Andrew Zimmern always says “the best way to learn about a culture is through the food they eat.” He is Bizarre but I love his show because he is not scared to try anything, experience different cultures and immerse himself in them even if for a short time. He has aired an episode about Korean before but I don’t know if he covered the “dog eating topic” that I wrote about on this blog. That would be interesting. Anyhow, my dinning explorations are adventurous but not at that caliber yet. I still don’t know if I would try dog meat. But I can tell you about my favorite place to eat. I say favorite only because I have eaten there more consistently, it’s cheap and it is “mashisayo,” or delicious in English. It is located in the shopping center they call NewQua in PyeongTaek although it is spelled New Core. Picture below.
There are many shops and on the seventh floor there is a food court. There are several places to choose from including a place that sells pizza. There is potato pizza, bar-b-q pizza with corn and peas, squid pizza and other kinds of of bizzarr toppings you can choose from. I have not eaten there yet but I hear is not as bad as it sounds. Yeah right is what I usually say to that.
Once you are in the building, there is an elevator but it is always crowded and people tend to touch foreigners in Korea; that is something I am still getting used to. To avoid the touching, I take the escalator:
After making my way up to the 7th floor where the restaurants are. I make a right and the restaurant I frequent is right there. Here is the one minute video I took before eating:
To accommodate everyone, there is a picture menu on the walls of most restaurants. This is very convenient for English teachers and foreigners who do not have a strong handle on the language.
Here is a close up of the food.
The price of the whole meal is the price of a burger back home in U.S. I paid 7,000 won for the meal; that is about $5 or less. In fact the food is so cheap that the ladies or (ajumas, what they call a married woman in Korea) in the picture below were arguing over who was going to pay for the meal they had.
Oh, you don’t believe me, I didn’t think you would. The reason they were arguing rather is because they all just met to eat without talking about who invited who. In Korea, the person who invites another out to eat is the person who pays.
On the way home after dinner. The soju and meat tent was being setup. Soju is Korea’s national drink. It is very strong and I recommend not drinking unless you can hold your liquor. I mean, really hold your liquor, not a weak grip, really hold your liquor.
If you would like to try, email me and I will ship you a bottle but you have to cover shipping.
Here is what soju looks like.
The food culture in Korea is fantastic.
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