That Spicy Garlic Aftertaste

As anticipated, the food here in Korea has been…well, fairly weird by Western standards. But my previous trip has helped with expectations. Exactly what does one think of, when one thinks of Korean food? Kimchi primarily, then barbecue. If you’re unaware, classic kimchi is pungent fermented chilied cabbage, with a sour, spicy hot taste and cold, crunchy squishy texture. Mouth watering yet? It's a bit of an acquired taste, and I'm still working to acquire it. The Korean national dish, kimchi comes in dozens of forms, sliced or shredded or fried or wrapped in cucumber or use your imagination, eaten aside breakfast lunch and dinner.

More to outsiders’ liking is Korean barbeque, which we’ve enjoyed for both dinners so far. The party sits at a tabletop charcoal/gas grill and cooks thin slices of marinated pork or well-marbled beef in the center. The first night the Swiss couple and I muddled through, grilling beef strips accompanied by bowls of spiced green onion salad, spiced hard-shell crab, spiced tofu, fibrous greens in spicy cold broth, garlic, shredded shoots, roasted corn, white radish and several (spiced) kimchis. The second night with Korean hosts, we grilled 1/2-inch thick, 8-inch long bacon slabs, which are then held up with tongs over the grill and cut with kitchen scissors into 1-inch chunks to cook longer; the fatty meat is then dipped in salt, topped with chili paste, grilled garlic and onions and shoots, wrapped in a lettuce leaf and eaten in one enormous bite. Different, but quite good. Dessert was piping hot spicy soy soup with vegetables and tofu ("good for the health!") and also somehow strangely good.

Lunch Wednesday was forgettable, our hosts talked me out the spicy noodles ("too spicy!") for noodles in a bland black gummy mushroom and roasted onion sauce. My Swiss colleague and I ate the slippery noodles with metal chopsticks, a feat that brought the waitress running with two forks. We persevered however, bearing the badge of honor: noodle-splash black stains on our dress shirts. Lunch Thursday was much better, a traditional mixture of hot sticky rice over unidentified crunchy vegetables garnished with lots of red chili paste; three types of kimchi available along with pickled sear-your-tongue peppers (I volunteered unbidden, then kept a stiff upper lip) and spicy tofu. All in a throwback ancient Korean wood-timber and red clay hut, no less.

I won't say I'm not looking forward to more cosmopolitan Singapore (my first visit) on Saturday, as waking up every morning with Godzilla breath and the garlic-and-chili burps wears thin fairly quickly (like in two days), but at least we enjoy a palate-cleansing Western-ish breakfast at the nearby truck stop cafeteria each morning. The nice waitress/cook emerges from the kitchen and says "Toast!" and we say "Egg!" and everybody smiles and it arrives: toast, fried egg, single slice of plastic-wrapped processed American cheese (insults the Swiss), dishwater coffee, some tangy juice conconction and a surprisingly tasty hot creamed rice porridge with corn. What, no müesli? All in all, Korea has been not stupendous and not terrible, almost exactly what I expected, which is why my fourth and final day Friday feels like a perfect fit.