Asian Food, Western Food

By random coincidence, these two videos just appeared right next to each other on my Facebook feed.



Actually enjoyable song, musically. And a pretty comprehensive tour of the Asian foods people call "weird."

And this one: "Korean girls eat American snacks"



My favorite part was when one started asking the person filming, "Did I do something wrong to you?"

Links here and there... and gross.

The discussion on sexism in the blogs was really interesting... I'll have more to say about it in another post -- I actually learned (or at least realized) some stuff from it.

Here are a few other links I've come by this week, and liked.

Once again, Stupid Ugly Foreigner has written a great post, this time about turning from a fresh-faced expat to a grizzled long-termer. How did I go so long before I found this blog?

The Diplomat on North Korea's Clumsy Assassins: They sure don't make Nork assassins like they used to.

Which is a great excuse to post this old propaganda video of North Korean army training. I've got to say, I love the clipped accents and cadences of North Koreans speaking English.


After Ms. Lee to Be's post about Konglish, and how English buzzwords get mangled into Korean business speak, because it sounds awesome sand, Yujin Is Huge has this post about the overdone bombast that is often the other way Korean self-important people (who might understand English, but don't understand how English is used) express themselves... in a way that uses our language, but into which we don't actually figure at all. Title: A world-class provider of world-leading pioneer technology that will remain competitive through fundamental adaptation to the paradigm shift.

And...  (warning: the following paragraphs contain opinion. If you are constitutionally opposed to the occasional gut reaction, do not read on. Look at this instead. Whoa.)

I went to Costco twice this week, once to get stuff, and once to return some of it... and I came across something that, honestly, grossed me out... as much as anything I've seen in my time in Korea.

As much as pigeons pecking at street pizza, as much as old men hocking loogies in the street... as much as middle-school girls hocking loogies in the street... I hadn't paid enough attention to notice it the last times I went to Costco, because I usually don't use the Costco restaurant, but on Monday I learned of the Costco Salad Bar.

What is the Costco Salad Bar?

Leave your dignity in your shopping cart.
Take a paper plate.
Go to the condiment table.
Grind the free onions into a small mountain in the middle of the plate.
Squirt a whole bunch of mustard on top of the onions.
Squirt between a little and a whole bunch of ketchup on there, too.
If you really feel fancy, squirt some of the sugar syrup meant for the coffee drinks on there, too.
If you ordered a hot dog, squeeze the pickle relish package in there, too.
Mix until it looks like chunky baby poop.
With fork, eat alongside whatever else you ordered.
Discard the uneaten 2/3, creating a disgusting mountain of wasted onions and mustard in the bottom of the compost can.
Ignore Costco employees watching you and performing facepalm after facepalm.
Leave dining area.
Collect dignity from shopping cart.
Resume ordinary life.

Image stolen from Zenkimchi.

Zenkimchi writes about it here: turns out this is not an isolated thing here in Korea. At the Costco I went to, about 30-55% of the tables had a Costco salad on one of the plates.

Normally, I just avoid the stuff I don't like or think is gross. I won't tell people not to eat this or that animal, or salad swimming in dressing, or the shredded cabbage/ketchup/mayonnaise gunk that was a side dish to the fantastic spit-roasted chicken at this place I used to go to. Avert the eyes, don't eat it, no sweat. but at least it was clear that's how you're supposed to eat the mayonnaise ketchup stuff, where Costco Salad reeks of "Hey! Free stuff!" (see also the equally classy Salad Bar Tower) -- both expressions of the same impulse that leads old ladies to bring ziplock bags to buffets, and stuff free plastic forks in their purse, and bend and twist the intended uses of things, just to maximize their exploitation of somebody's generosity in providing it for free.

Zenkimchi even posits an explanation, and manages to applaud the creativity -- fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, Koreans gotta have banchan, and will find a way, you know. Intellectually, I acknowledge this, but it was still just too much for me. Next time I need a Costco hotdog, I'm bringing a blindfold.

Maybe because it looked like the baby poo that's become a major part of my life rhythm? Anyway, I'm willing to look for the reason and sense behind most things, to seek out a perspective and a context. But this one just grossed me out, still does, and I'll be setting up a mental block instead. Yech.

Question of the Day: Chicken Pot Pie in Seoul?

Hello, dear readers.

The question of the day, from my fearless, small-faced friend Cynthia, is this:

Where the hell does one find a really tasty chicken pot pie in Seoul?

(image source)

I had a nice meat pie at Tartine in Itaewon, and an OK one at that Aussie bar up the hill between Itaewon and Noksapyeon.  Any other suggestions?

What's the point of kimchi? What's the point of ignorance?

So I just caught wind, through Mike, from TBS radio's twitter account @mikeontbs, of an article in the Guardian by a lady named Rachel Cooke, titled "What's the point of Kimchi"

Go read it.

Now, I'm not a huge fan of the boosterism thing, and I don't necessarily think that kimchi should be the main focus of attempts to promote Korean food abroad, because it isn't the most accessible of Korean foods (bulgogi is, and bibimbap's up there, as is chapchae, and those awesome fish-bread things you can buy on the street in the winter).  I don't believe Kimchi cures cancer, H1N1, bird flu, prolongs erections,  makes children learn to read faster, heightens spatial reasoning, improves TOEIC scores, increases resistance to the HIV virus, or does any of the other things Tom Waits claims it does in Step Right Up.



On the other hand, I'd also prefer if people writing about Kimchi around the world at least knew a damn thing about it.  Rachel Cooke tried Korean food a few times, didn't like kimchi the first time she tried it, because it reminded her of foul sauerkraut she once had, visited the Kimchi Field Museum in COEX's website, and wrote her article.  (I've been to the museum itself: it's no great shakes, frankly, but at least I've actually been there, eaten a whack of varieties of kimchi, and know enough about Kimchi to know a good kimchi from a bad one, and I didn't just find the Kimchi Museum's website through its wikipedia page after googling "Kimchi Information" and looking all the way to the second result.)

