tucker

I haven't published a post for over a week now, but it's because work has been extremely busy as it's my first week as a 'proper' teacher. What I mean is that I actually have to teach things other than how old my brother is compared with my snails.. So, I've been lesson planning like a pro (but with less than pro results :P) as well as rubbish like paperwork and 'chatting' to every student who wanders up to my desk. What usually happens is that a female student would roll up say 'Hi!!', wave, then leg it. A male student would swagger up, say 'Hi!', realise he doesn't speak much English, then linger until he manages to splurt out 'Bye..', and shuffle out in a 'fail' like manner. Good fun, but it takes up a lot of time and I'm more than happy to help them out :)

But, anyway, this blog is about food. So, here is some of the food I've been forced to chew and swallow (eat) since I've been here:

This was in a great chain place called 'School Food' we found in Hongdae. When I saw that the place was called 'School Food', needless to say, I wasn't expecting gourmet tucker, but it was actually a really fun place and the food was far from 'sausage, chips, and beans'. The above picture is a 'spicy pork cutlet'. Now, about 80% of the time when you order something in Korea it is going to be spicy regardless of if it specified it on the menu or not. So, when I ordered the 'spicy pork cutlet', I didn't realise at the time of ordering that it would melt my tongue. And it did. A lot. Lesson learned: don't order anything that says 'spicy' in South Korea because it will cause oral pain.

These are dumplings, or 'mandu' in Korean. And they are awesome. They're a tad crispy and dirt cheap. An excellent side dish and they can be fried on a pan, so it's easier for me to cook.

Can't remember where this is as I have had this meal about 10 times since I've been here. This is a 'Korean BBQ' and the food cooks in front of you while you munch on all the side dishes that they serve you. I love this about Korea because you order, say, pork and they bring a shed load of side dishes all included in the price. Things like kimchi, peppers, salad, and other more interesting things that I have no idea how to describe in English. Basically, you put the meat in a leaf of some kind and layer the meat with some of the side dishes (a bit of onion here, a bit of spice there) and you wrap it up with the leaf and eat it in one bite! It's seriously so delicious, or 'ma shiss o yo' in Korean :P.

Drinking soju is almost essential to this meal, by the way. I've seen a family with kids necking soju while enjoying this stuff. The kids weren't drinking it though... probably milk or something I didn't see.

This was lunch in Bupyeong one day and it's basically the same as the above, except that the meat isn't cooked in this picture and the stove is slightly different.

If I can't be arsed to cook for myself I would either A) invite my mate Tea Leaf (Tony) out for some grub, or B) go to some lush ddeokbokki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tteokbokki) place 30 seconds walk from my house. No meat, just some mandu, some floppy thing that I suspect is potato, and ddeokbokki, which is spicy, believe it or not.

Oh, and everyone seems to be really impressed that I am pretty handy with the chopsticks :) Many a conversation has arisen from my skilled handling of Korean chopsticks - which are thinner than Chinese ones and usually made out of metal.

I probably should have written this blog after dinner because now I am starving..