Foodie-fun-time

My teammates are great, but they're not very adventurous when it comes to food, and I'm afraid they've already vaulted over their tolerance level for kimchi in the first week. Nowadays, we eat mostly western food, or "safe" asian food like sushi as a team. Kimchi is permanently on the veto list. :(

Luckily for me, when my brother was in town, we ate Korean food to our heart's content. In fact, I think I might be getting pretty close to my tolerance level for Kimchi myself. Well, at least for the next few days anyway ;).

We had Bulgogi for dinner one night. This was what our table looked like - and this is before we even ordered! There's a tub of glowing hot charcoal in the middle of the table, which the grill is placed over, and surrounding it are little bowls of kimchi. That was an excellent meal, but when we stepped out of the restaurant, we realized that there was a seafood bulgogi place next door! Sigh, if only we'd gone just a few more steps down the road...

Mussels and what looks like snails at Hyehwa

Saturday breakfast was a little room service pampering - eggs with sausages, bacon and grilled mushrooms, served with a bakery basket. This is meant for one, but the two of us couldn't finish it! And no, this meal did not have kimchi in it.

After breakfast, we headed to the Noryangjin fish market. I was expecting a lot of fish, but I didn't expect this: stalls as far as the eye can see, all selling roughly the same product: fish, octopus, shellfish, crabs, prawns, even worms!

The sprawling Noryangjin fish market

worms

Unidentified finless objects

A sample of their wares

Crabs!!

The thing to do in Korea is to eat a live baby octopus. My brother and I didn't dare to. My dad's horror stories about wrestling with the octopus as it clings to the plate for dear life and then feeling it wiggling down your throat towards your tummy put us off the idea. However, there were lots of octopii for sale at the market, including these super-long tentacles.

Some sort of stingray

Some sort of shellfish that we tried. It was a little chewy, not as sweet as conch, but good nonetheless.

Sea urchins - delicious! But don't eat the brown stuff.

We had a light lunch there of grilled prawns and raw sea urchins and some sort of shellfish. I'm afraid we got a little fleeced - $15 to buy the seafood from the market and another $8 to get them cooked (or in the case of the urchins and the shellfish, to cut them in half or slice them up). It was the most expensive meal we had, but at least it was good.

On Saturday night, after finally discovering the Daehangno area, one of the first restaurants we saw was a tiny noodle place with a line around the block. We figured that had to mean it was good. Half an hour later, we had one steaming bowl of kimchi noodles (delicious!), one ice cold (literally) bowl of kimchi noodles (not so delicious), som sort of boiled dough sticks (kinda gross), and some fried dumplings stuffed with some meat and vermicelli (excellent). All for about $12. Gotta love Korean food :)

I do like kimchi a lot, but I also think I'm ready for a little break from it. Luckily my teammates won't go near the stuff anymore, so I think I'll be safe until I get my next kimchi craving!