Trust me. I lived 4 months in Seoul, I know what it means to be hungry. Not that hungry where there is no food to eat. A hungry that stems from not knowing what to eat is a hunger that last. Starring at rows of food vendors, fish mongers, fruit sellers, and restaurants piled on top of each other too, that keep their food on display in the front window. And grocery stores with whole rows of seaweed and paprika (where is the spice I’ve been hearing about). That is at least what we saw.
Like most places, the truer places were local and behind frosted glass and a battering of Hangul. We mostly ate at KFC, the expensive Korean BBQ that our boss took us to our first day, Popeye’s from time to time, and Comma – our local chicken joint. This is where language skills were formed, “_________” – Two draft beers please. At least once a week we would split a fried chicken and four beers (if we were feeling spendy). But the special part was this corn nut rice crisp that came with pickled dikon and mustard for the chicken. Recipes were formed too – take above, sprinkle with salt and pepper, eat.
In an attempt to explore beyond our chicken fried state – that was mildly interrupted by mushy stir-fry dinners made on a hotplate – we decided to take a walk. We spent a good hour and half walking through a semi-industrial part of NE Seoul strolling for food. Bundled in our hastily purchased layer of light jackets and sweaters sent from home, we finally looked at each other and took a taxi back to our neighborhood and were yet stuck again with the same dilemma – ah fuck it Comma.
