First Impressions: Food (Part I)

Steaming Soup Before the meal

So I woke up on Monday (technically my first day in Seoul since I arrived late last night) at around 9 AM. That’s really early for me, I usually don’t wake up until 1PM on an off day in Cincinnati. I got up, reorganized a little, contact family and friends. It was raining quite a bit, although I have to admit the weather here is a little warmer than Cincinnati. We had the day off since it was Movement Day (March 1st) in Korea, and school doesn’t start until tomorrow. I sat around my dorm doing whatever until around 2 PM, when Linh and I decided we should head out for lunch and grocery shopping. So we met up with Cherie (not like the fruit, it’s French), our new friend whom I introduced in an earlier post, and went to lunch (the picture above is from lunch).

Cherie with her 김밥/Gimbap (or Kimbap)

We had lunch at a restaurant near our school, one or two streets away. I went there because there was a korean dish I wanted to try, 떡볶기(ddeok-bok-ki). It’s Korean rice cake with fish cake in spicy pepper paste. I love spicy food, and almost EVERYTHING in Korea is spicy.

First Ddeokbokgi in the Korea

I forgot to take a picture when the dish first came out, so this is what it looks like after I devoured half of it. I didn’t eat the egg, because i don’t love eggs.

Gimbap

We also ordered 김밥 (Gimbap or Kimpab), which is kind of like a sushi roll, it just has rice and vegetables and it wasn’t spicy. Just like sushi, there are many different types of rolls. The next dish we ordered was 비빔밥 (Bibimbap), which is rice with different vegetables all mixed together in a spicy sauce. All of it was delicious, the ddeokbokki was my favorite.

My first Bibimbap in Korea

Price for this lunch:

Soup and side dishes: Free

김밥 (Gimbap or Kimpab): 1,000 Won ($0.87 USD)

떡볶기(ddeok-bok-ki): 2,500 Won ($2.18 USD)

비빔밥 (Bibimbap): 4,000 Won ($3.49 USD)

Total for two people (Linh and I shared): 7,500 Won ($6.54 USD)

Total for me: A little less than 4,000 Won (A little less than $3.49 USD)

Dinner:

After lunch, we tried to find Home Plus and succeeded after 3 hours of walking around. Then we dropped off our stuff and went to dinner. While walking around, a McDonald’s appeared. Apparently, the McDonald’s here delivers.

McDonald's Delivers!

And below is the McDonald’s Sign but it’s in Korean: Maek-do-nal-de. Just thought it was kind of interesting.

McDonald's Sign

Finally we came to a place that has Japanese food, not really sure why we decided to go with this restaurant but we just did.

I ordered fish katsu, fish fried in batter. We have this at home too, but it was still very good.

Fish Katsu (I ate some already, then remembered I should take a picture)

Cherie and I eating our katsu

That concludes my first day in Korea, by this time (around 9 or 10ish) I was pooped. So I just went home and slept.