Korean Sushi: Not for Pansies

Whatever I was eating must not have had a satisfying life. I cannot imagine how being the consistency of jelly and stuffed into a hairy, soft shell could have been enjoyable. And so, depending on your worldview, this little sea creature was either carrying out one last defiant act against nature or transferring its life force onto me as it excreted the most unpleasant of tastes and textures into my mouth. I tried to swallow fast. And this was only the second course.

On a food experimentation scale of one to ten, one being "I'll play it safe and stick to McDonald's" and ten being "Bring on the monkey brains and chicken urine," I'd place myself at a solid seven. However (dramatic pause) Korean sushi is not for pansies, or anyone below a nine for that matter.

This particular night, I was eager to try Korea’s take on sushi while celebrating a new job with two other North Americans and my new Korean boss.  We were sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of traditional low tables when the door to our private room slid open and the first delicious course was placed in front of us.  Upon seeing the subsequent courses of slimy, glistening sea things sticking to plates as indecisively as raw egg to a kitchen counter, though, I determined that my only salvation was to dip everything offered me into the Korean hot pepper sauce in front of me. A sauce that puts Tabasco to shame, it also turns patches of my fair skin an almost neon shade of red. This was a sacrifice I was willing to make in order to avoid other shades of green that the sea things would have induced my skin to become upon remaining free of the sauce.  I searched for a way out – for any excuse – but I had no choice.  My new boss had ordered the meal, and refusing to eat any of the dishes he enthusiastically offered would have been a colossal social blunder.  So I strengthened my resolve, gripped my chopsticks and swallowed yet another foul-tasting and slippery something. 

Like the number of missed calls in the Oklahoma-Oregon game, the assortment of unidentifiable dishes placed in front of us seemed to have no end.  First there was something long, gray and sticky that I, thinking myself quite clever, wrapped in dried seaweed and something else green, but to no avail. Next, there was something that might have been a sea cucumber: it had the texture of eggplant on the inside with a skin that could have been a pickle’s.  I ate almost an entire plate of something that tasted like paper, even though it had the woody consistency of raw bamboo.  I said a silent prayer of thanks for the reprieve, as the hot pepper sauce had cut off all sensation in my lips. .  Every time the door to our room opened I wished for something – anything – cooked.  The short-lived relief, as it turns out, was only preparation for further shock.  The next dish out of the bag could only be described as orange mucus, but I was luckily warned against it. With the approving nod of my boss, I was spared the expectation of eating it, which cannot be said about the gray mussels that I swallowed whole to avoid the runny consistency. Towards the end, even my boss was baffled by the array of oddities presented to us dish upon dish by the seemingly innocent waitress who was shy to use her English. We ordered plum wine too late.

By the ninth or tenth course, we were finally blessed with three cooked fish whose affixed heads did not deter me; my tired tongue and reluctant chopsticks suddenly gained new life as they frantically dug in.  I patted myself on the back for making it through the evening but reluctantly admitted that I wasn’t quite as tough as I’d once thought.  As I walked out of the restaurant, I watched our host pull a huge wad of Korean currency out of his pocket.  It turns out that the four of us had just eaten a $200 meal. 

tags: food  korea  travel