FOOD! 1st edition.

Since I'm not really good with photographing everything I eat, I decided to slowly make a collection of what I've had. Some of these photos I've posted before but I'll better explain them here, plus I'll add a personal rating out of 5 points. 5 being absolutely delicious and 1 being still worth a try. I'm not uploading any food that is really bad because I don't photograph bad food.

But first, lets have another video!!!
This is 산낙지 (San-nak-ji). 산 means "living" and 낙지 means "baby octopus". Uh-huh, now I'm really gonna make you people jealous. Except for maybe Lourdes, if she sees this I can picture her with her horrified face that implies the thought: "Sometimes I wonder why I'm friends with the Chang's"
Hola Lourdes!

My reaction at first isn't... amazing I suppose. I was deeply analyzing my meal. It really was good, I mean, that's seafood as fresh as it gets. You just gotta chew it real well so it stops moving, and man do they put up a fight. My mouth is watering again. That damn little plate was expensive though! Well the complete meal came with all of the side dishes, soup and a fried fish (it wasn't colossal though) but it costs almost $20 per person.
Rating: *****

Moving on. Let's start with what you've seen:

The Old

곱창 (Gob-chang)
My first video meal, and also an expensive one. Squishy, juicy, tasty pig intestines roasted before your eyes. On the left it is seasoned with pepper and onion. On the right with hot sauce and onions, accompanied by 순대 (Sun-de) Korean blood-sausage. Probably my favorite intestine dish so far (the one on the left) very simple, but chopstick-liking good.
Rating: *****

해물찌개 (He-mul-jji-ge)
Ok I think that's what it's called. 해물 means "seafood" and 찌개 means "stew." Damn spicy combination of all small ocean animals set in a flat pot to bubble before you. Well, to be honest, I think there are only clams, crabs and octopus. Other than that they put in some veggies and mushrooms, sausage or bacon (I know, but Koreans eat them like fancy meat) and 떡 (tteok) little pieces of soft rice dough. I think this was my second meal in Korea. I met up with woori and dong the evening I came and we pigged out on this. Definitely good for a cold winter evening.
Rating: ***

