Seoul Food

One of the many perks of my job is the free food from different events on any given week. F-town has some mighty delicious establishments and all of my coworkers and I continually remark on our good fortune to be treated so often to the tasty fare. This past week, as per my usual duties as a consummate chamber hostess, was to welcome a new businesses to the city with the ever wonderful ribbon cutting ceremony.

It is always a treat when the business in question is a restaurant because my coworkers and I are more than obliged to be the food guinea pigs. This past week proved to be quite the example. We were treated like kings and queens to an authentic Korean tofu meal, complete with 30 minute blessing (in Korean), singing, praying, speeches, and a host of other official duties that I could better identify if I spoke Korean. Following the pomp and circumstance, the gracious hostess allowed everyone to actually order off the menu--not predetermined samples, but choose your own combo. So, I bravely chose a chicken teriyaki tofu combo and was satisfied. Until the appetizer arrived and my friends and I were graced by this delicacy:

Oh yes, a deep fried fish. I certainly was floored. Immediately I thought of My Boy and his travels to Africa and how he actually watched the entire process from his meals, beginning with selecting the meat, slaughtering the meat, cooking the meat, and finally enjoying the meat. I am more used steps 3-4, but hey, "when in Rome" as they say, so I dug in...and scored some bones in my teeth (truly I can't remember the last time I had bones in my fish.) I gave it a few good bites, and the actual meat part I had was good, but it was too messy to keep going.

Following our pre-poisson portion, we were brought lots of interesting things including kimchi, transluscent noodles, lasagna-like pillows, and a host of other things that were, well, interesting.
The steaming soup in the foreground is actually the tofu. It was the first time I had it and I really enjoyed it. The soup was a beef broth, so there were also chunks of beef with the tofu. My chicken teriyaki (I know, white girl forever) also came with this and some nice rice.

It was probably the most elaborate lunch I have ever had, and definitely not what I thought I'd be doing that Wednesday when I got up. It certainly put my yogurt/apple/cheese and crackers brown bag version to shame.