Now, if somebody walked into a newsroom, and said "Hey!  We need an article on Italian food!" and I was a member of that newsroom, I'd say "Gee. I have allergies to cheese and cream, and the strongest memory I have of Italian food is the smell of the burnt spaghetti sauce that got left on the stove while we were calling the ambulance after my father had that heart attack.  Since then I've avoided Italian food, so I'm not the best guy to write about it.  Find someone who actually knows about Italian."

I wouldn't have said "Hey!  I'll use those six hundred words to shit on Italian food without really knowing anything about it, and make my ignorance and avoidance of it a point of pride!"

Which is pretty much what Ms. Cooke did here.

I don't think netizens should publish her address on the internet and encourage Korean-English citizens who live near her to leave flaming bags of poop on her doorstep, I don't think VANK should engineer a DDOS attack on The Guardian's website, and I have no idea if Ms. Cooke is normally a very fair, well-informed and even-handed writer in the rest of her articles... but she sure ain't in this one.  And if she can dismiss the entirety of kimchi because of her few experiences with it, maybe I'll turn that same ignorance on her, and dismiss her entirety upon a tiny, ill-informed slice of information, and encourage her to piss up a rope.

Ms. Cooke: if you don't know anything about something, rather than flaunting your ignorance of it, next time I recommend you pass on the opportunity to make yourself look like an ignoramus, and let somebody else do the piece on Kimchi.

If the article is a troll to prompt "outrage hits" for The Guardian's website, shame on you and your editor for being so trashy.  If it isn't, shame on you and your editor for not seeing a problem with being so willfully ignorant of a national cuisine's signature dish.

And to The Guardian: if you want an article about Kimchi, I'll write one for you, or I'll recommend some people to you who actually know about Kimchi, and have strong opinions on it that are born of knowledge and fondness for Korean cuisine, instead of ignorance.

(by the way: the Urban Dictionary page for Kimchi is pretty funny, just because it's so easy to pick out which definitions were submitted by expats, and which were submitted by Koreans.)

Rant over.

Butterfinger Pancakes and Crappy Service in Restaurants Serving Western Food

In the comments of this post:

Let's go for a little name and shame.

Which restaurants have YOU been to, that should have known better (we're not talking "Halmoni Kimbap" here: we're talking about places that look, and charge, as if they ought to know their asses from a hole in the ground, in regards to service).  Let me know who the worst offenders are in the comments.


Fact: there are a bazillion restaurants in Seoul.  This means, I operate on a "one strike and you're out" policy.  If a restaurant can't impress me the first time, I won't waste my time going back to give them a second chance: other restaurants deserve a first chance more than that place deserves a second, after underwhelming me before.  The only time I bend on this is when it is enthusiastically advocated by someone whose food taste I trust (right now, that's a list of about four people, and I'm not telling you who they are... but two of them have names that start with J.)


So then...


A few months ago, in a fit of righteous outrage, I tore a strip through the horrible, horrible, insultingly neglectful service I encountered at Passion Five, one of those so-stylish-I-want-to-punch-myself-in-the-face restaurants near Hangangjin station.

Lesson learned: beautiful design is a yellow flag in Korean restaurants.  Of the ten worst service experiences I've had in Korean restaurants, about eight of them were in really nice-looking places.  Not ALL beautifully designed places are crap, but let's just say nice looks is NOT assurance of good food, or good service.

Three seasons later, if you google "passion five Korea" look what comes up: 

Passion Five, you've been google-bombed, and deservedly so!  I've made clear what I want in return for taking down the post (see the end of the post)

Until then, you frankly deserve to be slammed by google, for the atrocious, insulting service you gave me and my group.

And today, Butterfinger Pancakes gets theirs.

I'd heard a LOT about Butterfinger: how the food was just like home... but not crappy "just like home" (a la Denny's Korea) but GOOD "just like home" with waffles and pancakes worth the trip to Kangnam.

My friend Chris, who lives in South Korea, was having a birthday party for the lovely Lady in Red (who is an awesome human being, by the way).  He invited a crew over to Kangnam, and staked a place in line for a big group: about ten.  They said "Oh.  ten?  That'll be about an hour."

No sweat: we went to a Krispy Kreme to pass the time.

An hour later, we came back to Butterfinger.  "Oh. You guys again..." (inner monologue: we were hoping you'd get discouraged by the one hour wait and piss off) "we don't have a place to seat you.  Twenty more minutes."

Twenty minutes go by: now we're standing in the cold.  "Five more minutes.  And you have to sit at different tables." (no problem, guy. Can you just friggin' seat us now?)

Buddy goes upstairs to use bathroom: sees other groups getting seated before us, and no tables cleared for a group.  After an hour and a half.  Ten more minutes, several more inquiries (each time being told, "five more/ten more minutes"), still no movement (that's for those of us waiting for tables; I can't speak for the person who went to the bathroom).

Finally, we gave up and headed for a Burger King.  Wifeoseyo and I had a long to-do list that had included eating with the fine people at The Lady In Red's birthday party, but we couldn't because Butterfinger Kangnam couldn't get their poop in a scoop.

So, dear Butterfinger Pancakes Kangnam: 

Maybe your food is good.  I don't give a damn.  I'm avoiding you, and telling all my friends and readers to avoid you as well.  Hell, I can probably make better pancakes at home, anyway, and now that Costco exists, I no longer have to grovel to the shitty service gods to get my bacon fix.  We agreed to be seated at different tables, and we agreed to wait for an hour, and then waited in the cold for twenty minutes more, and twenty more: we were obliging as hell and got nothing except a chill, frustration, and a hunger headache from you.

There are easy ways to get around pissing off a widely read blogger or five (and a number of the people in that group were bloggers, and I hope every one of them tears Butterfinger a new asshole for treating our crew customers so badly).

