You ate WHAT?!

I'm running a little behind on posts so I thought it'd be more efficient to simply throw some of my recent eats into a single appetizing photoblog. Unfortunately, I'm missing a very KEY picture so you'll just have to trust me and leave the visuals to your imagination (but if you find it too hard to believe, I have a witness!) when I say... 

***Drumroll, please!***

...It's been a decade, but I finally gave into BEEF! Are you still standing?! Okay, I admit it was consumed in very small quantities via shabu shabu, and I'm not quite ready to move onto anything like kalbi or a hamburger, but it's all about baby steps, folks.

Now that we got that out of the way, might as well let another cat out of the bag. I broke a second pact (I'm sorry, Matt & Grace) and went to McD's - but it was only for a cone AND it was dipped in chocolate! ^^;;

A fun little tidbit about about eating/drinking/meeting at restaurants in Korea is the tendency to refer to our favorite dining spots as "the pasta place across from the waffle place," "the chicken place near Adidas," or something to that effect (unless we're talking about McDonald's, since it seems to be THE place to meet when in Sinchon).

Take a look at my mushroom and pea pasta in a SOY MILK based cream sauce from "the pasta place across from the waffle place." It was surprisingly delicious and went down guilt-free. ^^

Soondubu from "that really good soondubu place everyone goes to." Finally started a frequent diner card here!

Bokkum bap (fried rice) with chicken and mozzarella-stuffed ddeok (rice cakes) at "that dak kalbi place in Myeongdong sort of near the mandoo place we went to last September." 

Gan-jajangmyun (간자장면) at "that Chinese place that makes good and cheap jajangmyun."

A mango yogurt shake from "that cafe where Jihey Onni gets free cookies and cheesecake since she's a regular."

This chicken dish and restaurant lack a special name like the aforementioned eats, but I should at least try to give it one. Let's call it "two orders of kochujang chicken that I watched my friend attack since I had already eaten dinner but he hadn't yet, at some random place we walked into."

Just to mix things up a bit, I'd like to introduce you to yogurt flavored Ritz sandwich crackers, which I haven't fully formed an opinion on yet. However, I will say that the cheese version didn't quite meet the American processed cheese standard. I suppose I just set myself up for disappointment, in an attempt to fill the void from this country's lack of cheese flavored Cheetos. I'm not kidding - they have BBQ, "hot & spicy", and pizza flavored Cheetos, but is too much to ask for a bag of cheese flavored Cheetos?! 

Moving on... bibimbap, kimchee jjigae, and kongnamul (bean sprout) soup from "that place near my house that I finally got around to trying."

Clearly, people like to throw in the peace sign regardless of whether they're meant to be in the frame or not. It's cute. ^^

I call this "nok cha from that tea place with the really cool atmosphere." Oh wait, I actually remember the name of this place (perhaps because it was in English) - Tea for Two! ^^

Last but not least... I never thought I'd drink black tea, but with a name like Liliuokalani, how can one pass up the opportunity? Really, just to see the name "Liliuokalani" in Korea was fascinating (I am easily amused), and the scent of the leaves alone reminded me of Hawaii... ^^