Chueo-tang in the DMC

Okay, I’m not sure when this turned into a food blog, but I just can’t help myself.

My latest Korean culinary adventure took me no farther than my own backyard.  On the bus home from class this evening I became convinced that if I looked hard enough I would be able to find a good traditional Korean restaurant hidden somewhere between the corporate office towers of my Digital Media City neighborhood.  As it turns out I was right, and in no more than five minutes off the bus was I seated at a nice establishment on the second floor of an LG building.

Most Korean restaurants have one or two dishes that they specialize in, and I was a little thrown off when I didn’t recognize any of the items on the menu board.  Before I had a chance to pull myself together and use my go-to “what would you suggest” phrase, the waiter told me in Korean (with bits of English mixed in) that he would serve me their “delicious” house specialty, chueo-tang (추어탕).  After he brought the food out we spent several minutes consulting my phrasebook and the internet trying to find the English description of what I was eating.  We determined that chueo-tang is a soup consisting of fish stock (from the loach fish), soybean paste, cabbage and turnip leaves, served sprinkled with pepper and ash seed powder and mixed with noodles and rice.  It had a very different flavor from anything else I’ve eaten here, but it was fantastic.  According to the waiter this soup is good for stamina.  I’m not sure if it was the soup or the excitement of trying a great new dish, but I felt like I could run a marathon after cleaning my bowl!

LEARN KOREAN – What’s in that dish?

저 음식에 뭐가 들어있나요? (chŏ·ŭm·shi·gé mwŏ·ga dŭ·rŏ·in·na·yo?)

Jjigae

I have tried many Korean dishes since I’ve been in Seoul, but sometimes you can’t really appreciate a dish until you order it yourself, as opposed to having it ordered for you by your Korean friend or professor.  This was the case for me with doenjang jjigae.  I have tasted this delicious soybean paste stew a number of times as an accompaniment to a barbeque dinner, but I hadn’t ordered it on my own (or known quite what was in it) until last week.  It is basically a spicy soybean paste broth with tofu, veggies, and small shellfish, served in a stone hotpot.  It has the kind of savory flavor that makes your mouth water just thinking about it.

Since ordering doenjang jjigae early last week I’ve had jjigae on the brain, so on Saturday I went to Hongdae to try a different variety.  I went to a place called Nolboo (놀부) that specializes in budae jjigae.  I ordered it with beef, which consists of sliced beef, sausage (sliced hot dogs), ham (spam), tofu, rice cakes (pressed rice dumplings), baked beans, macaroni, udon noodles, and veggies.  All of these ingredients were cooked in a stainless steel wok at my table and served with rice and side dishes.  I have to say that this was a little more unusual than the doenjang jjigae, but no less delicious.  The portion was enormous for one person, and for the price of 7,000 krw, but I gladly ate it all.

Another meal I had this week that is worth mentioning was a dinner of pig’s feet with some friends.  The restaurant we went to is supposed to be one of the best places for it, a little ways south of Dongdaemun Stadium.

LEARN KOREAN – That was delicious!

맛있었어요! (ma·shiss·ŏss·ŏ·yo!)

Return to Seoul

After returning to Seoul last Wednesday from an excellent trip to Beijing, I have spent the last four days recovering from a cold that I picked up there.  I’m a little bummed because I had planned to use the rest of my fall break to explore some parts of Seoul that I have not yet visited.  The semester is more than halfway over now and I want to make sure I get as much out of Seoul as I possibly can.  One thing on my to do list is to hike up Bukhansan, the tallest mountain in Seoul.  I’d like to do this before it gets too cold, so I’m going to shoot for next weekend.

Aside from catching a cold and some unusual weather, Beijing was a great time.  Highlights of the trip included staying at the Commune by the Great Wall with a sunrise hike to the wall, visiting Olympic Park, wandering through the hutongs of central Beijing, shuffling through Tian’an Men Square and the Forbidden City with thousands of Chinese people, boating around Beihai lake, and climbing to the White Pagoda on Jade Island.  Here are some of my favorite shots from the trip:

LEARN KOREAN – I’m sick:

전 아파요 (cheun apayo)

On Literacy

A week ago I finally got around to purchasing a Korean phrasebook.   I was getting along okay without one, but I was quickly growing tired of having to point at pictures when ordering food at restaurants.  A week later I still don’t speak Korean, but I do know a couple of phrases and, more importantly, I can now read Hangul (Korean script).  I never thought learning the Korean alphabet would be so easy.  All it took was a couple days of memorization, and then a few days of trying to make sense of a handful of the thousands of signs I see around me every day.  I can definitely see how the emersion method is the best way to learn a language.

So what good is it being able to read a language that you don’t understand, you ask?  Well, I see it as a good starting point.  Even if I don’t wind up learning a whole lot of Korean while I’m here in Seoul, I can at least read menus and signs and look up their meanings in my phrasebook (or type them into my iPhone using the Korean keyboard and running them through Google Translate when I have an internet connection).  One of my favorite things to do now is to read signs that are written in both Korean and English, and then compare the two.  I usually wind up having to look up the Korean version, but sometimes it turns out to be a phonetic imitation of the English version (Konglish), which can be quite humorous.

Another benefit of my new phrasebook, besides now being literate, is the opportunity to try some of the Korean food that I would not normally order, either because I wouldn’t know where to start, or I didn’t know it existed.  The first phrase I learned is, “What would you recommend?”  Yesterday I put it to the test at a small Korean restaurant in Hongdae, and it did not disappoint.  I was served with a delicious grilled mackerel, rice, soup, and an assortment of side dishes.  Looking forward to trying it again soon!  Here’s a pic:

LEARN KOREAN – what would you recommend:

추천 해 주시겠어요 (chucheon haejushigesseoyo)