1. Have a maximum group size policy for weekends.  Train your staff to be clear about it.

2. Have a maximum table size policy for weekends (ie: if your group's larger than six, we reserve the right to seat you at different tables)  Train your staff to be clear about it.

3. Train your door staff to seat people in the order they come in, and in how to set out tables for large groups.

4. Don't say "five minutes" when it's actually going to be twenty minutes.

There are probably other solutions, too.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time I've come across such crappy service in restaurants serving non-Korean food: the Passion Five incident has left such a bad impression that I've almost entirely avoided stylish looking places since then, as well as Fusion Food restaurants, and any place of which somebody tells me "they're famous these days".

Expat Jane's beef with slow, obnoxious service at Smokey's Saloon in Itaewon is well documented: it's surprising how many people I know have complained of the crap service there.

Personally, I had another atrocious experience at Jacoby's: 

Other bloggers have blissed fondly over the lovely burgers there, but my friend (another prominent food blogger), and I decided to finally try Jacoby's out one day.  We were told we'd have to wait an hour, so we gave them our phone number [they had our phone number] and instructions to call us when a table opened up.  We headed out and had a breadstick at a nearby bakery to tide us over.  An hour later, absent a call, we came back, expecting to be seated promptly.  People who had not been in line when we came, and people who had been behind us in line were already seated.  My friend asked where our table was, and they said, "Oh. You have to wait."  

"Why didn't you call us?  But those people got seated ahead of us; they weren't in line when we came by."

"Yes they were."

That's right.  Instead of trying to make peace with an unhappy customer who's hangry and annoyed, they lied to our faces.  We didn't drop the "You know we're famous bloggers" card, because it shouldn't have to come with that...

however, I've lost all interest in Jacoby's burgers.  If their wait staff is lying to customers' faces in order to save face, I'm not interested.  And every time a friend is looking for a burger, I qualify my mention of Jacoby's with "I got really shitty service there."

Maybe it's good I didn't go in and order at Butterfinger, and give them a chance to get my order wrong, because that would have led to a whole other outrage...

But to be fair, here's one good thing about Butterfinger Pancakes: 

It's near a building that looks cool.

But the larger question is,

why do all of these restaurants offer such horrible service to paying customers?

Zenkimchi Joe has a theory.  And a little more.

Fatman Seoul has two bits to add as well.

But what it boils down to is this:

If you're serving western food to western people or in the western style, at the usual prices for good western food here (and almost everybody in that Butterfingers' was western, or going there to fulfill their sex and the city brunchy handbag western fantasies, as were most of the Jacoby-ites). give a damn about western service, too!

If you're serving kalguksu at a hole in the wall, be as gruff as you want: I'm there to fill up, you know it, and I know it - I'm not an idiot, and I know different kinds of dining come with different kinds of service expectations... but if your place is high end, or reputed to be high-end (I'm looking at you, Outback), then I come in with some modest expectations about a modicum of decent service.  

If you're not going to train your wait staff to be attentive, put a bell on the damn table.  Maybe burger joints in Canada don't have table bells... but if it means I'll get extra ketchup without spending twenty minutes trying to ESP the waiter over to my table, I'll deal with it.

And if your place is designed real pretty, pay the wait staff an extra 500 or 1000 an hour to retain them longer, and make it worth it to train them in how to not piss off widely read bloggers, and general customers.  That shit doesn't matter to everyone, but it does matter.  Not all of us like shouting "YOGIYO" over the violin quartet playing in the corner.  You're charging 18000 won for a plate of spaghetti.  Don't tell me you can't put a little of that into competent wait staff.

If your place serves food that Westerners crave after eating jiggaes for a month out in the countryside, you know, maybe you've got all those folks over a barrel, and they'll take whatever long wait and crappy service you can pinch out, because they need their pancake-maple fix... but don't expect us to be happy about being treated like cattle, and don't expect to get through it without people who DO give a damn about service, and aren't just ravenous for "real" bacon getting pissed off to high heaven at your arrogance.

[update] I've been asked by a few people to put this list, which I posted in the comments, in the actual post, to increase the chance it'll be read: so here it is.  Here's what I expect when I'm paying more than 15000 won for an entree.  I don't think these are unreasonable, given that I probably also ordered a soup, or a salad, and some drinks.

water refills/another pitcher/whatever either without shouting at someone, or without waiting more than three minutes

knowledgeable about the menu, and/or willing to ask the chef (eg: about allergy-specific ingredients) rather than making something up (this goes back to knowledgeable about the menu)

able to relay special requests to the chef - salad dressing on the side? no problem

brings main dishes out all at the same time (if it's western food); brings out appetizers and soups in timely ways (if it's a course meal)

checks by from time to time to see if everything's ok

if refills are free, comes by to offer refills, or check for empty glasses - even once a meal will satisfy me on this count.

refills my glass with water when it's empty

gets the orders right, and writes things down if necessary

if something I ordered isn't available, they come out and tell me, instead of giving me something else and hoping I don't notice.

is nearby enough, and attentive enough, to spot, and come promptly, if they see someone trying to get their attention

and I know enough Korean that all these issues can be dealt with in Korean: I'm not even asking the wait staff to be conversant in English (that WOULD be arrogant of me) 

and, of course: my expectation of service like that depends also on the price scale of the place. 4500 for a heaping plate of bokkeumbap? I'll happily get my own water and kimchi for that.

12000 for a bibimbap? I'd like someone to come by and pour my water for me, thanks. If I wanted 3500 won bibimbap service, I'd have gone to a 3500 won bibimbap place.

Butterfinger, I offered an olive branch to Passion Five, on what they could do for me to take my rant offline.  I'm not offering that to you, because I didn't even see inside the door of your place, and I'm insulted by the lack of regard for the customers who had been waiting the longest to eat your food.

You'll never see me at your restaurant again.

Rant.

Over.