	붕어빵 (Bung-oh-ppang) These fish-shaped pastries are a popular street food snack. Waffle-like bread filled with red-bean paste are easily found sold in warm paper bags in stands. A good snack if you're craving something semi-sweet and not too expensive to snack on. Rating: ** 칼국수 (Kal-guk-su) Woori described it as "water and flour put into water... with a little bit of seafood" but I think some places make it good. Seafood noodle soup, one of the few common dishes here that isn't sweet and spicy. The broth is tasty but the seafood is mostly clams and a little octopus. I'd imagine if you get it at more expensive restaurants it'll come with more than that. Nevertheless a nice simple noodle meal. Rating: *** I don't know what this is called. But the bread is a lot like Chinese pao. I've only seen one street vendor cook it like this though, makes it look really fancy and traditional but I think most places where you can get it just steam it. I'm not sure what this circular oven does but certainly makes you curious. The bread is filled with sweet beef and transparent rice noodles. Not outstanding but you'll probably feel like eating a nice warm bun if you ever come across them on the street. Rating: ** and now... The New  떡볶이 (tteok-bok-ee) (red) and 고구마 튀김 (go-gu-ma  tui-gim) Probably Korea's most famous snack food. Tteokboki is basically tteok (rice dough) shaped into cylinders and mixed with sweet and spicy sauce. Depending on where you buy it, it can get reallyyyyyyyyyyy spicy. Typically served to-go with some wooden sticks to eat. Korean girls seem to really love it. The other one is deep-fried sweet potato (goguma). Tuigim basically means "fried food" and usually comes in a large variety including squid, prawns, dumplings, etc, all deep-fried into a yellow goodness you eat with a sweet vinegary sauce. Tteokboki and Tuigim are usually always sold in the same restaurant and can be found practically everywhere in Korea. More populated areas will have stands selling the same thing lined next to each other 3-5 carts in a row. Rating: **** This lady here is selling Tteokboki and fried 만두 (dumplings) amongst other miscellaneous similar street snacks. 냉면 (Neng-myeon) My favorite common dish in Korea. I probably ate it 3-5 times a week this summer. An ice-cold bowl of crisp yet extremely chewy noodles. It takes a little getting used to with these since you can not put some in your mouth and just bite off the remainder like normal noodles because these are too hard for that. You may choke on your first attempt. The cold soup always has ice and is vinegary. This here is Mulnengmyeon though, meaning water nengmyeon. It is also sold as Bibimnengmyeon which is just as common but instead of thin soup it comes with thick red spicy sauce. I prefer the one above because it's much more refreshing. It is typically served with fried pork, or vice-versa. It's also popular to eat these noodles to finish off a nice, greasy, Korean-style barbecue. The first time I tried this dish I didn't quite like it but ever since the heat of summer moved in I fell so in love with it. Rating: *****  보쌈 (bo-ssam) Se-Min's mom took bambi and me out to eat this, though it wasn't my first time. Bossam is a popular cold pork dish that costs a little more than your everyday meal. Eat it on a piece of lettuce with some sauce, rice, side dishes (left) or whatever you want to put on it. (Including raw garlic.) Probably not the most healthy dinner but it's good meat and it's hard to get enough. Rating: **** Here's another no-namer. Ate this the same day as the Bossam. See the peanuts on it? Yeah they didn't really stop me. More cold pork with vegetables and a garlicky hot sauce. Eat it the same way as Bossam. Rating: **** Dried octopus and squid line the streets of Busan. You can also find it easily enough in Seoul, just not in these quantities. I haven't tried everything here, though those giant tentacles make me curious. I do know you guys have tried dried squid, but there are also dried octopus "chips" that are the chewiest damn thing on earth. Flavor was alright but for the price I don't think I'll be buying them again. Dried seafood is, I believe, also a good drinking snack. Rating: ** 해물탕 (He-mul-tang) Something in between a seafood soup and stew. The photo actually looks more promising than the dish really was. The best seafood stew I've ever had is probably Livingston's Tapado, and it kind of left a very different impression of seafood soup in my head. The dish above was, in my opinion, too spicy and didn't let one appreciate the flavor of the boiled seafood. I'm not saying it was bad but it wasn't as good as I was hoping. Also, the crabs were split in half and boiled really long so there was almost no meat left in them. Rating: *** and now a little bit of International Food Well the international food scene isn't amazing in Korea. Everything is often Korean style and not really legit. It's either too sweet or spicy in an uncalled for fashion, or simply different. But here are a few worth it. 오꼬노미 (Okonomi) I'm pretty sure this street snack came from Japan. The name and the flavor are not Korean, and I'm not quite sure what the hell this is made of either. It's creamy and sort of sweet and salty, a fried batter mixed with some kind of crunchy vegetable. Good snack, goes very well with an egg. Rating: *** I'll just name this one "Filipino Food" Turns out there is a vast Filipino community here so you can get pretty legit food from them. I'm not sure exactly what I was eating, though I know the one in the bowl is innards cooked in blood. (Yum!) And this is what I think of Filipino food: It's as if you made Latin-American food and then mixed it with Asian spices, without falling into the category of silly modern "fusion food". Their meals aren't cheap, but still affordable so I'll go back every once in a while. Rating: **** Hahaha, yes I can get my hands on a good pizza in Korea. But its definitely a very occasional thing because this little sucker will burn a whole in your pocket. UNO's Chicago Grill will at least give me a  pizza with tomato sauce and quality cheese, not 고추장 (gochujang) Korean hot sauce. Just because it's red doesn't mean it can replace tomatoes!! Phew, this was a long one.There is certainly a lot more here so someday in the future when I expand my gallery and have enough for a second edition, there will be one. It is now 3:30 am and my stomach is eating itself inside-out because of this blog. I'm so damn hungry! It's past curfew though, so I'll just eat well tomorrow. Bye!