Best Food to Order in Korea with description.

This list of food is pretty much my bible in restaurants. This will help you if you would like to go to a Korean restaurant anywhere in the world. Below are the best foods with descriptions and how spicy they are.

Ja Ja Myeong (pronounced m- sound then young) - this is noodles with a black curry on top. The curry has cut up vegetables and pork in it. I recommend eating this amazing meal with the food below.

Tung Su Yu (toung sue you) - This is essentially sweet and sour pork. It is amazing when combined with Ja Ja Myeong.

Nang Myeong - This is a great dish in the summer. A lot of foreingers don't like it but if you do it is as addictive as crystal meth. It is cold noodles in a vinegar type broth. The noodles are very thin and soak up the broth perfectly.

Boodae chigae (boo day chee gay) - this dish was actually created through fusion and now is traditional. It was made during the war where the Koreans were given all sorts of canned meat including spam. They would mix all the spam and rice noodles into a spicy broth with ramen. It created a wonderful mix. This dish is very spicy so if you have sensitive taste buds then stay away. This is also one of my favorite dishes. We call it hot dog soup.

Soon Du Boo (Soon Do Boo) - This is a great dish and also good if you are a vegetarian. It is a red spicy broth with lots of silky tofu and one clam. The broth is amazing. We call it silky tofu soup.

Kimchi Chigae - This is a very traditional soup with lots of cooked kimchi and pork or tuna fish. If you don't like Kimchi then I wouldn't recommend trying this one first. I love it and think it has a different taste but go with the others first. Then come back to Kimchi Chigae.

Curry Rice - You cannot go wrong with asian curry. It is by far one of the best curries in the world. If you are a fan of curry then you have to try Korean or Japanese curry it will blow your mind. I recommend having it on top of the next dish.

Dunkas (dun kass)- also known as chicken katsu in Japan. This is a paddy of fried pork with a sweet brown apple sauce on top. I recommend eating it with curry on top. It is delicious both ways though.

Pa Jueong (pa jong but make the j sound like your drunk and slurring it.) - this is a seafood pancake that is quite delicious. Another vegetarian dish if you can eat fish. It is like a seafood pizza.

Be ji chigae (bee G Chee Gay) This soup is like a red slop soup. It reminds me of red looking apple sauce or vomit. It has bits of pork inside and it tastes amazing. This is also one of my favorites.

Jay Youk Dok Bop - This is pork in some kind of red sweet and spicy curry with vegetables thrown over rice or next to it. This is an amazing meal as well.

Aisle Bop - This is unbelievable but it sounds disgusting. It is rice mixed with fish eggs and spices. A must try if you go to Korea.

Dial chi Aisle - This is a snack food. Same thing as aisle bop but is a rice ball that you can eat filled with fish eggs. Unbelievable as well.

Kam Ja Tong - (Another drunken Ja slur and the rest is regular) - this is my favorite in Korea. This is pork on the bone that melts in your mouth. It is a very traditional meal and if you have ever been a vegetarian this meal will make you throw up. Not for the non meat lovers.

Shabu Shabu - this is a fun sounding dish and it is excellent. Imagine if you may a giant bowl of broth where they bring you vegetables and then thinly sliced beef on the side. You first throw the vegetables in then you began dipping the thinly sliced meat into the broth. After you have eaten all the vegetables, meat, and broth. They refill the wok looking bowl with more broth and then noodles and wontons. Then you eat the noodles after they are cooked. Finally they remove the bowl and put a thin layer of rice on every inch of it that is soaked in with everything that has been cooked before it. You eat that and you are finished. It is a fun and amazing meal.

Om rice - this is simple it is just an omelet over fried rice. It is delicious and simple.

Cheesy Ramyeon - easy ramen that they add an egg to and a slice of cheese they make the broth amazing and it is very cheap.

Tok Galbi (Talk Gal Bi) - VERY VERY SPICY BUT ONE OF THE BEST THINGS IN KOREA. I can't eat this anymore because I cry on the toilet. The best going in the worst going out. It is chicken in a spicy paste covered with cheese and cooked. then they cover the cooking dish with rice like the shabu shabu.

Tsung Pioa Cheem - (the hardest food in the world to pronounce. These sounds don't exist for english speakers. Heres my try. the t and s together is like a high hat noise and then ung next pee ou as in ouch. and then cheem is easy) This is available at all the places that have Kam Ja Tong. Order one of these and one kam ja tong with a group. If you don't know how to say it just say the black spicy noodles. They are sweet potato noodles in a black spicy sauce with pieces of pork just like the kam ja tong. It is unbelievable.

