To be honest, neither of us knows much about seafood. I like my standard shrimp or a filet of salmon, but beyond that, it's just another type of fish/sea creature that I am eating. That means that we are both at a considerable disadvantage when it comes to eating seafood in Korea, because most of the time, we have no idea what it is. It also doesn't help that the unknown seacreature is written in Korean, so we really have no idea what it is.
It is also no secret that Koreans and a lot of the peoples in Asia like to have their seafood fresh. I don't mean like, oh, it just came out of the freezer today. Fresh here means that it was swimming happily until 2 minutes after you ordered it. In other words, if it's on your plate, there's a good chance that it was killed minutes ago. I remember hearing that in Hong Kong there is actually a dish that you can order where it is cut in such a way so that you can still see the heart of the fish beating in front of you. I haven't heard of anything like that here, but if you walk down any street with seafood restaurants, your likely to see tanks of fish, squid, and octopus spilling out into the streets.
I'll have the..umm...spikey ball thingy.
I'll take the one that looks like a zebra, please.
We normally shy away from eating seafood because, truthfully, we're a little afraid of what we're going to get. When we traveled to Gangneung, though, there really is no other option for food. Either we were going to eat fish or we were going to starve. You know there is an abundance of sea food restaurants, when there's a whole "Sliced Raw Fish Town".
Yes, but does it have its own zip code?
So, we wandered in what looked like the busiest restaurant in town and gave it a shot. As it turns out, not only did we give it a shot, we accidentally ordered just about everything on the menu. To understand this, let me first explain that a lot of foreign speakers of English really have a hard time distinguishing between 16 and 60, 17 and 70, 18 and 10, etc. The restaurant was kind enough to have their "English speaking" employee help us out a bit with the ordering. Unfortunately, he really only knew the words "rock fish", "flat fish", and "beer", but, whatever...at least he could say some things in English. So, as we talk/mime our way through the menu, we point to what looks like a large sampler platter. We try to tell him that we are only 2 people, so we would only like enough food for 2 people. "Yes, ok. 17 thousand won." (around 15 dollars) he tells us. That sounded good, so we went with it.
Unfortunately, what he really meant was 70 dollars. In the end, we ended up getting about a table and a half's worth of food that ranged in everything from sushi to peanuts in honey to not-quite-dead octopus. Here's what it looked like before all of the food had arrived:
It is also no secret that Koreans and a lot of the peoples in Asia like to have their seafood fresh. I don't mean like, oh, it just came out of the freezer today. Fresh here means that it was swimming happily until 2 minutes after you ordered it. In other words, if it's on your plate, there's a good chance that it was killed minutes ago. I remember hearing that in Hong Kong there is actually a dish that you can order where it is cut in such a way so that you can still see the heart of the fish beating in front of you. I haven't heard of anything like that here, but if you walk down any street with seafood restaurants, your likely to see tanks of fish, squid, and octopus spilling out into the streets.
I'll have the..umm...spikey ball thingy.
I'll take the one that looks like a zebra, please.
We normally shy away from eating seafood because, truthfully, we're a little afraid of what we're going to get. When we traveled to Gangneung, though, there really is no other option for food. Either we were going to eat fish or we were going to starve. You know there is an abundance of sea food restaurants, when there's a whole "Sliced Raw Fish Town".
Yes, but does it have its own zip code?
So, we wandered in what looked like the busiest restaurant in town and gave it a shot. As it turns out, not only did we give it a shot, we accidentally ordered just about everything on the menu. To understand this, let me first explain that a lot of foreign speakers of English really have a hard time distinguishing between 16 and 60, 17 and 70, 18 and 10, etc. The restaurant was kind enough to have their "English speaking" employee help us out a bit with the ordering. Unfortunately, he really only knew the words "rock fish", "flat fish", and "beer", but, whatever...at least he could say some things in English. So, as we talk/mime our way through the menu, we point to what looks like a large sampler platter. We try to tell him that we are only 2 people, so we would only like enough food for 2 people. "Yes, ok. 17 thousand won." (around 15 dollars) he tells us. That sounded good, so we went with it.
Unfortunately, what he really meant was 70 dollars. In the end, we ended up getting about a table and a half's worth of food that ranged in everything from sushi to peanuts in honey to not-quite-dead octopus. Here's what it looked like before all of the food had arrived:
Fortunately for you, we also decided to be the whitey tourists and make a video of the experience. If you want to see me eat some octopus that is still twitching, watch below!
We're silly and adventurous, computer geeks and yoga peeps.
June 16, 2009
Jane Slark-Perez
June 18, 2009
Kyle
June 16, 2009
Rose P.
June 16, 2009
the other kyle
and you eating the octopus almost made me throw up a little in my mouth. it's one thing for it to be fresh... but still moving is a little too fresh for me.
June 18, 2009
Kyle
June 18, 2009
Bessie
June 16, 2009
Amelia
June 16, 2009
DADDIO
June 18, 2009
Bessie
4 days later when we were editing the pictures it still made me feel sick just looking at them...
June 17, 2009
barbie
June 18, 2009
Kyle
June 18, 2009
Bessie
June 19, 2009
Linda
June 25, 2009
David
June 29, 2009
Kyle
December 18, 2011
Kieu ~ GQ trippin