The Roberts in Korea

I'm Hungry

The challenging economic times have left the "western" food that is on sale in the grocery stores here in Korea at an all time high price.  The Korean food in the stores is a better price, but unfortunately we don't know how to prepare Korean food.  It is much more economical for us to eat dinner at small Korean restaurants in our area.  They buy the food wholesale, they know how to prepare it and we enjoy the delicious food at a more than reasonable price.

Here are some of our favorites:

This dish is called "bok-um-bop" and is very tasty.  It is otherwise known as "fried rice."  There are many types of fried rice here in South Korea:  beef, shrimp, tuna fish, and kimchi.

The next two pics are soup.  The cold, damp winter days here in South Korea make a person hungry for a nice hot bowl of soup.  The soup pictured here is called "duk-gook" and it tastes like a very rich chicken and rice soup.  The rice in the soup does not consist of grains of rice but rather the rice comes in slices of pressed rice.  They taste a bit like chewy dumplings.  Pressed rice is called "duk" and the word for soup is "gook", thus the meal is pressed rice soup.

The reddish colored soup in the black bowl is better tasting than it looks in the photo and sounds in description.  It is "soon-toobu-jigae" or in English...tofu soup.  This meal is a boiling hot soup that consists of chunks of tofu boiled with small clams (still in the shells), some veggies and lots of Korean red pepper and other spices.  This is a very delicious and intense tasting soup (and it is good for you).  Ryan loves it.

Yum!

Yum??

Sometimes you win some and sometimes you lose some.  Tonight we took the Miller family out for some Korean food and for the most part...struck out.

We took them to a restaurant that served Cheese Dak-Galbi, which is a meal consisting of chicken, cabbage, sweet potato, duk (pressed rice), onions, and lots of melted cheese.  The entire contents is prepared (fried) right in the center of the table and it is cooked in a very spicy sauce--too spicy. 

Most of the food in Korea is very hot and spicy and sometimes we (the Roberts) forget about this.  Our first year here we struggled with the spicy food, drinking lots of water and dealing with a seemingly unstoppable runny nose during each meal.  The food was sooo spicy!  However, it seems that our palates haven gotten used to the Korean fare and now we don't think about it as much.

Our poor friends, the Millers, are still in the midst of adjusting to spicy Korean food.  Tonight's meal was just too hot and not very appetizing--as you can see from Kallee's countenance.  And Laurie's too.

We sure love having the Miller's here with us in South Korea.  We need to feed them well!

Chamchi Chigae

Here is another installment in the Korean food series.  In this picture you can see a steaming hot bowl of Chamchi Chigae (pronounced ch-ahhm-chee  chee--gay) and a bowl of white rice (gongi-bap) along with some side dishes like kimchi, sprouts, pickled white beets and odang.

Chamchi Chigae is tuna fish soup.  Chamchi means "tuna fish" in the Korean language.  Chamchi Chigae is a delicious Korean soup composed of:  kimchi (spicy-fermented cabbage), chopped tuna fish, chopped green onion, chopped garlic, sesame oil, fish oil, chopped ginger and lots of ground red pepper.

The soup has a salty, hot/spicy, tuna fish taste and it is always served in a boiling pot.  It is delicious and makes a great meal on a cold winter day.