Bulgogi - this is a favorite to americans you can get it in a broth and also on rice. It is just sweet flavored beef. It is really good but I don't ever get it. It is overrated I think....but then again i like kimchi and a lot of the foreigners hate it. But if your looking for something non interesting and safe go with bulgogi.

Galbi - (Korean BBQ) Korean BBQ is great and a lot of fun. Get the fatty pork called san gulp sal (the sal is like salt without the t) It is really good. I love the BBQ in Korea but the actual korean restaurants with the traditional meals are better.

Mandu - Dumplings that are really good. Street food.

Then go to every street food place they are always serving something delicious.

Oh and gimbop. This is a sushi roll with radish, ham, egg, and whatever else you want. I usually get chamchi which is tuna. But go wild. It is very easy and they have millions of different kinds.

That's it I hope this helps. It took me awhile to put it together. But now others can experience all the great foods from korea.

oh and DONT EAT DOG. They beat the dogs and keep them in cages. They beat them daily because it tenderizes the meat. There are a lot of people that want to try it and the Koreans will tell you it is delicious but you are contributing to something terrible. If they raised the dogs like cows it would be ok but they beat them as much as possible to make more muscle and make the meat better.

I Wonder

I wonder about a lot of sick things to keep my mind entertained. Here are a couple of things I have wondered about lately

I wonder if South Korea had played North Korea in the World Cup what would have happened. I imagine that the North Koreans would host the half time show where their marching band would form a submarine on one side and the South Korean Cheonan Navy Patrol Ship on the other. Then the submarine would deploy a torpedo that sinks the patrol ship while the North Korean crowd cheers wildly.

I wonder about this guy that created TOM shoes. I really want to buy some because he donates a pair to children in poor countries. Everyone is talking about this saint lately. I like to think of a child in Somalia that looks terribly malnourished....his stomach caved in so his ribs look as though they are going to break free of the translucent layer of skin holding them in. Then I imagine this guy (we will call him Tom to make things easier) Tom giving this starving child a pair of shoes. Then I think the child would say something along the lines of...."Oh shoes....um I could use some food or money but hey now at least I can walk comfortably to the market to look at the food that I can't buy." Or maybe they would ask Tom if they were edible.

I will post more on this later.

Im also going to start making some top ten lists of things to do, eat, and places to go in Korea that should be beneficial to anyone coming to spend time in Korea

Why I Don't Decorate

I think the reason that I don't ever properly take care of my temporary environments is that I don't see the point in it. Up to this point in my life I have been just visiting places for a year or a year and a half at most. True, in college I stayed for three years in one spot but I moved apartments from year to year. Most people spend lots of money on their immediate environment to either make it comfortable for themselves or to say to people that walk in 'hey this is who I am'. Some people feel that their possessions say what kind of person they are so they decorate their places accordingly. For me, I have never felt the need to deck out my place. I don't see the purpose in it, because I know that in a year or two I will be selling everything or giving it away to get maybe an eighth of what I spent on it. Why go through all that stress if you are just staying somewhere for a year. The day I buy my own house that I know I will be staying in for at least eight to ten years is the day that I began buying the decor. As of now I spend my money on other people in these temporary environments. Is all I need to stay happy is something to write with and a bed. So I end up probably blowing more money than these other people but I blow it on good times and adventures. I think it is a worthy investment. Rather than buying crap that people will see and go hey thats some nice crap and Ill say thank you Im looking to get rid of it in eight months when I leave. It cost me a fortune and I'll sell it for nothing. They light up inside and get their kicks when someone notices the hard work they spent on making their surroundings perfect. This is where these people get off. So if you see someone that obviously spent a decent amount of time on their place make a conscious effort to mention it. They will appreciate it more than you think. I would rather not put up with the stress of running around town looking for the perfect coffee table that has Zachery written all over it....oh oh and that couch that I can tell a great story of how hard it was to get and that it was the last one left....and don't forget the great deal I got on a sofa chair where the guy marked it down from five hundred dollars to three hundred because he liked me. I say go to a place and explore for fun not for errands. You will never truly live in the country that you are in if you are that concerned with making your temporary environment say something about yourself. I am living in Korea as you know and I think it's funny how some people buy all this worthless crap to fill their places. I found a bookshelf and a storage container in the garbage and they seem to be working just fine. You are not trying to make a place like home you are trying to experience something foreign so spending time in my place is the last thing I want to do. I want to sleep in a temple under the stars, I want to sleep at the Jisang rock festival in a tent that I rented with other koreans, I want to sleep on a ferry boat on route to Jeju island, I want to sleep on a beach in Busan and wake up with sand in my ears, and I want to sleep in a cheap love motel in the heart of Seoul. I could care less about what my place looks like because half the time I don't want to see it.