I don't know what to do with myself. Shall I lie down? No, I'll just be staring at the ceiling. Do I watch a movie? Nope can't do that either. I'll just be focussed on how icky I feel. What to do, what to do. So I'm here complaining about my gluttony. But oh man was it good.
One of the music teachers at school took me and four other teachers from my school out for dinner. We went to, I think, one of the nicest Korean restaurants in town. I also think we ate no fewer than 7 courses. The nature of the traditional Korean meal promotes itself to nibbling. Side dishes, or banchan, make up most of the meal while other side dishes are just bigger than others. Such dishes include kimchi (of course) dried mystery fish with 'special' sauce, squid with 'special' sauce, fresh raw mystery fish, grilled pork, whole cooked mystery fish (which you just tear into with your chopsticks), ground sesame seed paste tastiness, baked mystery fish with 'special' sauce served over mystery bean sprouts, some sort of fresh salad, more squid served in a yummy brine, fried clear noodles, broccoli with 'special' sauce, teeny tiny anchovies in 'special' sauce, brined lotus root, and the list goes on forever. So if you think Thomas Keller is unique for his tasting menu at the French Laundry, think again. But the guy is a genius chef, I'm not knocking him for his abilities as a chef.
Real quick to all of you in Portland - GO TO CAFE NAVARRE! Its just off of 28th and Burnside. Navarre offers fine French cuisine at an affordable price and has a tasting menu. You can order whole portions from anything on the menu such as entrees, apps, ect. or you can order half portions and have it be a tasting menu of sorts. I'm converted after being here for a while. What's the fun in having a huge plate of one kind of food when you can sample and nibble on bits and pieces of tasty goodness. Also a plus from Navarre is that you won't be trying mystery fish or 'special' sauce. You speak the language and can therefor know what you are eating! Wow what a concept.
Oh buddy, still so full. This was a night where I was gonna head out running and then do some yoga. Yeah, no I did just the opposite. I stuffed myself inappropriately full, turkey stuffed if you will. Then if that wasn't enough, she invited us back to her house for tea and fruit. I think we were seriously surrounded by food this evening for four straight hours. This was just a random Wednesday evening as well. No special occasion at all. Koreans like their food possibly more than I do.
Speaking of inappropriate . . . I get a ride to school every morning from a real nice guy. I can't remember his first name so I still call him Mr. Che. I think he sets his car to "inappropriately hot" every morning before I get in the car just to watch me sweat. There are windows in the car and I do roll them down. BUT Koreans have a funny thing about tunnels. They believe the air is somehow stagnant within them and never gets recycled. "Air is bad." Is what I hear. So up the windows go. This wouldn't be that bad, but you see I live in a mountainous area with lots of tunnels. You might even go so far as to say there is a 'sequence' of tunnels that line our route to school. Right before I begin dripping with sweat just sitting in the car on the way to school we finally exit the tunnel system and I'm free to roll down the windows again. Yay!
Other weird things . . .
During dinner the music teacher asked if she could take a picture of me. I said, "Sure of course you can." Then she proceeded to tell me that she works at another middle school. She works at an all girls middle school and said that her students wanted a picture of me!? What? But this was after the picture was said and done. Oh man I'm just Jason, dude. I'm being stuffed at your house and you are taking some kind of crazy, quasi, celebrity shots of me. Very interesting indeed.
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