The Land of Milk and Kimchi

I thought I'd do a post about food here in Korea.  Eating in Korea is a very social activity, and people eat many of their meals with family, friends, coworkers, etc.  I realized as I started to write this post that I haven't really taken many pictures of Korean food, which is a bit disappointing, but this site has some basic pictures and names of food:  http://wiki.galbijim.com/Korean_food_gallery.  And for those who don't know, kimchi is considered "Korea's food."  It can be made different ways but is basically fermented and spiced cabbage.  It's a little strange at first, but it's growing on me fast. 

For breakfast I will usually just eat cereal at home.  Cereal is easy enough to come by and costs about as much as it does in the States.  For other meals, I'm a bit lazier.  I'm not one to do much serious cooking even when I have everything I need at my disposal.  Now imagine that you go to the grocery store and you can't read anything or figure out what the hell that meat is.  Ok, it might not be quite that bad.  But imagine that I can walk across the street to one of the many "orange shops" and get a meal to fill me up for 4000won ($3.44) or often less.  I had heard the fantastic tales of such cheap dining before coming and was happy to discover they were not myths.  I eat most of my meals at these "orange shops," which are so named because they are pretty much all colored orange on the outside.  They are usually open 24 hours, which makes for fine dining at any hour!  It's basically Korean fast food, without the connotation of being so unhealthy.  One of the best things that orange shops sell is kimbap.  This kind of looks like sushi, but doesn't taste like it.  It's seaweed rolled around rice with egg, ham, and sweet pickled radish.  You can get one roll for 1000won and it takes about 30 seconds to get because they are usually already made.  You can also get them with tuna, beef, or kimchi and they are a little more expensive.  They make a great snack.

A little bit nicer than the orange shops are the bulgogi (literally "fire meat") places.  These are basically just as common and usually only a little bit more expensive.  Essentially you have a grill in the middle of the table.  Meat and other vegetables are brought to you and you grill them up right there.  Then you take the ingredients and wrap them in a leaf of lettuce and eat it just like that!  There seems to be great variety in the kinds and qualities of meat used, but side dishes usually consist of kimchi, garlic, onions, peppers, a bean paste, and soup.  In the end the table is littered with small side dish plates and bottles of soju and beer.

Notice the grill set into the table.

One place we went to, simply called Shovel (or so we think), brings you the meat on the head of a shovel and then the head piece detaches from the handle.  It's hard to explain but this is what it looked like.

Western or foreign food in Korean isn't too hard to come by.  There are the standard fast food places such as McDonald's, Burger King, Subway, etc.  There are also Italian, Indian, Mexican, Thai, steakhouses, fried chicken, and on and on.  The rule of thumb for Western food is that it will usually be more expensive if it is actually a foreign chain or if they import all their goods.

And one last thing to mention is the street food.  Usually just a little cart that sells grilled meat on a stick, rice cakes, or, my recent favorite, pizza in a cup!  Gotta love street food.