I had no idea about Korean food until rather recently. Seriously, I ate my way through Korea and enjoyed every bite. I even gave myself major stomach pains from eating so much spicy food (I know spicy food can't give you an ulcer, but it sure felt that way...).
Below you see Marie and a giant bowl of Pat Bing Soo, or shaved ice with sweet beans, sweetened condensed milk, ground matcha, and mochi cubes. This is the traditional version, though every café has its own "house" version, usually involving sliced fruit.
We ate this pat bing soo at a tea shop with Marie's Korean friend Young, who showed us exactly how to pose for a picture (below),
and how Koreans decorate just about every digital image with animation and/or embellishment :-)
Above Left: Korean barbeque (delicious pork belly and other meat, along with garlic and onions (just eat them raw out of the bowl), cook until crispy then use a pair of giant scissors to cut up (we saw these everywhere!) and hand out to all diners. Eat with flat, metal chopsticks.
Above Right: Kimchi stew and rice. More delicious that I ever thought possible!
Left: Korean barbeque (can't remember what cut of meat, but very fatty and tender)
Right: Ttokkbokki, thick rice noodles in a spicy sauce. Eat on the street with toothpicks. Mmm.
Above Left: drinking makkoli (a rice/wheat alcohol) in a sampling "flight," I like the one that resembled hard cider the best
Above Right: Pajun, Korean pancake with octopus and green onions. One of my favorite things! So good, though we did eat varying qualities of this dish. Thicker seemed to be better cooked and less greasy.
Above Left: Pre-dinner goodies (or not so good in a couple cases...). Every Korean restaurant gives you these "appetizers." This particular batch was not my favorite: macaroni salad, a cold ice-salty soup thing, cold jellyfish tentacles, thinly sliced radishes and a fruit salad drowned in what we think was makkoli (or Sprite?).
Above Right: Eating spicy potato dumplings with some kinds of "cheesy" filling...
Above Left: Delicious spicy stir fry with potato & sweet potato dumplings, chicken and veg.
Above Right: Home made Korean dinner! Top is cabbage-carrot-spinach salad (hot), and bottom is bulgoggi. Marie's Korean friend Betna helped us cook it. One of the best meals all week!
Above Left: directions for hottokk, bread-pancake type dish with cinnamon/sugar inside (hot and gooey). We ate them on the street and then found a mix at the grocery store.
Above Right: Bibimbap! The classic Korean rice bowl with all the trimmings. Served in a hot stone bowl, I love the way the rice crisps up on the edges.
Close-up of bibimbap in Seoul
One of our last meals: spicy octopus stir fry. Once you are done with the meat portion, they pour in rice and make "Round Two" (see below).
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