Lunch

Yesterday, I had lunch at a traditional noodle shop in Itaewon with a co-worker. It was a gray, overcast, slightly gloomy day, so perfect for a bowl of warm noodles.

Below is the appetizer. We had kimbap, which are rolls made of seaweed wrapped around rice and fish, in this case, with a spicy sauce. I had one that wasn't spicy that was really, really good. I may ask my co-worker to write down what it was that she ordered and go up there and get some more soon. There are also vendors selling these down on the street in Insadong, and I just may have to go sample some of theirs. The spicy ones at lunch even made my co-worker cough. They made my mouth burn for a long time.

The white dish in the upper right has kimchi while the lower right one contains dried fish in a red chili paste.


My lunch consisted of noodles in a broth with a seaweed garnish. There is a small square container that had soy sauce with sesame seeds and chopped green onion in it that I added to the noodles to give it a bit more taste. The sesame seeds gave it a nice roasted flavor, the green onions a hint of bite, and the soy sauce a touch of salt.


This is a bowl of kimchi flakes. Instead of noodles, they used flour to make a dough, then cooked it into lumps -- they aren't round, they aren't square. In this case, they added kimchi to the broth and flakes, resulting in a nice spicy broth. I believe the flakes were created from flour provided by the government during the war when rice was not available, so this is a very homestyle type dish.