I was speaking to a friend of mine a couple of nights ago. He is someone that I met just before coming to Korea, and we were introduced to each other through our parents, since he had returned from Korea a couple of months before. My dad was insistant that I meet Wade, because he hadn't enjoyed Korea and dad thought that it was a perspective that I needed to hear. And so we met, and we got along fairly well and we discussed all things Korea over some lunch. Why had he hated Korea so much, I asked him at one point, and he gave me a number of answers, but one of the main reasons was the food. Eh, I thought to myself after meeting him, food would never be one of the reasons for my hating a place! And so I made it a mission to enjoy Korean food. There are things that I love, things that I hate and things that I mildly dislike; things that I have yet to try, things that I am not so sure that I want to and things that I would shoot myself before eating (I am sure you all know where this one is going). So I thought I would put a list of them together.

I thought that I would start off by telling you the things that I like. Since I am a bit of a fussy eater (anyone who has seen me order a sandwich or burger could tell you this) and I don't like spicy food, you would think that there would be few things that I have found enjoyable. This really isn't the case! I am sure that there are more things that I have tasted and loved, but these are the most memorable.






Shabu Shabu is in fact more of a Japanese dish than a Korean dish, but because it is here that I have experienced it, I am going to call it Korean so there! A bowl of broth is brought to the table along with a variety of vegetables and leaves, noodles, mandu (which I will get to later), rice cakes and thin pieces of what I think must be beef which are all thrown into the boiling broth at alternating times. The shavings of meat cook very quickly and are usually eaten first, while the mandu and the green and orange noodles are eaten last. After everything has been eaten, some of the broth is removed and a mixture of rice and mixed vegetables is brought to the table so that a dish that I believe is called juk (though I could be wrong) is made. I only like this gruel-like substance at the shabu-shabu place. Everywhere else that I have tasted it, it has been awful!


Kalmegi is a cut of pork. I am not quite sure what kind of pork it is, but it is generally less fatty than the alternatives of galbi and samgyeopsal, and less fatty than samgyeopsal in particular. Like the other two, it is cooked at your table over coals on a grill, and is accompanied by a number of side-dishes. What is slightly unusual is that most of the times that I have had it, it has not been accompanied by the common lettuce leaves, though occasionally the sesame leaves are provided. This is my favourite cut of pork and if I have a choice, I will almost always go for kalmegi, especially now that I have found an awesome kalmegi right around the corner from my house.

Galbi is another cut of pork, but this time I actually know what the cut is! Galbi is pork, and very occasionally beef, ribs. They are usually marinated and because of this are often not served with the red pepper paste that accompanies kalmegi and samgyeopsal, though it will be given to you upon request if you know what it is called (gochujang, I believe). While this meat is almost as delicious, and some might say even more so, than kalmegi, the problem that I find with it is the bones. It is inevitable that you will come across at least one or two pieces where the bones has not been completely removed and it takes away from my enjoyment of the meal.



Gimbap is a dish similar in style to maki rolls in sushi, but it involves a lot more ingredients, not all of which are fish and not all of which are raw. The original gimbap, which is the only one that I have tasted and made thus far, includes crab sticks (here is where the fish comes in), fish paste strips (not my favourite thing in the world, I won't lie), cooked ham, spinach, carrot and pickled radish (as opposed to ginger) all rolled together with rice and seawood to look almost identical to a maki roll. While this might not sound appealing to many, it is delicious, though I do tend to add a couple of dashes of soy sauce to add a touch of moisture and saltiness.


Tteok is a kind of Korean rice cake, and though there are many kinds, this is the only one that I really like. Though it may look like a dessert, it is often served as a side-dish together with the main course rather than as a separate course. They are small balls made from rice and covered with some form of sugar or coconut and are occasionally filled with the red bean paste, though I am not so fond of them when they are. They have a rather chewy texture which can become a bit much after awhile, so I can't eat too many of them, but if they are on the table, I tend to leave room for a couple of them.



