Let's see what's on the menu.

It's been pretty low-key since I returned from Indonesia, and I've been racking my brain trying to figure out just how I could follow up such an amazing experience. There haven't been any adventures, nor have I done anything particularly notable this year. I seem to have slipped back into a routine and everything seems normal to me now. It recently occurred to me that normal over here might be fascinating to someone who has never lived where I do, so I decided to do a series on the seemingly mundane. Pictured is a normal, run-of-the-mill Korean restaurant. There are numerous chains like this and the menus are nearly identical. This particular restaurant, named Into the Kimbap, is especially good and inexpensive. I've been coming here for a while and I think it's the best standard Korean food around. I'm sure all of you are wondering exactly what standard Korean food is, so stick around and you might learn something.
I figured I'd start with my most standard dish--bibimbap. I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but this is a dish that I eat very regularly--especially during the summer. It's a simple dish consisting of rice, vegetables of varying kinds, and topped with an egg. I'm a sucker for anything with an egg on it. As always, the dish is accompanied by different kinds of kimchi and other sides, some of them quite funky at times. I can't say I touched the minnows, yech! The red bottle contains another standard: gochu jang. Gochu jang is a red pepper paste served with many dishes that has a sweet and mildly salty flavor. I like when it's on the side like this so I can control the amount put in my bibimbap.
After a little squirt of gochu, I mix it all together with my chopsticks and wharf it down. I really like this restaurant. I've had this same dish all over Korea and this place serves the best. This spread cost a whopping three thousand won (3 bucks), which is pretty damn reasonable for a healthy and satisfying meal. On a historical note, bibimbap was born in a city named Jeonju, which is about a three hour bus ride south. I went to this city for an afternoon in summer 2006, but was disappointed in that I didn't eat bibimbap. I've been meaning to go back on a pilgrimage to eat my favorite dish in it's purest form. I will do this sometime, and will be sure to make a full report.

Since there hasn't been much action on the blog lately, I had the idea to try everything on the menu at this restaurant and tell all about it. Food is a passionate hobby of mine and I have to say that the vast majority of the Korean I speak and know revolves around food. It was a big motivator for me to learn how to read Korean in that the majority of menus are written in Hangul. After every meal in this restaurant I tell the nice owner: "Jahl mok ah ssim ni da". Literally translated it means "I ate well", but it means more along the lines of "I was satisfied with my meal."