So I know it's been a while since I blogged. Life has been crazy! We moved, stayed in a hotel for nearly a month, got a place and moved in, Chris has been busy with work, home schooling is still going on, the house needs tending too, blah blah blah...I hope to get back to blogging on a regular basis. I have so many posts I want to do and to be honest, it's been so overwhelming thinking about all of them and I thought about throwing in the towel and not doing the blog thing anymore, but I am not a quitter! I will go on! ;-)
One thing that we haven't figured out just yet in our neighborhood is where to get good Korean food. We came from a busy area and now we live in a little neighborhood. Sure, if we got out and drove around we would find Korean food, but one great thing about living in Korea is that they have all these small little restaurants in the neighborhood for the people and they don't have to get out and drive. We know there is a place around that has what we really like, but we just haven't found it yet. Besides, Chris is really the only one that loves Korean food!
One thing Chris loves is kimchi. One thing I hate is kimchi, but Chris loves this stuff. It's just something you either like or don't. Koreans live off of this stuff. They have it at every meal. They even have it for breakfast. It's a staple. I was told by a Korean that there are over 100 types of kimchi she eats and she loves every single one of them. There is hope that perhaps I might find one I like, I guess.
But this ain't it. The smell is one thing I can't stand. I just feel sick to my stomach by the smell. Then, there is the sight. Let's be honest, sight does play a role in what we enjoy. You never see a restaurant that goes out and just throws your food on the plate, right? I don't care how you hard you try, kimchi will never look appetizing to me. Then there is texture. I have textural issues when it comes to most foods. Anything slimy is a no-go. Anything really chewy (other than taffy) is something else you can knock off my list. I've tried a few types of kimchi and each one was either slimy or chewy. I felt sick for hours after trying each one.
Chris LOVES this Korean dish, which is called Bibimbap. It is his all-time favorite. I don't eat anything with eggs, so it is an automatic turnoff. I don't like onion either, nor bean sprouts or 75% of any other vegetable, which is what this dish is. I don't mind the very crispy and salty seaweed that's on top (called gim) and I like rice. I know it's a healthy dish, but I just can't stomach it.
So, we're still on the hunt for a Korean place that has food "to-go" so that Chris can pick up his Korean and the kids and I can eat a 'samich or cereal when he wants it. Not liking kimchi is one reason I am afraid to go out and eat at a sit-down place here. I don't want to come across as being rude when I refuse to try their food. That would be like somebody going over to my grandmother's house and turning their nose up to her cornbread and dumplings and fried chicken and Lima beans.
So while we're trying to embrace the culture, for the 8 months we've been in Korea I just haven't found "that" Korean dish that I couldn't live without. I do like manduguk, which was my first Korean food when we got to Korea. Our realtor at the time ordered a meal for us and that is what she got me. It's a broth soup with mandu. Speaking of mandu, I do like yaki mandu (basically a fried dumpling with meat or tofu and a few veggies). It's good. Bulgogi is another food we like; we ate it a lot before even coming to Korea. It's just marinated beef on rice. Yummy. The kids and Chris really love hotteok, which seems to be very popular in the winter months and it is tasty, but oily. It's pretty much a fried pancake with sugar, cinnamon and peanuts inside. But my favorite so far is tteokbokki, which is rice cakes (think short, thick spaghetti noodles, thick as your pinky) in a spicy broth. It is SO good. I love the spiciness of it, but I don't care for the fish taste that is in the broth. Some places pour the fish broth over the noodles to keep them wet throughout the day (it's a street food, so it's usually sitting around awhile), which grosses me out. We found a place in Uijeongbu that made tteokbokki fresh to order and it was so, so good. We haven't found a place that does it here without pouring fish broth all over it, which is an overwhelming taste that I don't care for. I know we'll find some I like, or else next time we head up to Uijeongbu, we'll get some there.
Hopefully I can get some pictures of the Korean foods that I listed as we find places here that make them. Still, nothing compares to some good cooking that MoMo makes. I love and miss my southern food!
So, we're still on the hunt for a Korean place that has food "to-go" so that Chris can pick up his Korean and the kids and I can eat a 'samich or cereal when he wants it. Not liking kimchi is one reason I am afraid to go out and eat at a sit-down place here. I don't want to come across as being rude when I refuse to try their food. That would be like somebody going over to my grandmother's house and turning their nose up to her cornbread and dumplings and fried chicken and Lima beans.
So while we're trying to embrace the culture, for the 8 months we've been in Korea I just haven't found "that" Korean dish that I couldn't live without. I do like manduguk, which was my first Korean food when we got to Korea. Our realtor at the time ordered a meal for us and that is what she got me. It's a broth soup with mandu. Speaking of mandu, I do like yaki mandu (basically a fried dumpling with meat or tofu and a few veggies). It's good. Bulgogi is another food we like; we ate it a lot before even coming to Korea. It's just marinated beef on rice. Yummy. The kids and Chris really love hotteok, which seems to be very popular in the winter months and it is tasty, but oily. It's pretty much a fried pancake with sugar, cinnamon and peanuts inside. But my favorite so far is tteokbokki, which is rice cakes (think short, thick spaghetti noodles, thick as your pinky) in a spicy broth. It is SO good. I love the spiciness of it, but I don't care for the fish taste that is in the broth. Some places pour the fish broth over the noodles to keep them wet throughout the day (it's a street food, so it's usually sitting around awhile), which grosses me out. We found a place in Uijeongbu that made tteokbokki fresh to order and it was so, so good. We haven't found a place that does it here without pouring fish broth all over it, which is an overwhelming taste that I don't care for. I know we'll find some I like, or else next time we head up to Uijeongbu, we'll get some there.
Hopefully I can get some pictures of the Korean foods that I listed as we find places here that make them. Still, nothing compares to some good cooking that MoMo makes. I love and miss my southern food!
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