi is a kind of freshwater snail. Wrapped-rice refers to the serving of a plate of greens with a meal, so that you can wrap up the food and eat it like a roll.

Many restaurants are decorated with images of the 15th-century text promulgating the Korean alphabet. The walls of this restaurant were covered with this repeating pattern:

Apparently from 훈민정음언해본, though I'm not entirely sure ....

Below is the menu, quite simple. Basically, you can get an $8 set meal of snail with fermented beans, steamed egg with seafood, and fried pork; or, you can get a $10 set meal which substitutes vinegar-seasoned snails for the pork. (The other items on the menu are alcohol and food to accompany alcohol -- another topic for a future post.)

The note at the bottom left says that the pork is sourced from the United States.

Here's Erma with our meal. That's the wrapping greens on the right. The covered metal bowls hold our rice. On the left is a broth made of burnt-rice dregs. (It's better than it sounds.)

Fried pork on the left, steamed egg on the right. Arrayed around them are some side dishes, counter-clockwise from top right: shredded radish, flowered tofu, spicy sweet fried anchovies, kimchi, mushrooms.

Snails in fermented bean paste.

The snails were delicious but salty. We were advised by our server to dump a bunch of rice in and mix it up together before eating. It was good advice.

Because we'd visited the construction site with Tek many times, and he had met and charmed the owner, she recognized us when we came in, and give us a gift when we left.

"Thanks for You"

It's a towel.

"CARVEN Paris". The name of the restaurant is stamped at the bottom.