Because I couldn’t fit all the food pictures on one post (and because you probably needed a break to digest just looking at them), here’s the second half. This first series is lunch at a village restaurant outside the city of Gwangju. It’s traditional Korean, nothing too crazy exotic, except for the silk worm grubs. There’s pigs feet, but a lot of people eat those. Eating traditional Korean also means shoes off and sitting on the floor at a low table, and using metal chopsticks, the only Asian country that does so (they’re harder to use than the wooden variety). There seems to be a little bit (or a lot) of everything here. There was so much food they had to stack dishes on top of dishes to fit it all on the table:
Yikes. There’s a table under there somewhere:
A miso-type soup with tofu and scallions:
The meal was served family style, with whatever was nearest the main dish, like this baked tofu:
Dried silk worm grubs. Like the diners, the camera didn’t want to focus on them. They have a nutty flavor, with a strong earthy/slightly bitter flavor that comes through at the end:
A Korean food photo essay wouldn’t be complete without Korean barbeque:
The grill sits in the middle of the table, and a ventilator hovers about a foot or so above it:
A plate of raw beef and pork ready to be grilled. Next to it is a plate of lettuce leaves which are used to wrap the pieces of cooked meat in, along with a piece of garlic and/or hot pepper and/or cooked rice. It depends on your preference:
Salad with dressing of ginger, veggies and light fruit. A nice balance to all the meat:
There’s four seats per table, and one person gets designated as the cook, with these tongs as a tool, as well as a pair of scissors to cut the meat into bite-size pieces:
A clear, refreshing kimchi broth. Another nice balance to the meal:
Just when you think the meal is done, they bring out the bibimbap:
And just when you think the meal is done, part 2, they bring out the buckwheat noodles. The noodles are cooked, but they place them on the grill to soak up the flavor from the meat:
At another venue, some delicate desserts; not too sugary like typical American treats:
Plum tea:
Lunch. This is supposedly a typical meal for the heat of summer. The hot chicken broth, with garlic and ginger, is said to cool you down. It seems more like a meal we would have in winter, especially when you’re fighting off a cold:
That’s a whole chickens in that bowl (with rice at the bottom). There’s one for each diner:
Chili paste, several types of kimchi, and fresh garlic and jalapeno pepper:
Dinner of bibimbap with egg. But instead of the usual chicken egg, they’ve gotten creative with tri-colored roe:
Same picture, but top right a bottle of Korean beer – Hite. One of two brands they make in Korea. It serves its purpose, but nothing to write home about:
Breakfast of abalone rice porridge. Savory, and quite tasty:
Lunch seafood buffet, with salad bar for starters:
Sushi:
Actual cooked seafood:
On the left, spicy raw seafood salad, in the middle, in the middle, wasabi marinated octopus, on the right, jellyfish in vinegar sauce:
Raw flatfish on the left, raw sea squirt on the right:
the ugly american 