Korean Food

Food in Korea can be summed up with rice, ramen noodles, seafood, garlic, pork, fire, kim chi, and soju, not necessarily in that order.

Rice is the sticky style rice, it is served either as a side dish or with some sort of soup like substance, the soup like substance has tofu or seafood in it along with some vegetables and usually fire. It can be served with other things or as a meal in it self. Often when you order rice it comes with this soup thing (I don't know the name of the soup thing). It is usually spicy but you can cut the fire with the rice and it works out.

Ramen noodles I'm sure isn't very surprising, the noodles are very cheap here and better than the ramen you usually get in the states. The seasoning that comes with the ramen noodles usually come with varying degrees of fire. I've found some ramen noodles that I can eat, and I tend not to stray from it because when I do it usually involves more fire. One bowl of noodles I got was so how it took me over an hour to finish due to my mouth being of fire.

Seafood is both cheap and abundant. In the grocery store I can buy fish for about $0.85, although they usually come non-filleted. Other sea critters are cheap too. At some restaurants you can buy basically a pot of seafood, filled with shrimp, clams, muscles, squid, etc. The pot is put in the middle of the table over a burner and everyone dives in with chopsticks. It is cooked in a delicious sauce and all around pretty good tasting.

Garlic is not obvious since you often cannot directly taste the garlic in meals, although that is probably due to the fire, but I assure you that Koreans either consume a lot of garlic, or they just enjoy buying large amounts of garlic. At grocery stores you usually do not find bulbs of garlic, although you can find them. Usually the garlic comes in bags with the cloves de-papered and ready to go. The bags also usually come with the equivalent of about 3-4 bulbs of garlic. You can buy bags with a few hundred cloves in it as well. As of my first month, I have yet to see an option to buy anything less than about 2.5 bulbs of garlic at a time.

Pork is easy to come by and pretty cheap. You can find at least two main type of pork restaurants here in Korea (there might be more but so far I've been to two types). The first type is a fried pork in a breading. It is a little like Shake and Bake, or chicken fried steak by with pork. From what I understand this is a fairly westernized way to eat pork. The second part is more authentic and very good, I'm actually surprised it hasn't taken off in the States. I don't know the name of the type of restaurant, but what it is called by the foreigners is usually galbi restaurant. This is due to one of the cuts of pork you can get there. Basically at these places you sit at a table (either on chairs or on the floor), the table has a hole in the middle. After you order your cut of meat (of which galbi is one) the waitress brings burning coals to your table and places them in the hole. Over which she places a grate and then brings you the raw meat. You cook the meat right there in front of you (the classier places actually have vents over the coals, the less classy places don't and thus tend to have a lot of smoke hanging around). Along with the meat they bring lots of different adornments for the pork. This varies by the establishment, but seems to always include kim chi, garlic (either whole cloves or sliced cloves), onions, some sort of vegetable type things, and leafy vegetation. The way you eat this meal is you cut up the pieces of pork, place the pork in one of the leafs along with the other things you want, like onions and garlic, and then consume. While this is the traditional way to do it, there really is no wrong way to consume it, so long as you enjoy it.

Before I came to Korea I read a lot about the heat of Korean food. After being here for a month, I can attest that a lot of the food here is rather spicy, but it is easy enough to avoid if you are careful. Also I am struck by the vast differences, some of Korean food is very hot, but there is also a lot of food that is rather bland. It is a study in contradictions.

While on the subject of fire I'll speak on kim chi. Before I came here, what most people I spoke with knew of Korean food was kim chi, and that kim chi is disgusting and very hot. After being here or a month I can say that kim chi is edible, usually rather spicy, not completely disgusting, but certainly not something you would want to eat. Kim chi is the national food of Korea and is served with just about every meal as a side dish. While it is usually hot, there is a variety types of kim chi. At the heart of kim chi is cabbage. As I understand it kim chi is basically pickled cabbage, but that doesn't quite do kim chi justice. To give you an idea of what it tastes like, I'll tell you how I assume it is made (I have done no research on this, I'm going just on how it tastes and feels like in the mouth). Basically you take cabbage and cook it until it is so overcooked you can't imagine anyone wanting to eat it. You then cook it for another 7-8 hours. At the heart of it, this sums up kim chi.

You can't speak on Korean food without mentioning soju. Soju is Korean rice wine (rice wine is usually called Sake in the States, although Sake is Japanese rice wine). I think soju tastes pretty good, although many people disagree. Soju is drunk freely and everywhere. I was actually accused by some students of drinking soju when I got a little flushed during class due to the heat (I swear it was because of the heat and not soju). Perhaps the best part of soju is the cost. If you are an alcoholic or want to be an alcoholic, Korea is the place you want to be due to soju. Soju is about 20% alcohol (about half of hard liquor) and can be bought for less than $4 for 2 liters. In case you are wondering, yes, that is more than enough to get anyone very drunk. The one downside is that soju brings with it some of the worst hangovers known to man, but its a small price to pay for such cheap drinks. Apart from being a cheap drink soju apparently also makes a good cleaner. I have seen at least two restaurants use soju to clean the tables. They basically just screw a sprayer on top of the unused bottle and spray down the table. This of course begs the question: Which came first, soju the drink, or soju the cleaner? No one may ever know.

A couple other notes, Korea has kimbab, which is basically Korean sushi rolls (they also have sushi). Basic kimbab costs about $0.85 and for that you get about an 8 inch role, that is very similar to a California roll (without the imitation crab). For another $0.85 you can add raw tuna to that. It is shockingly cheap and quite good. As one of my co-workers pointed out, thanks to soju, it is possible to get very drunk and be well fed for only a few bucks.

As for Western food, it is easy enough to get Western food here (due to this being a large city), but usually when eating Western style food here it's more like you're eating what an alien concocted after observing Western places from a space ship. For instance they have fast food burger joints, you can get burgers, and they taste pretty good, but they often come with some sort of sauce other than ketchup, and they seem to come with a slice of bell pepper too. Pizza is abundant, but can be difficult to get a normal pizza. For one the tomato sauce is always way too sweet, but on top of that the toppings tend to be a bit unusual. I ordered a pizza at one point that had a picture that showed pepperoni and some pepper looking things. I ordered it and it tasted pretty good. It did have pepperoni, and pepper like things (they weren't too hot) but also corn. Yes, kernels of corn on a pizza. Why? God only knows. At another point I got a pre-made sandwich, apart from the normal meat and tomatoes, it also came with pineapple, pickles, and olives....on a sandwich.

So after a month that is my summation of Korean food. I'm sure I'll have more to say on it after a little while longer, so be waiting updates and clarifications as I learn more. This is all just first impressions on Korean food based on my limited experience. My apologies for anything I've gotten wrong or misrepresented. This are just my views after one month, so I'm sure there are things that are wrong. Basically what I'm saying is don't form too many impressions on Korean food based on this post. Although, if you come to Korea these will probably be many of the same first observations you would notice.