For those of you who think that you’ve eaten a lot this Thanksgiving, start thinking a little bit more relatively because I don’t think you could possibly compete with the marathon of self-gorging that I’ve just gone through.
No, seriously.
I ate like a horse.
Lately, I’ve been hanging out at my friend Jennifer Ko’s house a lot, inbetween her ridiculous amount of sports and A.P. classes, and my ridiculous amount of….. other stuff. (Cooking/Video Games) This is great, because I love eating foods that I don’t get at home, and her mom is like, the greatest cook of Korean food that I know. After we got past the initial sitting on the floor, chopstick coordination, and sharing plates entrance exam, Korean food is practically my favorite kind of cuisine by now. It turns out chopsticks just takes practice, my less-coordinated friends. I was talking with her awhile ago, and she says that a couple weeks ago, her mom said that they were going to Atlanta, and would I like to come, and then she asked why I was looking at her like that because I was so excited I was going a bit cross eyed, and I said, “Yes! Heck yes! My mom? No, of course she won’t care!” And my trip was planned.
So, spanks to Thanksgiving, I opted out in favor of a once-in-lifetime Korean Thanksgiving, and let me tell you, I really regret missing the time with my family. They’re the best, and I’m not used to holidays away from my family, because we’re pretty close and we have a bit of a tradition, American families being creatures of routine and all that. But I definitely do not regret going, sorry mom. We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn, and I wanted to show you guys just how nice this place is:
Do you see that bed, on the top right? Comfiest known to man since Zeus laid his Greek butt on a pillowy cloud. There was a gym that I got a lot of use out of, thanks to Jennifer, and a heated pool, which was a god-sent when the weather got down to 32 degrees and I felt like throwing myself in front of the traffic outside. The restaurant in the hotel has a buffet all the time, and I know, I know, I’m in culinary and that’s where I should have been concentrating, but to tell the truth, I don’t really like eating food that I eat at home when I’m on vacation, and the buffet was all-American, so definitely a no-go. The first day we were here, I got to have Korean Kalbi for my thanksgiving meal, (pronounced KAI-BEE) and it was amazing. To understand what the best part of Korean food is, you have to know the mechanics. When you eat at any Korean restaurant, they give you whatever you order, plus tons of side dishes. (Banchan) These are usually stuff like bean sprouts, daikon radish, rice, seaweed salad, vegetables, squid, or my favorite, kimchi. So, you have all of these delicious side dishes, and then, at the Kalbi restaurant, they put these yummy marbled slabs of beef on the heated grill in front of you, along with onions and mushrooms. At this time, I got a big bowl of Buckwheat noodles too, but I’m not sure if this was because they usually give you soup or because Jennifer’s mom ordered it, or they just liked my face, but it’s cold and vinegary and it has all kinds of stuff like pear, cucumber, and other pickled unidentifiable things that tasted awesome.
Anyway, the beef cooks in front of you, the waitress coming by to cut it when it’s done, and you just pick it off the grill, wrap it in lettuce, rice, and a sauce, and then you cram it in your mouth like some crazed starved person, because oh god, you can’t stop eating, it’s so good. I had some kind of mutant distended stomach by the time we left, and I think I might have been waddling like a pregnant lady.
Somebody, quick, get the wheelchair.
I ate at other places too so far, a tofu house when it got too cold, where the soup in my bowl was still at a rolling boil for 2 minutes after it hit my table, until I put a raw egg in it that promptly cooked and cooled it down. I went to a bakery, where all the pastries weren’t sweet at all, but all the better for it, one tasted like peanuts, another like green tea, and another like almonds. And I even went to a market where I stuffed my face with bubble tea (A smoothie with tapioca balls in it that taste like sweet bread or something) and more buckwheat noodles, because I was just eating for the challenge of it at this point, because it started to actually cause me pain. I know. I’m such a lady.
The food was great, and it was definitely a cool and eye opening experience to be in a place where I can’t even read the store signs or understand what anybody is saying. They just put food in front of me, and I matched my facial expression appropriately, usually by expressing unadulterated contentment. It’s really great though, to just go someplace with the whole expressed purpose being to eat food and nothing but. We went to a market, for food, we went to different restaurants, for food, and I ran 3 miles, so I could eat more food tomorrow. (I think that’s what bulimics do…) I’m in heaven, and Korean barbecue was probably the best thanksgiving meal I’ve ever had, don’t you dare tell my mother.
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