Shikdang 3

I know I've posted a lot about food, but it's an irresistible subject. We've been eating, usually, three meals a day, so we accumulate lots of material.

In previous posts I've talked about street food and simple restaurant/cafeteria food. But of course there is also fancy Korean food served at expensive restaurants, more along the lines of what the kings used to eat. Before showing you some fancy food, though, I've got some more pictures of anthropomorphic foods (as at the end of this post) to show.

This be-bowtied pig is so excited at how inexpensive he is that he is punching his fist in the air.

And here are some chickens parachuting into a big mug of beer. Don't ask; I don't know.

On to the fancy foods. In Shinchon there is a mushroom specialty restaurant called Il Seok Sam Jo 일석삼조 "Three birds with one stone". This is the sign:

Here's some mushroom-dumpling soup:


Some mushroom squid tteokbokki soup:


And mushroom shabu-shabu:


This is the only thing served at another restaurant in Shinchon, called Shigol Bapsang 시골밥상 "Country Table":


Basically, it's 20 side dishes with soup and rice, to be shared by two people. Actually, it's not really fancy food -- only 5000 won, around $5.

Koreans have in recent years become fairly sophisticated consumers of foreign cuisines. It's easy enough to find Chinese, French, Indian, and Thai restaurants. By far the most common is Italian. Koreans really love spaghetti.

Most "Chinese food" restaurants in Korea serve only two or three heavily Koreanized dishes (the best-known is jajangmyeon 자장면, noodles in a brown sauce), which actual Chinese people turn up their noses at in horror and disappointment. But there are also actual Chinese restaurants with more authentic food. Of course, as with Chinese food everywhere in the world, there is still accommodation to local tastes. For example, at this restaurant where we ate with Erma's uncle's family, the fried rice came out at the end of the meal with kimchi and jajang sauce:


It also came out with soup (in obeyance of the CoURSE law), even though we'd ordered a soup course earlier in the meal.

Early during our stay here, Erma and I had a delicious dish called jjim dak 찜닭 "steamed chicken". It's chunks of cooked chicken, potatoes, and noodles in a very spicy sauce. It was pricey but worth it:


In Insadong, Erma's mother took us to dinner at a restaurant serving a fancy cuisine derived from traditional vegetarian Buddhist monk food. As at Shigol Bapsang, there were about 20 dishes, but it was much more expensive.


The soup was served with this neat bamboo ladle:

Here we are enjoying our meal:


Our most recent fancy meal was two nights ago, here in Erma's parents' coastal city. We went to a restaurant specializing in raw seafood. Many Korean restaurants have private rooms that can be reserved by larger parties, with low tables and mats on a heated floor. When we arrived the table was already set like this:


The appetizers were chestnuts, peanuts, raw oysters, jellyfish, lettuce, and corn:


We got a big plate of sashimi.

The big specialty here is gwamegi 과메기, a kind of raw Spanish mackerel that is preserved by being strung up and wind-dried. The fisherman who is the father of the chef came into our room and prepared the fish for us. (This is normally done in the kitchen.) First, he cut the heads and tails off the fish:


Then he pulled out the guts.




He trimmed off the edges with scissors:

And extracted the meat:


It had a chewy consistency halfway between soft fresh sashimi and hard jerky, and a strong, pleasant flavor.


We also got this absolutely terrifying looking noduled sea cucumber:


Some steamed mussels:


Octopus:


And for the grain (either rice or noodles served at the end of a multi-course meal), rice with side dishes.

The grain or staple part of a meal, by the way, is called the shiksa 식사 食事. It's a bit disquieting and amusing for a Jew with only an elementary Korean ability to sit at a table full of Koreans and hear "blah blah blah shiksa blah blah blah shiksa blah shiksa". I'm used to it now. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, look here.)

Some fancy restaurants, those that have been deemed by the government to have good food, service, and hygiene, get to display this sign:

Two food trends are very popular these days. Any restaurant with pretensions to cater to current fads advertises its food as pyujeon 퓨전 ("fusion") and welbing 웰빙 ("well-being"). As far as I can tell, things described as pyujeon aren't necessarily fusion, and things described as welbing aren't necessarily healthy. Case in point:

This pair of chopsticks says welbing baeleonseu pudeu "well-being balance food".


To tell the truth, none of this fancy food has been as good as what Erma's mother has been preparing at home. It's not particularly fancy, but always delicious. Here's tonight's meal: galbi jjim 갈비찜 (stewed beef ribs with potatoes and carrots) and side dishes: seasoned bean sprouts, seasoned cucumber, cabbage kimchi, radish kimchi, and gim 김 (salted fried seaweed squares).


Sure am going to miss the food here!