Tuesday lunch with K&K

So I'm skipping the weekend post for right now because I am waiting on some pictures from Dallas and Cindy (well Cindy sent me hers, but I have to edit some of them). Hopefully Dallas will give me some soon. Until then...

I asked Kyeong He if she wanted to have lunch sometime this week and Tuesday was the only day we both had available in common. We also invited Krista (thus K&K). Krista and I met up on the corner near my house and Kyeong He showed up in a cab and told us to jump in.

She took us to a traditional Korean soup house that serves a kind of fermented bean paste soup (similar to miso, but fermented longer). She says it's really delicious but all Koreans basically say that it smells like feet, and she wanted to warn us about the smell of the place. She took us there not for the soup, but for the pork cutlet (or donkatsu). I actually want to go back and try the soup because Jayden made some similar to it and it was really good.

Outside of the restaurant. It's cuter in person and there are little gnome like people set up all around.

The restaurant was fairly empty when we got there and our lunch was brought out pretty quickly. They brought us lots of side dishes and we each had a main dish. My mom mentioned in a skype conversation that I talk about, describe and show pictures of food a lot. I realize this, but it's one thing that is easy to photograph, and is very different from American culture. That's aside from the fact that eating, getting coffee and going to bars are the main ways foreigners meet up. Back to the food!

Pork cutlet, rice and salad (and pickles - duh)

These are the 8 sides they brought us (from top left to bottom right): little anchovies, peppers with samjang (bean paste sauce), octopus pieces and seaweed, mulkimchi (water kimchi), mushrooms, japchae (noodles), mayonnaise with soft soy nuts, and kimchi radish. I ate 4 of them - I'll let you guess which ones.

One funny thing was when my friend LeeAnna walked in. Apparently today was graduation for her school and thus the school kitchens were closed. So all the teachers at her school were taken to lunch at this place. She was not excited about it as she would most likely end up sitting at the end of the table being ignored and playing on her phone. Oh well.

After lunch, we went for coffee and a place called illy coffee. Dallas has wanted me to go there for awhile, but it's closed when I finally get off of school. One cute thing about this cafe is that it is also a ceramic cafe and the owner teaches pottery in the back. Dallas wants me to sign up with him and I had Kyeong He ask the lady some more details to see if it's possible. I had a milk tea and it was ok, but next time I'll go back to my typical latte. Then on our way to work, we actually saw my boss crossing the street. I introduced my friends and later they said that he looked kind of scary or like a solider. I thought that was funny.

That pretty much sums up my Tuesday! Hope you enjoyed looking at food, because you're going to on my next post too :)