Being Korean For a Night

A friend of mine, Stacie, is Korean and I had told her I wanted her to show me some good Korean food! I have had Korean food only twice in my life!  Once at Korean camp when I was a little girl and once at Koreana last year with Dave.  I invited my other friend Laura who also was adopted so she could come enjoy the experience as well.

I really want to visit Korea someday, but before I go, I want to learn more about the culture. I don’t really remember anything from Korean camp except for one story. When I was younger I got mad when my classmates would call me “Whitney”, the only other Korean girl in my school. I look completely different from her and I am about a foot taller than her (ok not a foot but a head haha). But this all changed once I went to Korean camp. At Korean camp you were put in groups and had counselors. After a big group activity, I realized I had followed the wrong camp counselors. But the only way I knew the I had was that the I noticed that the white kids in the group were different than the ones that were in my group!!

I felt so embarrassed! And from then on, I didn’t feel so bad when kids messed up my name-though after going to school with each other longer, they learned the difference between me and Whitney!

Anyway, as you can tell from that story, I don’t know much about Korea. I mean, if you live with an American family-how are you supposed to?!  So you can imagine I was very excited for last nights dinner!! I love trying new food and the fact that it is from my heritage kind of excited me! We met at Yasu in Brookline.

We split a bottle of white wine of course-thank you Laura for pouring for us!  I’m SO excited for Laura because she went for her first run in a while now!  She is recovering from injury.  She might be giving a triathlon a go and I can’t wait to follow her training through it!

Then started with Kim chi pa Jun, Kimchi Korean pancakes. Their look kind of reminded me of a pizza or quesadilla. How did they taste? Awesome! They weren’t too sweet and they had the right amount of crispiness. I’m definitely getting these again!

For one of our main dishes we got Seafood dolsot Bibimbap, mixed seafood with rice and spicy sauce in sizzling hot pot. I love the name-it’s so fun to say! This dish had a little kick to it when you added the hot sauce and I liked it!

My picture came out really fuzzy, so I found one online that looked nicer!

(Image Source)

Saeng Kalbi, fresh prime short rib that you eat in a piece of lettuce with rice and a special sauce. The flavors were amazing. As Laura said, “There are so many things going on in my mouth right now!” Love it! Definitely described this deliciousness!

Bulgogi [Correction..it was Chapchae...whoops!] was a noodle dish with beef and veggies. I really liked the noodles and the flavor was light but tasty.  Definitely another repeat dish.

That was one heck of a dinner! I am lucky I stayed awake on the bus and T home! Food coma galore! I can’t wait for my next date with my ladies to try some new Asian food!  And I want to bring Dave here to get all the same things and die of food overdosing!

I am still full from last night but there still is a pocket waiting for my bagel of course! You KNOW there is always a pocket in your stomach for special food!  When I picked up my bagel today, I told the woman who worked at Sportello that I blog about bagel Friday every Friday and they better not get rid of it!  She said not to worry that it is a big thing and she doesn’t see it disappearing anytime soon!

Hip update: My hips didn’t hurt that badly yesterday morning or after PT. They started to feel a little burning sensation around 2:30 pm yesterday.  I tried to take a few breaks from my desk and walk around.  This morning my hips feel a little sore, so I might use the stick and stretch a lot after I do my PT exercises tonight.

What is a food from your culture that you think everyone should try?!

What is a funny story from when you were younger?

What are you looking forward to this Friday?