So where did YOU get crappy service at a restaurant?  Let me know in the comments.  Best story wins.

Listen to the Customer, By Gum! Bad Service in Korean Restaurants

Turns out I'm not the only one to be sourly discontent with restaurant service culture here in Korea.  I wish I'd known about this (old) post when I was writing up my screed about Passion 5 (great bakery, HORRIBLE service in the restaurant) -- Joe hits the nail on the head, and touches on most of the same points I did, but better, and more thoughtfully.

It's vindicating to read.  So... Zenkimchi on "Korean restaurants have sh***y service" part one
And part two: "Korean restaurants don't know their asses from their elbows about making customers happy."

To go with my piece: Nice design = crappy service.

I won't feel totally vindicated until I have an apology from Passion 5, in the form I asked at the end of my rant.  But at least somebody agrees with me.

All of this also amounts to further support for why I almost actively avoid foreign restaurants while I'm in Korea.  Why bother?  It's overpriced, often pretentious, and the wait staff (often/usually) doesn't know how to give western-style service anyway.  Why not go to a Korean restaurant, where at least the service is what you expect, and the dining atmosphere and style fit the type of service?

PS: Fatman Seoul also adds a discussion of restaurant service culture in Korea, which is worth reading, here.

2S2 Anguk: Get Your Coffee Snob On!

Hey there coffee lovers!  Hope you're well... you may have heard of this thing called 2S2 that I regularly plan -- it's a come-as-you-are expat-and-anyone-else get-together aimed at meeting and making connections.

Well, this week, I'd like to share something that's given me much joy lately: coffee!  See, lately, in the Gyeongbokgung Station area, I've been finding a whole slew of amazing coffee shops, and I'd like to share them with my readers and friends.

So if you're free this Saturday, at 2pm, I'll be on the second floor of Twosome Place, near exit 1 of Anguk station, and anybody who comes out to meet up, will be treated to a coffee shop crawl of the neighborhood west of Gyeongbok Palace.  There are a handful of places there selling a variety of great beans, and slow-drip coffee, siphon coffee, and other stuff; they are also selling top-quality beans, and if you're a Seoul-based lover of coffee, I'll level with you, and tell you that you really need to come out and find out about these places!

Show up at 2pm, and don't be late: we'll be leaving fairly promptly, because the coffee at twosome place doesn't stack up, compared to the awesome places we'll visit thereafter.

Stop having these kinds of coffee experiences: (discarded dishwater coffee handed out before a concert I attended once)

and start having experiences like this:

and this... if it were coffee, instead of ice rink:

and this... not that luwak's on the menu, but you might make the face I make when I smell, and then sip it...

The best thing about living in Korea...?

So I got stuck in a traffic jam this morning - more about driving in Seoul sometime soon, now that Wifeoseyo and I got a car...

but I have been accused of too much bitching on my blog lately, so it's time for something positive.

First off, being married is great.  Wifeoseyo is a champ, in every respect, and it's been an awesome time so far.  Got to hang out with the in-laws last weekend, and my one-year-old niece is super-cute, too.  She likes me.  We're only at the waving and smiling point so far, but that's OK with me.

Anyway, this last week, I've been taking full advantage of one of the things I love the most about Korea, and here it is:

Monday: grilled Mackerel, in a long-standing, well-known restaurant in my neighborhood: crisped brown, perfectly salted, purple rice (healthier) on the side.  4000 won.

Tuesday: hot pot bibimbap: the pot is so hot that the rice scorches against the inside of the bowl in which the bibimbap is served; I mix it, and then press the mixed rice against the sides of the bowl, to maximize the scorched flavor and texture.  Best bibimbap I've had in the city (as always, the best bibimbap, hands down, is in those little restaurants at the bottoms of mountain trails, right after climbing a mountain, but short of climbing a mountain, this is great).  The old ladies at this place know me, and know that I don't eat the "Yakult" cup, so they don't set it out on my tray.

Wednesday: maybe on Wednesday I'll go to "Halmoni Kalguksu" near Jongno 3-ga, in a tiny back-alley near subway exit six.

The old ladies there have kept their prices the same since the 1980s, according to wifeoseyo, who read about them, and they plan to continue that way until they die.

Plus, they're really cute old ladies:

Their kitchen is pretty sweet, too.

And maybe on Thursday, I'll head down to the dark, slightly sketchy street near my workplace, where you can pay 6000 won for a seafood pancake (해물파전) that's crisp, delicious, fresh, and big enough that two people can't finish it together in one sitting.

See, you never know where you'll find a brilliant gem of a restaurant - the narrowest back alley might bend around and reveal a line up out the door and around the next corner, where you'll eat your fill and then some from a few people who actually take pride in serving great food for a low price.  I'll tell you what: where I'm from, if the soup became famously delicious, it wouldn't take long for the soup's price to reflect the degree of fame it had achieved.  

I've heard Japanese food is great - but you've gotta seriously pay for the best of it.  I've heard French cuisine is similarly great - if you don't mind paying through the nose.  But in Korea, the best - seriously, the best Korean food, the most authentic Korean food experience, the most delicious food, and the food that reminds your Korean friends of their childhoods, is usually cheap as anything, loaded with more side dishes than you can eat, and in unpretentious farmhouses, or in bare-bones simple hole-in-the-wall restaurants in a back alley where directions to find it go like this: "Turn left, and then right, and then left, and then right, and if you reach the old lady husking garlic cloves on her front porch, you've gone too far."

And I love it.

Halmoni Kalguksu (pictured above) is closed on Sundays, and don't go during lunch hour, because the line goes out the door.  Here's the google map:

View Halmoni Kalguksu in a larger map

Inwang Mountain and JjimDalk: Awesome Day

Given such fantastic weather, Girlfriendoseyo, Mom-in-law-oseyo, and I climbed Inwang-san, or Inwang Mountain, this Saturday.

