Colourful, Yummy, Irresistible

I have a friend who always asks me to order for her when we eat at a Korean restaurant.  May not surprise you if I confess that not too long ago, I was that friend!

Once, my mom called me from a restaurant, asking what she should expect, if she was going to order Kimchi for dinner. Well, I was more curious to know what kind of restaurant puts Kimchi on the menu! I’ve never ordered spoon to eat my soup, so why people should order Kimchi separately to eat with their dinner, don’t get me wrong! I’m not saying it should always be free; what I’m saying is that it definitely shouldn’t be on the meal section!

Reading this post is not going to turn you into a Korean food expert, neither will teach you how to make Korean food (I leave that for the food section!) or order in Korean, but hopefully, it will help you go home with a more satisfied taste bud, and a better understanding of your food.

So, let’s start:

What do Koreans eat? Imagine a country surrounded by water to the east, west, and south; and covered by mountains to the North. The geographical factors alone have put seafood, vegetable, and meat on the Koreans’ food supply’s list. You can divide Korean food into 3 groups of: main food such as rice, noodle, rice cake soup, or sujaebi (a flour based soup); supplementary food such as cabbage Kimchi, Radish, cucumber kimchi, green onion kimchi, seasoned sweet potato shoots, seasoned bean sprouts, and so on; there are also snacks that people eat to entertain their appetites. Rice cake, spicy chicken skewers, corn dogs, Korean pancake, and drinks like Hwachae, Soju, tea, and Makgeolli are in this category. Seeds make a huge portion of any family’s food supply. The major ingredient of any main, supplementary, and even snacks and drinks is usually one kind of grain or bean.

If you go to H Mart, buy everything that has something written in Korean on its package, and boil them all together, you will have a pot of mixed uneatable food supplies, but that is definitely not Korean food! Sorry, but you can’t make it Korean even if you try to eat it with other Koreans! What make a dish Korean are the spices… there is actually a saying among Koreans : “갖은 양념을 넣는다” which means various spices have to be added. Spices such as salt, black pepper, chili pepper, sugar, Sesame seeds, Sesame oil, garlic, onion, soybean powder, fish oil, ginseng, ginger, and soy sauce are an inseparable part of most Korean dishes. The spices only make the dish taste good while there is another group of ingredients that make it worth eating. I categorize them as “good for you” ingredients. This food category is extremely important to Koreans. In case of my previous home stay family, they would endure eating the worst things possible based on the fact that it is “good for you”. Of course not all of these ingredients taste horrible! Honey, omija, ginger, ginseng, chestnut, and peanut are in this category alongside all sorts of leaves and roots that can be dried, and boiled!

So far we covered the food part, but “when” you should eat a certain food is equally important to Koreans. There are stories and traditions behind consuming different types of food, and a lot of them have been backed up by science in modern age. Some of these traditions are so rooted in Koreans’ hearts that have become a strong part of the culture. Koreans eat rice cake, and food made with rice cake on New Year. They believe that it’s through eating the white rice cake that they can grow one year older. On Chuseok, the Korean equivalent of thanks giving, they eat Songpyeon. Seaweed soup should be eaten on the birthday, and on the years longest night, Koreans eat red bean soup. Before a big exam, they eat yeot and sticky food, but they definitely don’t eat seaweed soup because seaweed is slippery, and makes you fall, which means you will fail the exam! So you shouldn’t eat the soup even if it’s your birthday! And on those really hot summer days, when you don’t seem to be able to take one more step, samgyetang will put you back on your feet! Following these traditions still seems to be very important to Koreans, even though purchasing the food from vendors instead of cooking at home, on these special days, have become more popular among the younger generation.

Still don’t know what to order at a restaurant!? We are getting there!

Where does Gimbap go when it dies? It goes to “김밥천국”! If you haven’t been around Koreans long enough to pick this joke up, it means Gimbap Heaven, and it’s actually the name of a group of restaurants (I don’t know if they are chains or franchises) where you can find different types of Korean food in most of the categories I’ve mentioned earlier. The food tastes good, there is variety, and it’s affordable. You can always find a Gimbap Heaven near a university in Seoul. We had an inside joke in our school saying that we were paying for the owners Mercedes! There is an element of truth to that for sure…hahaha

What if you are not in Korea, or what if you are just going out for lunch or dinner with friends? What you should get? Well, I live in Vancouver, and here restaurants put a little bit of everything on their menu, and they add a bit of personal flavour to it. That being said, there are some main dishes that it’s good to be familiar with:

비빔밥 or Bibimbap

It’s one of the most famous Korean dishes. Bibimbap means mixed rice, and it’s served hot, or cold. A bowl of rice, seasoned vegetable, chili pepper paste, and a raw, or cooked egg, with the addition of meat, it’s optional, is definitely one of my top choices for a lunch!

