Food, Glorious Food

Eating in Korea has been a fun but somewhat challenging adventure. Korean food itself is great but navigating photo- and English-free menus can be pretty tough, as can grocery shopping when your knowledge of Korean cuisine is somewhat limited and all of the ingredients are in an unfamiliar language at the store.

I have, admittedly, been eating some western food for a variety of reasons. From what I gather, Koreans eat breakfast of course but breakfast cuisine is roughly the same as any other time of day, traditionally. I would be alright eating ramen and such for breakfast but since I eat a lot of Korean food at other times of day I think it would get a bit monotonous, so cereal it is. There's a store here called Homeplus which I think is affiliated with the UK chain Tesco, as it carries some Tesco brand stuff, such as my new love, muesli. Cereal is easy to find but somewhat limited in variety and sort of expensive, so muesli has been a delicious and inexpensive alternative for breakfast.

I've also been rocking the PB&J even though all three ingredients are about twice the price here. It's still pretty inexpensive and extremely quick to make and eat, which makes it a great option for my meals during my work shift since I only have maybe 30-40 minutes to run home, whip something up and eat before getting back to school.

As for Korean food at home, I've been eating a lot of ramen (there's a staggering amount of variety here, much of it very tasty looking indeed), steamed buns full of pork and kimchi, stir-fry and pork cutlets with noodles or rice. I've also spent a few days now trying to perfect my taco recipe using sadly limited ingredients:

-Tortillas (I found these at E-mart for about $3/10, but Lotte Mart might have them, too)
-Salsa (they had La Costena for $3/jar at E-mart!)
-Monterrey Jack cheese (better to buy block cheese and grate/slice it than buy the only bagged shredded cheese they have here - "pizza cheese")
-Ground pork (about $5/lb most places, so I got it from the butcher on the corner)
-Garlic & Herb seasoning
-Black pepper
-Korean hot pepper paste
-Tomato
-Onion

The hot pepper paste actually goes a long way in making up for the utter lack of cumin in this country, as it's hot and chili-like but also has a bit of sweetness and, importantly, smokiness that gives the pork a really good flavor. I'll definitely be making these somewhat regularly if I can get tortillas at Lotte Mart since E-mart is such a trek. I'd kill for some cilantro, though!

Soon I'm going to start doing some research into other simple Korean dishes I can make at home since buying stuff to make vaguely western-styled foods is about the same cost per meal as if I just went out and ate at a noodle shop or something. Which reminds me, I've still yet to try the supposedly amazing fried chicken they have here. Soon, though!