The mountain was in fine form, with cherry blossoms and magnolias still in bloom.

The tree cover had pink peeking through.

The air was clear enough to see from Inwang Mountain, all the way to the 63 Building on Yeouido.

Girlfriendoseyo playing with her dog.  Cherry blossoms through the opening in the wood grove.

Mother-in-law-oseyo loves the mountain.

After a good climb on the mountain, we had a special treat in store: Andong JjimDalk.  Andong JjimDalk is so good, that it's just not worth eating it anywhere except in Andong... but Girlfriendoseyo heard that some of the JjimDalk restaurants in Andong will actually deliver their recipes to you in Seoul, if you order them a few days ahead of time.  Girlfriendoseyo did exactly that.  We'd been planning a jjimdalk party sometime, but before we ordered it to eat with a bunch of friends, we wanted to try it, and make sure it was the same stuff on deliveray, as it was in Andong.  After climbing the mountain, Mother-In-Law-oseyo warmed up the recipe that had been delivered, and readers... it was almost as good as making the trip to Andong.


A bit closer:

And this, readers, is a picture of a full, and happy Roboseyo.

Bravo my life!

And then, on the way home, I saw something amazing: on the subway, this old lady got on the subway, and fell into the most amazing kimchi squat I've ever seen. She curled into a tiny ball on her heels, fell just about asleep, and no matter which way the train pitched, rolled, accelerated, and decelerated, she stayed put. I've never seen a kimchi squat so stable. People were getting on and off near her, and bumping her, and she was unperturbed. Impressive.

Food Bloggers Unite! We need This!

This is the continuation of the "iPod Touch" post I wrote about Hi Expat.

Maybe this is just my fantasy, but here's the thing I'd really, really love to see: these days, there's tons of useful info about good eats around Korea out there, but it's scattered into so many places one needs the skills of a librarian and the patience of a turtle-trainer to really get the most useful details... and seeing the mini-maps on Hi Expat's page, got me thinking, "Why isn't it all on one huge google map?" -given that Korea changes so quickly, books don't really cut it anyway, especially on the restaurant scene, where places open and close all the time. A a wiki is a living document that can be constantly updated: exactly what we need.

So here's the idea: I don't have the tech savvy or the time to do it myself, but I'm sure it could be done: you know how everybody just KNOWS that The Korean Blog List is the starting point for every ambitious Would-blog-Expat? Well, I'd really like to see the food writers in Korea get together for a crowd-source-ish wiki-map of all the places they've collectively scouted out, all across Korea: you'll find one of Gangnam, or Jongno, or Jeonju, but imagine if it were all gathered into one place?

Here are the things I think it would need:
1. curators - to remove restaurants flagged by users for either being inaccurate/incompletely reviewed, or having closed, and to maintain at least some standards (Do we really need that MacDonalds in Guri marked? Really?)

2. a system for flagging a restaurant review, or a restaurant, for either incomplete or inaccurate information, or a restaurant that has closed since its review. Maybe a set of guidelines for when to flag a review, and when not to, so as not to waste time on "I totally disagreed with this reviewer's rating for service"

3. a way to add feedback to existing reviews (a second opinion) - HiExpat's restaurant guide has a good system for doing this. Maybe even a button to click if a review's been up for a few years to say, "This restaurant is still in existence" because I know how much it sucks to get a jones for a food, only to show up and have the place gone.

4. a standardized rating system including scores for price, menu, quality, service, atmosphere, and English spoken. (zenkimchi dining has a pretty good system)

5. a way to ban reviewers who violate a simple set of guidelines, or post spam links
6. when you click on a pin to see a preview of the location (see below)
the window that pops up should contain this information:

-links to any reviews of that location (if users can submit these themselves, it would save the curators time)

-a box you can check to flag it (for inaccurate reviews, dead links, no-longer-existent restaurants, or links that don't lead to reviews)

-a summary of the reviews so far (average overall rating or something)

-maybe (and I'm getting greedy here) a check box like at Amazon.com that shows "23 out of 31 people found this review useful" - but that might be getting a bit crowded.

6. searchable tags for entries (Chinese/Japanese/Indian/Vegetarian/Kangnam/Itaewon/Bundang/budget/romantic/etc.)

Whoever puts this together first wins.

Readers: in the comments, which websites have are the most useful food info for you, when you're, say, looking for "a chinese restaurant in Jamsil" or "shabu shabu in Jongno" or the like?

I've made one map - here it is - about finding good food in Jongno. Feel free to enjoy all the places here.

View Where Brian Should Eat: Jongno and Insadong in a larger map

Finally, this wouldn't be complete if I didn't plug the guy who totally gave me a free iPod Touch in the last post:

Go to Hi Expat and submit a few reviews of the places on his restaurant listings!

iPod Touch from HiExpat... sweet!

It's time for a bravo my life update readers. A few weeks ago, I got word about a new website called HiExpat. It's a page run by a guy named Dan, and he and his buddy are working to get it off the ground, to carve out a little corner of the Koreanets for themselves.

One way they tried to do that was by having a little contest: the submitters of restaurant reviews had a chance to win holycrapaniPodtouch!!!

I'd already been thinking about getting some kind of mobile device anyway, so if I could have a chance to get one for free, well, giddyup! I got on that restaurant review board like Tiger Woods on a well-contoured, attractive. . . fairway, and even requested he add some of my faves to the list.

Well, happy to say, after getting my verbosity on and pounding out a whack of reviews, and then writing the webmaster and asking him to add a few more of my favorite restaurants, so I could review them, too, I hammered out as many as I could (meaning six) before the deadline.

I got a message that I'd won the contest, and went down to Itaewon on my night off to collect my prize. It's pretty sweet. I'm pretty proud of myself for having put nothing but productivity programs on it so far -- save that silly lightsaber app that everybody thought was cool two years ago -- Here's the post about the contest from Hi Expat.

