Dinner, Korean Style

We are settling into our new city digs quite well. It has been a little over 3 weeks since I have arrived, which means that this is officially the longest that Clayton and I have lived together or been together in the last 2 years and 8 months. It's very exciting and scary all at the same time. The Korean culture is quickly growing on me, Clayton has had the last two years to adjust to it so by now he is very much used to some of the customs. Everyone that we have met, Korean that is, has been very sweet and very helpful. Our trash security guard LOVES to practice his English with us, along with all of the small children. The Korean children will see us, scream hello, and then turn away and giggle. It is so precious and so funny.

       One of the things that I am still struggling with is this whole chopstick thing as a utensil for eating food. The Koreans make it look so easy and are so quick with those things! I frequently drop mine, or food, or accidently shoot it across the table, and it can be very embarrassing. They also leave me with blisters on my fingers or hand cramps. I guess that COULD be a good thing because then I won't eat as much food. Then there's the issue of the food....I'm gonna be honest.....I do not like most of what I have tried thus far. I typically eat meat and rice. The soups are too spicy for my taste along with the kimchi. I'm not really into seaweed or bean paste....so that pretty much leaves rice and meat. I have gotten better at making an effort to try things, but it usually results in me making the most God awful faces and giving others at the table the stink eye. Clayton has become my K.F.G.D. or my Korean Food Garbage Disposal, eating everything I don't like. Below is a picture from one of the two very nice dinners that we have gone out to while here.

Most American meals come with free bread for like an appitizer or a starter. Well when you go out for Korean meals, you are given approximately 6-8 side dishes....free....it is like your bread. The picture above shows our side dishes which consist of bean paste (small saucer by the chopsticks)....not a fan of, Kimchi (larger saucer in middle of table with red stringy stuff. Kimchi is fermented cabbage with different types of sauces.)...definitely not a fan of. There's also some garlic cloves and peppers (the only side dish I do like), bean sprouts (for SURE cannot eat), small dishes with meat seasoning (square dishes) and then big huge green leaves. Clayton feels that my dislike for 95% of Korean food is because I have not developed an "adult palate." He's probably right seeing as I don't eat salad dressing, spaghetti sauce, 95% of condiments, cheese, pickles/vinegar tasting foods, mayonaise or mayo based foods. Back to the dinner....So the meat comes out to you, raw, and you cook it in front of you on some type of electric/coal/gas grill. Nicer resturaunts have the really nice coal grills so the meat tastes DELICIOUS. You'll also notice that the meats come in huge slabs. In order to cut the meat you use gigantic scissors!! No joke, they don't have knives or forks. The use chopsticks, spoons for soup, and scissors. Most menus only consist of different types of meat and the rice and or soup for side dishes. Not much variety,  then again, I also don't read Korean so I could be wrong. This is simply my observation when we have gone out, I will do more investigating and report back.

       There's also the issue of dessert....my favorite part of dinner. Well.....they don't have dessert. Clayton and I were at dinner with one of his work colleagues and his wife at a very very nice resturaunt about 30 minutes down south. We had finished dinner and Clayton's buddy asks if we want dessert. Of course I said yes. He tells our waitress, "4 desserts." I thought that was interesting and slightly disappointing/exciting. I was wondering what kind of deliciousness they had since I did not ever see a dessert menu. Well our waitress brings out 4 small glasses of a cold ginger type tea drink. I thought "oh this must be the coffee part of dessert, great!" We drink our tea and continue to chat. Well, I get kind of antsy and ask "so is this dessert?" Both Clayton and his buddy responded with "yeahh this is dessert" while laughing. I completely thought they were kidding, I mean after all Clayton IS known for telling me things that aren't true, but that's a whole other blog. Well I continue to wait and wait and we finally get up to pay and I didn't say anything because Clayton's friend paid for our dinner (which was very very sweet of them) and I didn't want to be rude. Well we get to a place where Clayton and I are alone and I said "What the heck, I thought we were getting dessert, that was such a tease and really mean of yall to say we could if you really weren't planning on getting any." Clayton responded by laughing and informing me that that WAS dessert. That is what Korean's refer to as dessert. They don't do the cakes and pies and a la modes like we are used to. I was extremely upset....and still REALLY wanted dessert. The night ended well because we went to Baskin Robbins near our apartment, which has quickly become our favorite place to go. I'm hoping that if I stick around here long enough I can convince some of these resturaunts that they should put desserts....real desserts on their menu.