What I Eat in Korea

When we first got to Korea I wasn't too fond of the food. Sara took to kimchi with gusto, but it took me a while to get used to oddly spiced and fermented cabbage. I never gave up, however, and now I can say that I truly enjoy the food here. Sure, I eat "western" food too, but I really like Korean food.

The Koreans are convinced that their food is spicy (hot). It is not. What it is, is hot (temperature) and full of spice. When we got here, our food was so incredibly hot (temperature) that we had constantly burned mouths. We've adjusted so that we can start eating our food right away with no problem. Often food is served in a "dolsot" or hot stone bowl that is hot enough to keep your soup boiling for a minute after being served.

Day to day I eat more or less the same thing (I'm easy that way) and I figured that I'd document it here.

Breakfast:



Two eggs over easy, cup of rice, pepper and vinegar sauce. Cooked at home, eaten at work.


Lunch:



Veggie sandwich from Paris Croissant, a cafe and bakery near my office. This is actually a really good sandwich - good bread is hard to find here. A light pesto sauce, zucchini, bell peppers, mushrooms and mozzarella. The mushrooms are the wrong kind for this sandwich, but I'll take it!



Some sort of seaweed-rapped rice triangle with miso and tuna. Delicious. The sea vegetables in Korea are amazing - lightly toasted with sesame oil and sea salt. Bought from 7-11 of all places.



Orange juice, from concentrate (not from concentrate isn't offered). I'm using fruit sugar as my replacement from regular sugar and caffeine. Also in the background is my trusty water bottle. I eat at my desk - since I only work six hours a day, I'm not required to take an hour lunch break. This keeps my six hour work day at six hours. Also, don't be fooled, the desk is made out of plastic.


Dinner:



Chamchi Hoedeopbap from a restaurant down the street. I eat this maybe two or three times a week. It is a bibimbap variant - rice at the bottom with shredded lettuce, carrots, green cabbage, seaweed, and roe. On top are chunks of frozen raw tuna. The frozen part isn't the best, but there isn't much of a choice in the matter at this restaurant. I pour some miso soup (which comes for free) over the frozen tuna and then mix everything around, thawing it out. Then mix in some pepper sauce... Delicious!




Here is some panchan - basically side dishes. At every restaurant, no matter how good or bad, you get side dishes. At this one we get some kimchi (fermented cabbage and pepper sauce), miso soup, and pickled radish, sliced thin. I love pickled radish.


All the food shown above, from breakfast to dinner, comes to about $9.50. I am truly a privileged person living here and making as much money as I do. Minimum wage was just raised to somewhere around $3.00 an hour and as I've pointed out before, paid for a maximum of eight hours a day, regardless of how many hours are worked.

Sasha