It's given me a lot of thoughts about mobile technologies that I'll share with you sometime, and given me a clearer picture of what I want for the next mobile device I buy (gonna need 4g or something: this searching for wifi hotspots thing is cramping my style) but for now, let's leave it at a simple squee over the joy of getting a new toy: I've been playing with it almost nonstop ever since I got it, and it's awesome. Here's me showing off my swag: (from Hi Expat's write-up on the contest)

Now, anyone who gives me free stuff totally gets a write-up on the blog, so let me tell you a bit more about Hi Expat:

Hi Expat is a pretty cool website so far. And I'd say that even if they didn't give me an iPod touch, and writing this post was NOT a precondition of my winning the iPod touch, so's you know - that was never requested, nor even implied. However, I've been looking around Hi Expat, and I had a nice talk with Dan, who just started the site in its current form. His head's in the right space for a guy trying to create something useful for expats online, and he's committed to keeping it "positive and productive" (those were the words he used).

(useful pages include: preparing to move here and places to volunteer in Seoul - if this keeps up, the site's shaping up to be as useful as the Seoul City Blog.)

Along with the job board, Hi Expat has a nifty restaurant review section where you can submit reviews of restaurants listed, and if your restaurant isn't listed, you can request one. It's as easy to use as the mini-review section on Zenkimchi Dining, but because each restaurant is added manually by the site administrator, each review also comes with a little google map of how to find it - extremely useful in a city like Seoul, where street numbers are an afterthought.

I'm happy to see an increase in people setting out to write English blogs that are useful for others coming to Korea - that's heartening to me, as that inherited knowledge about how to have a good time, and where to eat and such is a crucial factor to enjoying life in the ROK. It used to be (back when I first came, and hooker hill was uphill both ways), that the only way you'd hear about those places is if a coworker showed you personally, and you were well-oriented enough to remember how to find it back. Pretty sweet that we're no longer at that point.

I'm going somewhere with this... and the lady outside my window is having a sweet shouting meltdown... but for now, I'll post this about my cool new iPod Touch and say: go visit Hi Expat... and propose my idea for a Korean eating guide on the next post.

By the way, while we're on the "I'm famous" theme, I also just got linked on Korean News Feeds: a total honor.

Passion 5: Nice Design = Crappy Service, and Why Gangnam Restaurants Suck

[Update: I've revisited this topic]

It's ridiculous that it is this way, but what can you do (except complain, warn your friends, and go elsewhere).

OK. Now I'm not that picky, really, about restaurants. Like Zenkimchi Joe, I'm more an enthusiast than a critic, but there are some things I won't abide, and every once in a while - not often - I have an experience that actually upsets me.

Dear readers, I'd like to share a particularly unpleasant experience I had. See, down by Hangangjin Station, between Hangangjin and Itaewon, there's this really, really cool building. It's big and black and beautiful, and in the middle, there's this amazing shining, shimmering, spinning chandelier. I've noticed it and thought about going in there for a long time, readers, out of curiosity at what's going on in such a cool looking building. It's feng shui was fenging me shui down the block!

The Chandelier.


Other bloggers have written about it: the bakery gets good reviews. Even from me. Dan Gray, who likes fusion foods and fancy design with good presentation, has posted on it a number of times.

And famous people like to go there. I saw Jeon Jihyun there once. And a friend spotted a famous politician.

nice looking place.

I managed to eat there for a brunch once with my nemesis Dan Gray once, and met a girl named Amy. She was nice, too. Smart. And the food was alright. Portions on the small side. A bit pretentious: you're not allowed to take pictures inside the building. Your food's too good for pictures? Really? Is it vampires?

Look at that: a place that looks that nice MUST have good food and great service, mustn't it?

Well, that's what I'm here to tell you. A couple of weekends ago, it was time to go again, this time for a mini-meeting of some bloggy people, talking about some stuff that might be coming up on the horizon. (oh ain't I such a tease!) I arrived a bit late, joined with the meeting proceedings, and grabbed a menu: I hadn't eaten that morning, in order to especially enjoy my food.

Well, I got the menu, chose what I wanted, and waited.

and waited.
And waited.

We were a table of about 15, and they made us wait. And we were in painfully plain view of the entrance, where the greeter (oh wait: this one had fancy decor, so it must have been a maitre'd) seated people and took your money, and they could see us look around anxiously, and then hungrily, and then angrily, and they made us wait.

and then they came and took orders for drinks... and left.

And we waited more.

But the design of our little cubby hole booth was very nice. We had lots of time to admire it.

And then they brought us our drinks, but didn't stick around to take orders; maybe that was somebody else's job.

And that somebody didn't come. And didn't come, and didn't come. I was ready shatter one of the water glasses on the ground just so somebody would come to our table...

Approaching desperation, finally we flagged someone down, possibly with the help of a referee's whistle... and asked them to come and take our orders.

We ordered. I told them, in Korean, that I have a milk allergy, and that I'm allergic to milk, sour cream, cream, and cheese. I pointed at a menu item and asked if it had cheese on it. The guy said it would be OK. I ordered it.

Twenty minutes later, three of our group got their food. The person who brought the food was very well-dressed and groomed, and nice to look at.

The dishes were beautiful. My food didn't come. But the dishes were beautiful.

Twenty more minutes later, we asked them where the rest of our food was.

Ten minutes later, my food came. It was a spaghetti-ish dish. It looked really nice -- attractively presented, as were all the meals. Very attractive. And the staff were well-dressed. And the restaurant's decorations were very nice. Very very nice. And that chandelier... like I said before: wow!

And then I looked a little closer at my food. There were these funny little whitish things on top of it. Maybe shaved ginger - it being a fancy fusion place, you never know what they might put on top of your pasta! Or maybe it was some kind of radishy thing: a taste explosion, perhaps!

It was cheese.

