Near my university is a neighborhood that locals call Korea Town. I like Korean food and last night tried my sixth Korean restaurant in the neighborhood. Unlike the others, the menu had no English; it was in Korean and Chinese. My Chinese friend had little experience with Korean food so the menu puzzled both of us. Finally I asked the waitress what was popular and we ordered that.
I’ve eaten in Korean restaurants hundreds of times; I’ve even been in Korea for a week. Our food had no overlap with any Korean food I’d ever had. We ordered three dishes. They turned out to be:
1. Bacon over pea sprouts and onion, topped with a sweet and sour sauce.
2. Bacon wrapped around enoki mushrooms (long and thin) on top of chunks of green and (sweet) red peppers, covered with more sweet and sour sauce.
3. DIY wraps. A big plate of two-inch strips of chicken, carrots, egg yolk, egg white, fish cake, and pea sprouts. You dip them into soy sauce and wrap several of them with a big thin piece of white radish.
No kimchi, no hot sauce, no little appetizer plates. There was a refrigerator full of soju.
It was like stumbling into a piece of science fiction. Some little thing had happened differently in the past and as a result Korean food had turned out differently . . . Can anyone reading this explain it?
Near my university is a neighborhood that locals call Korea Town. I like Korean food and last night tried my sixth Korean restaurant in the neighborhood. Unlike the others, the menu had no English; it was in Korean and Chinese. My Chinese friend had little experience with Korean food so the menu puzzled both of us. Finally I asked the waitress what was popular and we ordered that.
I’ve eaten in Korean restaurants hundreds of times; I’ve even been in Korea for a week. Our food had no overlap with any Korean food I’d ever had. We ordered three dishes. They turned out to be:
1. Bacon over pea sprouts and onion, topped with a sweet and sour sauce.
2. Bacon wrapped around enoki mushrooms (long and thin) on top of chunks of green and (sweet) red peppers, covered with more sweet and sour sauce.
3. DIY wraps. A big plate of two-inch strips of chicken, carrots, egg yolk, egg white, fish cake, and pea sprouts. You dip them into soy sauce and wrap several of them with a big thin piece of white radish.
No kimchi, no hot sauce, no little appetizer plates. There was a refrigerator full of soju.
It was like stumbling into a piece of science fiction. Some little thing had happened differently in the past and as a result Korean food had turned out differently . . . Can anyone reading this explain it?