Restaurants, yes they have chair seating and floor seating, the low tables are not just for short people. Chopsticks, the Korean ones are metal, and they are a different shape, flat and rectangular at the top tapering to square at the bottom and overall way thinner. I really like them. They always come with a long spoon. I thought this was for the soup you always get but I think it is for serving yourself out of the communal dishes that come along. Alcohol, it is beer, beer and beer. A couple of times there was a few bottles of wine near the door, but I was not going to be the only one that asked for one of those. At that dinner hardly anyone opened those bottles. The local beer I have had is Hite and we have managed to get to one bar where we ordered a pitcher, and what a pitcher it was, plastic, double wall for insullation, held 10 Small beers. There is a big craft beer thing going here too, started by a westerner I think, but I doubt we will get close to one of those. However, few of us have our sights on Little Joes Bar which is around the corner and the sign says Foreigner Friendly!
Food, the long green things that were in the first restaurant photo are peppers, you just add them to your food or eat them along the way. They also often serve a plate of raw onion to be used the same way as the Chili. Western takeaways, not too may of these visible. Marcela found a Starbucks today but I have seen none I. Our drives in and out of town. It is said that western takeaways have been trying and failing to bust into the Korean market for 25 years. Think of any of the big name US chains and likely they have been here and fizzled, in spite of the fact that many have found a foothold in neighbouring Japan. So it is curious that in recent yeArs the On The Border chain has started to have some success and there are now 6 in 6 years and plans for more. Does On The Border do fajitas? I could imagine the Koreans going for that because they do like the wrapping up your food in something, especially if the Korean chains through in some Kim Chee!
Paul, if you are reading this, you may have difficulty with the food here, but the photography opps are many and you could probably live on those little marshmallow things and beer.
Thanks for the info. Sounds like they like the eastern ways better than the western, other than baseball, which I hear the Koreans really go for. Also, Pearl S. Buck (remember her?) opened an orphanage in South Korea for those mixed race Koreans from the war that were not allowed the privileges of the purebreds. Do you notice any of that sort of thing there or is it something of the past? This may speak to why you don't see many western chains?
ReplyDeleteIt appears that they need a little wine education there. The beer is moving but I guess they're not wine afficiandos yet. We don't have an On the Border Chain here. The closest is in Vancouver, WA But I looked them up and they do serve fajitas. I wonder why they like everything wrapped. Don't want to know or see what's in it?
On another note, my beloved Redsox are in the AL championship series against the A's or Tigers. We'll find out tonite.