It took about an hour to order, about an hour for my food to arrive (and I was HUNGRY, readers) and the one thing I told them I COULDN'T eat was on the dish they SAID it was OK to order. I didn't send it back, because I didn't want to still be there at freaking closing time. And it wasn't quite enough food to totally satisfy me either. And that and a cup of coffee was 25000 won. It was like being mugged by a guy wearing armani.

The food tasted OK, but I'm never going there again. I don't care who you are.

Oh yeah: I forgot to mention: three THREE people didn't get their food at ALL.

The name of the place is Passion 5. Avoid it.

Somebody tried to excuse them because they appeared understaffed... but how is it MY problem that the restaurant manager didn't bring in enough people to deal with brunch, on a Sunday, in a stylish place... they were surprised people came on Sunday brunch, the best brunch time of the week?

I commented, between the crap service, the nice decor, the outrageous prices, the small portions, and the beautiful presentation of so-so food (it was nicer than the Pomodoro chain, but not ENOUGH nicer to justify double the price), that even though they were Itaewon, they'd managed to succeed in their attempt to convince their diners that they were in Gangnam.

And everybody laughed the knowing laugh that means "Yeah. I've had overpriced mediocre food with beautiful presentation and shit service in a stylish restaurant in Gangnam a BUNCH of times, too."

And this is what it boils down to: If you're new in Korea, remember this:

The nicer a place looks in Korea, the better the design, the more likely you're going to get shit service, and pay through the nose for it, and end up feeling like you've been mugged. Don't go there until two people whose taste in food you trust ENTHUSIASTICALLY recommend it to you. (This is also my rule for all italian restaurants in Korea: there are so many that it just means there's a lot of mediocre italian out there.)

And if you're a Korean Food Promotion Ministry guy, listen up, because this is for you: THE FANCIEST RESTAURANTS: THE ONES THAT KOREAN TOURISM ALWAYS WANTS TO PROMOTE, ARE ALMOST INVARIABLY MY WORST EATING EXPERIENCES IN KOREA.

This is not to say there are no stylish restaurants with good food and good service. Of course not. I've been to a few. Some were amazing, and worth every penny. But every time I HAVE gotten pretentious service and overpriced, mediocre food, it's been in a restaurant just too damn stylish to even look at.

But cards on the table: The best Korean food, for one thing, is the cheap, hearty, farmer food. The bibimbaps and the jigaes and the seolongtangs, that are messy, spicy, flavorful, and cheap. The best Korean restaurants are the little ajummah places out in a back alley, where you have to know how to find it, or you never will, and at lunch on a tuesday there's a lineup out the door. I've had slow service, but always a reasonable price and great food, in the dinky hanoks where I've eaten. (The fancy restored ones... jury's out, because I can't afford the 70 000 won per person those kinds of Hanjeongshik places serve... but I bet the jigae jip is better)

For another thing, it seems, again and again and again, that the nicest, fanciest looking restaurants really feel like they can, or ought to be able to, get by on the sheer amazingness of the design of the place, and not have to back it up with a quality menu, or any kind of service at all. I'm convinced that they're not selling themselves as places that serve food, but places to be seen. Try to convince me otherwise. Tell me the waffles at that dumb cafe in Samchungdong really are better than the cheaper ones elsewhere, and that they're worth 15000 won or whatever.

I'm not saying the service at the little mom and pop places is the best all the time... but first of all, they're not charging 20 000 won a plate now, are they? That changes my expectations a bit.

(my favorite expression of "Expectations are different, stupid" - Jon Stewart, on Crossfire - 7:15 "You're on CNN! The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls!")

Also, at least at the old ajummah place, you're allowed to shout down a waiter and ask for what you want, or just get up and get it yourself. Korean food, Korean service: it works! And it's satisfying; hell, it's even a fun part of the Korea experience, to holla for an extra dish of naengmyeon, or to get up and bring back handfuls of plastic cups of water for everyone at the table! At Passion 5, after the first hour, I'd have been happy to see a 스파게티는 셀프 sign, to step up to a grill and cook the damn spaghetti myself.

In the fancy places, it sometimes seems like the wait staff was trained to wait for a chogiyo, but everybody feels like they can't shout, because this is a "nice" place, and in the absence of a chogiyo, they think nobody needs any service. People trained in Korean "Chogiyo!" service at a "western" style restaurant where the waiters are (in the western style) supposed to come by and check on you, is about the worst combination I can think of - about as ill-suited as a foot fetishist inviting a leg amputee to salsa lessons on a blind date.

So, to the fancy restaurants in Korea: Listen up and listen good.

I don't give a cracking booger if the owner of your restaurant was on TV.
I don't care if your chef apprenticed at a four-star restaurant in Paris.
I don't care if you spent a bazillion dollars on your layout and design, and if my chair is made of gold leaf, and my plate is a 3000 year old restored artifact from ancient China. YOU'RE A RESTAURANT! Give me good FOOD!
Train your staff in the style of the restaurant you are: if you're western style, train them to come by from time to time and check up on people.

Teach your waiters to know what's on the menu, and to check with the chef rather than to freaking lie if they can't answer a question about the menu! I actually appreciate when waiters run to the kitchen to check about dairy, because it shows they actually care that I get food I can eat. Some people have deadly food allergies.

Bring out the food at the same freaking time if you're a restaurant that serves food in individual portions, rather than big pots for everybody to share.

That's the barest, barest of service expectations, and I really don't care if your waitresses are all dressed the same, and are as pretty as those girls in the Korean Air ads, if they can't get my order and my food in a timely fashion, answer questions about the menu, and check in if I need anything.


And Passion 5: you took it pretty hard in this one. But frankly, I'm furious at you! Your service was insulting. If I'd been alone, I would have refused to pay, and made a scene. You just got Google bombed. Choke on it. I choked on my cheesy spaghetti. Twice. Ask the guy next to me, who had to move out of the way twice so I could walk past him and scuttle off to the bathroom to choke in privacy.

Rant over.