   냉면 or Naeng Myeon or Cold Noodle

There are a variety of ingredients when it comes to the noodle, which makes it different in taste,    texture, and color. It is usually served in a steel bowl with ice cubes and cold broth. Some of the ingredients are boiled egg, beef, pear, and vinegar. The interesting part is that the noodle is traditionally  uncut and it represents long life.

떡갈비 or Tteokgalbi

This is very similar to western beef burger, but you eat the meat with rice instead of bread! There are seasonings, of course, but surprisingly there is no rice cake! It’s strange because that is what Tteok means!

불고기 or Bulgogi

Bulgogi is one of the world’s most famous dishes. It consists of marinated beef, chicken, or pork grilled with a variability of vegetables. It has some sort of sweetness to it, and it’s usually served with leaves that can be wrapped around the meat and the vegetables. Even writing about it makes me hungry! I gotta go check the fridge before I can continue this post!

 찜딹 or Jjim-Dalk

My favorite food! Steamed chicken mixed with various vegetables, sweet potato noodle, potato, and Korean soy sauce. When you order, they ask you how many chickens you want, and how much of spice you can handle! Try pouring the soup on top of your rice and ……… I will accept all kinds of thank you gifts and card 🙂

부대 찌개 or Budae Jjigae 

Budae Jjigae is a famous dish with a sad story. It goes back to the post war years when food supplies were very limited in Seoul. Around that time some people decide to make a spicy soup out of U.S. army’s food surplus; such as hot dogs and canned ham. The dish was popular back then, but very more popular now! Nowadays you can find ingredients such as cheese, instant noodle, beans, sausages, rice cake, tofu, chili pepper, and all sorts of vegetables in your Budae Jjigae.

김치 볶음밥 or Kimchi bokkeumbap

Do you like rice? Do you like kimchi? How about mixing them together, add the vegetables of your choice (or not), add the meat of your choice (or not), and fry them all together. Here is your meal, but seriously?! Are you really going to a restaurant and ask someone to mix your rice and kimchi?! You may wanna try this one at home!

갈비 or kalbi or Galbi or Short Ribs

Grilled ribs, usually marinated in soy sauce, served with leafy vegetables such as lettuce for wrapping the meat, ssamjang sauce, chili pepper paste, and all sorts of side dishes. The most popular type of Galbi is Sogalbi, or Soegalbi which means beef, but Galbi could also be made by chicken, and pork.

삼계탕 or Samgyetang

Do you remember when I talked about long, hot summer days? A whole young chicken filled with rice and cooked in water with Korean ginseng can replace the good things your body loses trough sweating and prevents illness.  A great healthy choice!

삼겹살 or Samgyeopsal

An evening with friends or co-workers, Soju, and thick slices of unmarinated and unseasoned pork belly (if you can eat pork), altogether creates a great combination, but don’t stop there! Add to that the fun of grilling the meat yourself while seating around the table and eating it directly from the grill. Don’t forget that side dishes and sauces are always present, as well as the lettuce!

떡볶이 or Tteobokki

Tteobokki is a very spicy snack food which you can find almost everywhere! What the main ingredient is? If you just look at it, you can tell; RED CHILI PEPPER! You can find rice cake, fish cake, instant noodle, and egg too, if you are brave enough to accept the challenge! I used to eat it only when I was really angry, but after a while the taste started to grow on me (or maybe I started to get angry more often), and as a result Tteobokki became part of my food list!

Of course there are so many other options if you are going to a Korean restaurant, but we are in the middle of the midterms, and even my lovely editors don’t expect me to write more than this! jk… There is such a strong visible link between tradition, culture, and food in Korea that makes it almost impossible to cover all of it in one blog post, certainly for a foreigner like me who is still learning! The best way to learn about Korean food is to make some Korean friends and start dining with them, or maybe I should say: dine with their family! Specially their moms…. or you can join our team when we go visit Korean restaurants in Vancouver usually over the weekends.

Keep you taste bud satisfied and good luck with your midterms!