Mandu is another dish which is not technically Korean, and which I quite a bit of before I even came to Korea. We do not know it as mandu, however, and refer to them as dimsum or dumplings. They are a Chinese dish and are filled with a number of different things depending on the type that you buy. So why have I mentioned it here? Well, because even though they are a Chinese dish, you can buy frozen mandu at any corner store and they are often made by vendors on the side of the road. When I arrived in Korea, for the first few weeks before I got up the courage to cook (which I quickly got tired of anyway), mandu were my staple food. I would buy a packet from the corner store and heat up six or seven for lunch and dinner daily. Eventually I got quite tired of them, and at this stage I cannot look at the frozen variety without cringing, but I still love the homemade ones that you can find in restaurants, and particularly the ones that are used for shabu shabu.



Jajangmyeon is yet another non-Korean dish that I have found in Korea and fallen in love with. It is in fact another Chinese dish - black bean noodles. While this does not sound particularly appetising, it really is delicious - looooooong noodles smothered in a black, not quite soy, sauce and mixed with vegetables and small pieces of pork. I was introduced to this delicacy, along with a number of others, by Amy who insisted that I join her for dinner at a Chinese restaurant between our two apartments. I am exceedingly glad that she did because this was one of the first meals in Korea that I truly fell in love with!



Sesame leaves are a type of leaf served with samgyeopsal, galbi and kalmegi. I really didn't like these slightly peppery, slightly minty leaves at first and struggled to swallow them because it really felt like I was eating a leaf rather than a piece of lettuce which is the other form of "leaf" that accompanies the meat. However, the more I have tried it, the more it has grown on me and I am now at the point of choosing these leaves over the plain lettuce everytime, though this could be attributed to the fact that the normal lettuce is often particularly bitter tasting and not enjoyable.



The Dream of Tea is one of my Korean addictions and I must have at least one can of it else I am not in a happy mood. While this might just sound like any other iced tea, if you have tasted the iced teas in Korea, they are all ridiculously sweet. Revoltingly so at times. Dream Tea, on the other hand, is hardly sweetened and is more like just plain old Ceylon Tea (which is what it is made from), but iced. Some people find that it isn't sweet enough for their tastes. It is just perfect for mine!






While the foods above are some of the ones that I have tried and loved so far, there are a whole lot of Korean foods that I have not tried. There are some that I am dying to taste and some that I am not interested in and one in particular that I would rather shoot myself than ever eat. I will start off by telling you the ones that have caught my fancy.
Doenjang jjigae or "smelly foot soup" as my friends and I fondly refer to it, is a thick soup made from vegetables, tofu and soybean paste. Why do we call it "smelly foot soup", you may ask? Well because of the obvious! It smells absolutely awful! It's smell has put me off trying it time and time again, but I do hope to get past the smell one day because it is supposed to be absolutely delicious despite the aroma and, according to my co-teacher Jenny, is "very good for your health".


San ojingeo is, as the second part of the name suggests, a type of squid. But this is not just any type. It is not a spicy variety (thus my desire to taste it) and it is certainly not dried. Far from it. This type of squid is as fresh as it comes - taken from its tank and cut up at your table so that it is still slightly moving by the time you eat it. While this does sound like a rather disturbing ceremony to witness, I would still like to try the dish just to say that I tried it. I have no aversion to eating squid after all, and I have heard a number of accounts of what it is supposed to be like, including one person saying that the tentacles stick to the roof of your mouth. While I am not sure that I will like the taste of it, I feel that it is something that I must experience while in Korea, just to say that I experienced it.



Bulgogi is what my kids like to refer to as "fire meat". It is a kind of (often spicy, as the nickname suggests) beef which is served in a number of restaurants and is often used as a meat for burgers, though I feel that this generic alternative is not quite as good as the real bulgogi. Though I am not a fan of spicy food, I am working myself up to trying this meat that I hear about all the time wherever I go. Let's hope that it is not as hot as the kids make it out to be.






Watch this space for more about the different kinds of food that I have tried. Next will be the kinds that I have found to be okay, but nothing that I would go out of my way to try (call it the overrated Korean food if you will) and the stranger foods that I haven't tried and am more hesitant to go near.

To read the next two part in the sequence, you can click here and here.