[Update: as of June 9 2010, this post is STILL the top google hit for "Passion 5." Still waiting for the apology. I'm a reasonable man. I'll happily retract this story for a bribe.]

Kopi Luwak: The World's Rarest Coffee. Yep. roboseyo drank cat poo coffee

Kopi Luwak: it's not a myth.

it's a real coffee, made from beans that have passed through a civet cat who has a knack for picking only the best coffee beans on the entire plantation, to eat.

It's a really rare delicacy, but my buddy Bryan (you can see him in the video) knew a place in Hongdae where we could get some. So, of course, we had to get some. Bryan explains more. And hang on for the reactions after we make the coffee and try it.

And of course, we made a Youtube video about it.

If you want to try the amazing cat poo coffee for yourself, you can go to Kaldi Coffee Club, up and around the corner from exit 4 of Hongik University Subway station. Here's their website, and their phone number. 02 335 7770, and here's a map of how to find them.

2S2 January: a rousing success!

Happy music: Mass Romantic, by The New Pornographers. Glee.


So 2S2 happened again on Saturday. First of all, I'm thrilled to report that Wonju had a 2S2 of their own, over there, and they had an awesome time. You can read about it at the 2S2 Blog, and you can go to my superstar buddy Danielle's blog and tell her how wonderful she is.

This picture is a teaser: for the full write-up of the 2S2 get-together on Saturday, you'll have to go to the 2S2 Community blog.





Tee hee. Snow on trash.


This sweet New Year's ice sculpture was on the way from one place to another.


the good thing about this picture is my nemesis Dan Gray giving me his "seduction" face. Look out, ladies.

The bad thing is I'd urged him to make a more embarrassing pose, and he refused. I'm very disappointed that he's figured out not to do that stuff when my camera's out. For my readers, even more so: we're going to have to find somebody else to tease and/or embarrass with silly pictures.


footprints on one of those bench blocks in Insadong.


#2 bummer of the weekend (#1's personal)

We headed to my favorite spiced wine shop. It was not far from the 2S2 meetup. I led a whole group of about 20 of my good friends and Dan Gray's food fans...

to a missing cafe.

See, one of my favorite things in the world is finding great restaurants and stuff, and then showing my friends where they are, and watching them enjoy the victuals. But because I'm so often bringing friends to a place, when one unexpectedly disappears on me, more often than not, I've got a friend or twelve in tow, to watch my dismay, and to think I'm a doofus for leading them to restaurants that don't exist. I have to say this was the largest group ever to mock my despair, as one of my seriously favorite restaurants had been replaced...

by a freaking handbag shop. A handbag shop. Because Samchungdong REALLY needed another handbag shop. it's the only thing the friggin' place was missing. Spiced wine schmiced schmine. Handbag shops are what really defines a great district.

Oh well. Could have been worse. It could have been replaced by a telephoto lens shop for all the froofy couples.

But bitterness aside: the rest of the day was great, and a very rewarding experience, and I'm super glad it happened, and I'm already excited about the next one.

Special thanks to Dan Gray for doing a double-down 2S2 with the Seoul Eats crew: it was a great shot in the arm, and a really positive experience for everyone... except the girl who left the tea house without paying. She's gonna get it.

Just kidding.

Have a good one, all!

2 Weekends ago: Food at Sandang

I get behind on all the cool stuff I do from time to time, because my life is seriously like, just so awesome.

But especially when I have pictures, or if it makes my friends jealous of my, I like to post it on my blog, to rub it in, just how awesome I am.

OK enough of that... but seriously, I've had a few really enjoyable days that I haven't written about because I was busy either working, hanging out with Girlfriendoseyo the Awesome, or doing even more awesome stuff.

So here's an update on what I've been up to.

Sandang is a restaurant I heard about from the Seoul Eats guy, Dan. He's written numerous posts about Sandang: here's one.








It's a lovely restaurant, with a happy ball outside the restaurant: it's out in Yangpyeong, where restaurants are actually on grounds, rather then just being "second and third floor, XX building" the way they are downtown.



Nice place: I want to walk around there in the spring.





Nifty furniture: after the meal, they sent you to the second floor with a pot of coffee, and the second floor had all kinds of different spots to sit, lounge, and sip tea, depending on whether you wanted to sit on tables or cushions, in soft pillows or on arty chairs.



Girlfriendoseyo liked these chairs. I did too: the rounded back meant you could play the lean-back/balance relex game, and see how far you'd lean back before your inner ear told you to flinch.


And the food, dear readers: the food!


shrimp and shredded potato


the first time I ever ate grasshopper.

The crabs were one of the most beautifully presented dishes.




A small scallopy thing.


sushi


oysters


bit of beef: every major meat group was represented, and the flavors were unique: every one of them were simply prepared, with good ingredients, but instead of lots of spicing, they were then set next to some other flavor that drew out all the nuances of the tastes through contrast.


these little savory ball-thingys were made with potato, sweet potato, and other stuff, then covered with sauces that offset their tastes perfectly. They were crisp on the outside, and soft on the inside, and they stretched my vocabulary looking for other ways to say 'good'.






By the end of meal, after the Hanjungshik came out, with every last side dish a small miracle of its own, I was stuffed silly.


Here's a video of the visual highlight: the roasted acorn [update: my bad. roasted chestnuts], which they set on fire right at the table, and also a look at the full spread of side dishes that came out, and filled us to the gills, after we'd tried all the different specialty dishes: they filled us right to the top, with amazing food top to bottom, for our money.


Sandang is in Yangpyeong, about an hour by car outside of Seoul. It's a pretty little area near a river. You can learn more about it, and see more pictures, at Seoul Eats. It's pricier than Outback Steakhouse, but dear readers, even with a 90 minute drive before and after, the place, and the setting, and the food, and the food, and the food, was so good, it was amply, unhesitatingly, indubitably worth it.

So get out there and try some.