Korean BBQ!

Warning:  Contents of this post are fairly pedestrian.  If the topic of food does not interest you . . . read no further.  Thank you come again.

I orginally wanted to post about Korean food in general but once I began that task I soon found the topic to be daunting even a little overwhelming for a simple blog post.  I woke up last night gasping for air since my nasal passages are currently on strike.  In this hazy moment it dawned on me to write about my favorite Korean eating experience.  I say "eating experience" because thats what it is.  I love food that is interactive.  Mezza platters, fondue, fajita platters, nachos, sushi, tapas, and Korean bbq are all food items you pick at, play with, make a mess, and discuss what is scrumptious and what you will never order again.  I love food.  But what I love more about food is the experience of eating it.  In culinary school one of the things that surprised me the most was, aside from the location of your establishment, the ambiance is the second most important thing in a restaurant even more important than the food itself.  Some of the more fancy establishments in Ptown cater to the ambiance when you think about it.  

• Ruth's Chris Steakhouse wheels a cart of raw cuts of meat out to your table for you to choose from.
  
• Higgins, Mothers, Paley's Place and The Farm - All resemble large houses that give you the feeling like you are at someone's sweet house and eat amazing food without the food factory atmosphere of Darden Restaurant chains.  Or you could just come over to my place ;)
  
• Portland City Grill - How could one deny the sweetness of overlooking the Ptown skyline while eating awesome food?
• Lucky Lab - Even though its not a swanky restaurant, where else are you going to drink amazing beer and bring your dog to your table while other pooches bark and run into your legs?
• For a contrast - Dive bars.  While many people I know love these places for their cheap draft beer, daily drink specials, and are labeled "cool" by Portlands "coolest" hipster crowd I generally find dive bars to be really depressing.  The dive bar is generally decorated in cheap wood panneling circa 1970s and disguised as a "sports bar" with too many tvs showing whatever seasonal sport(s) happens to be on ESPN or Sportscenter.  They are a smokey location for the struggling, working class to drown their sorrows, play video poker, while looking through the bottom of their glass stien as Def Leppard blairs from the jukebox.  Whats so "cool" about that?  Its way beyond me . . . cheap, yes - cool? meh, not so much.  Its just not my scene.  There's ntothing inherently wrong with these places.  I'd just rather save my beer money for a while and go somewhere where the ambiance and experience are more to my liking.  But I digress.  

This post IS about Korean bbq I swear.  Just trying to make a point  . . . 

In the states we simply call it Korean BBQ.  Here there is a differentiation.  If you go out for Galbi (sometimes called (Kalbi) you will be ordering beef or pork ribs done the Korean way.  These aren't the "rack" of ribs that we are familiar with.  They are already cooked and you simply heat them up and dip them in your favorite sauce.  The ribs are individually seperated and just have a tasty chunck of meat hanging for you to devour like a true cave man or cave woman.  Galbi can also refer to the meat from the ribs but may not come with the bones.  IF you go out for Samgyeopsal you will be specifically ordering pork (unless you intentionally go to a beef establishment) that is thinly sliced and generally has many layers of fat.  It is the same cut of meat that we know as bacon but they don't cure it here and thats all it is . . . is a cut of meat.  Samgyeopsal is also void of bones.   

(Click on the links if ya'll want more info on these delicious subjects)  I recommend it if you are interested.  This whole "What is Galbi and Samgyeopsal" is kind of confusing to me.  Some people say one thing while someone will adamently say the other is wrong and no two opinions seem to match up.  Its like everything else in Korea or like people's veiws on Israel WHICH I WILL NEVER TALK ABOUT ON THIS BLOG!  Ahem.

The nice traditional BBQ restaurants look like something out of the future when you see them from the outside.  You see, every table comes with its own ventalation system because every table actually has a BBQ!!!!  So what you see from outside the restaurant are shimmering metallic cylinders that look like metallic worms hangning above every table.  Each cylinder has an accordian like section to it so that you can bring the sweet sucking power of the ventalation closer to the action.  It also adds to the worm-like appearance!  The key to finding a good bbq place is the same for any other restaurant in the world.  Is it busy?  Is there a wait?  Chances are they aren't serving up slop suitable only for a ferril dog or that muck the camp cooks made in the movie Earnest Goes to Camp.  The better places I've eaten have holes in the middle of the table for the fire.  They will either use gas or charcoal.  The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in the states would have a shitfit about this, which adds to the fun of Korean BBQ.  Once you are seated at a table your server will bring you a menu full of writing that you can't read and (hopefully) pictures!  You take your pick of meat by pointing and grunting (don't forget to smile and say "Juseyo").  Within sixty seconds your table will be covered with side dishes aplenty.  They vary from place to place but the common ones are: 

• Shredded cabbage with sauce when combined make a remarkably similar salad to coleslaw.
  
• Kimchi - duh!
  
• A miniature variety of green onions smothered in sesame oil and fish sauce.
  
• Raw white onions marinating in a mixture of soy and fish sauce.
  
• A surprisingly mild redpepper paste.
  
• Slivers of raw garlic cloves for grilling.
  
• A basket of red lettuce leaves and these soy leaves which I find less than delicious.  Just imagine the fuzziness of a peach skin only in leaf form and that bitter, unexciting, chlorophill taste some plants have that people insist is tasty.  Um, yeah, I don't think so. 

These are the standby's.  Sometimes you'll get other bits of random food delivered to your table but for the most part this is a solid list.  When your meat actually gets to the table you must shuffle the side dishes around on your small table in a real life version of Tetris.

This all goes with your plate of raw beef or pork that you cook yourself.  I love that countries around the world still allow for people to use their better judgement in trivial situations such as this.  Like I mentioned before, OSHA would have a veritable cow (he he) over this because people might undercook the meat and poison themselves.  Let the sueing begin.  Yes it is a possibility, but c'mon here people just cook your damn food and stop being idiots already.  I haven't heard of any freakish poisoning experiences here, American or who ever.  

The meat generally comes in these huge chuncks.  Once its just about cooked all the way through you take the provided tongs and the FOOD SCISSORS (what fun!) and cut it up into bite size pieces.  Now you take a peice of your favored lettuce as your food vehicle and place the following within (varies to your tastes): a dab of the redpepper paste, a slice of that white onion, some of those small green onions, a slice of grilled garlic, and don't forget the meat!  What you have in your hands is a small piece of heaven.  

There is a place in Kyungsung that I go to with my buddies who live in Seomyeon becuase Kyungsung is about halfway between our places.  What's awesome about it is that the owner of the place generally gives us a free ("free" or "complimentary" here is called "service" pronounced "service-uh") bottle of soju and this ceramic bowl of soon to be stew.  Its got octopus, fish intestines, mussels, and squid with a myriad of vegies.  Its great.  I love this place.  The owner is always smiling and the service is great.  Last time I went there with Dave we managed to get each other laughing in hysterics and captured the attention of the table next to us.  The "elder" at the table was a professor in biophysiology.  "Everything is changing all the time.  You must always be willing to change as well or the world will leave you behind," he said to us.  Then we got into a big philosophical discussion fueled by the wonders of soju revolving "change" and "what is real?".  He said he was an ardent Buddhist but was eating meat?  Don't know if we should have believed a word he said.  But I do agree with his overall message stated above.  That night was one of those random nights I pretty much never have at home, which is why I love traveling so much.   

So yeah Korean BBQ just isn't the same at home.  If you do manage to find a place that serves it in the states it'll most likely come out already cooked, smothered in some kind of sauce and does not come with all its accuturements.  Whats the fun without the flame or the possibility for an un savvy cook to poison themselves.  Yeah it just isn't the same.