KOREA

Korean cuisine is special for us. We spent 2 years there and, as students, we didn't quite afford Western food, so we jumped directly into spicy, unknown, scary Korean cuisine. Just like babies thrown in the ocean before knowing how to swim, we learnt, the hard way, to appreciate it.

We started our journey from Korea, on January 7th, 2007. This is St. John feastday, when Romanians everywhere celebrate people named after the saint. So we feasted in my honor, and what a feast it was.

As per Korean tradition, along with your order, the ajumma (old lady, used just as lady of the house) brings 100 other small dishes, pickled and spicy vegetables, salads with mayonnaise (I think this is something that gyopos - koreans from diaspora - brought back from US), famous kimchi (fermented cabbage swimming in hot pepper paste) and translucent soy noodles. SO no matter how small of a dish you order, your table is always full. This always gave me the impression of richness and wellbeing.

Which is wierd, considering the harsh times Koreans had no longer than 50 years ago. There are stories that say that didn't have meat, but only on special days, so their cuisine evoluted around vegetables. After the Korean war, when meat has become available, the average height of Koreans actually increased with several good centimeters in only 2 generations.

SO what we had at the Blue Stone restaurant:
- sam-gue-tang: rice and ginseng stuffed- chicken soup, one of my favorite because it's the known flavor of childhood chicken soup with a ginseng-longevity twist. Kinda tricky to eat though, because the chicken, very young and delicate cuts open and the stuffing comes out in your clear soup - resulting a very nasty-looking, still very tasty porridge. This is a favorite dish in the long, hot, humid Korean summer. The soup and the ginseng makes you perspire almost instantly, which is good for regulating the temperature of your body but it's embarassing if you are having a first date over the samghetang.

- dolsot bibimpap - a mix with rice and (unknown and sometimes undistiguishable) vegetables (and I think I spotted some octopus arms swimming along) in a hot stone bowl. And of course, on top, the fried egg (in US, because in Korea, we had the raw egg). When first brought, the dish looks like a big round head with a sole eye in the middle. After mixing, the colors of the vegetables complement the yolk-yellow teinted rice. Be careful not to touch the pot - when it says hot, it really is and actually the dish still simmers when brought, and if one is quick enough, one can hear the frying noise to the end of meal.

- (so) bulgogi. Deliciously marinated beef chunks, a little bit fried, on top of boiled vegetables, rice bowl complementary. Usually, in Korea, we got very little beef, Korean portions are usually a lot smaller than Korean-American ones. At the Blue Stone, our friend got a huge plate (also hot and simmering), that he fought long after I finished the soup and Ema the bibimpap. I think Bulgogi is the most advisable Korean dish for those foreigners who are not very culinary adventurous. It's not very spicy, it fills your stomach and, what the heck, it's just meat with rice. You can not go wrong with it. However, in my opinion, it's not like "eating Korean", it's just eating with a Korean name.

For those of you who are brave and curious, try the buldalk - a very spicy grilled chicken with rice water to go with. After several bites, my tongue was completely numb, I could barely speak. Drinking water helps for a mere second, after which the second shock wave shatters the tasting buds. The only pain relief - well, it's still much said - comes from a boiling water with brown rice inside.

At the end, we had the SOJU, the traditional Korean aloholic beverage, not very high in percentage, but still very difficult to stomach, by itself. Lucky for it, it's clear and has no particular taste, so it's role is to put alcohol in more friendly beverages: sodas or bear. The way to do it: take a big beer glass, fill it to the middle, put a small, empty glass inside, so it floats on the beer. Begin filling the small glass with soju. Just a little bit. Pass it to your friend in the right. He has to fill it a little bit more and pass it on. The one who manages to sink the small saju glass in the beer has to drink it all. AT once. Needless to say, this is why Korean have so many Karaoke bars.