Food blogging isn’t my forte, though I like food; there are others, even here at the Hub of Sparkle who have me beat in that department. However, Man Bites World is a food blogger from Los Angeles who has set out to eat food from a different country every day, and he did a write-up about the restaurant he visited in Koreatown recently. They had a proper seafood scarfdown, and he took some fun pictures of the food they ate.
I don’t know if any of you have tried Agujjim or any of the other foods that feature sea squirt (I found some in a shabu shabu one time), but it’s a funny little sea critter that explodes with liquid once you bite into it, kind of the way a grape explodes, except times about seven, both in the amount of force required to break it, and in the amount of liquid that comes out. The first time I tried it, the jet of water went right out between my closed lips, and embarrassed me in front of all five of my ex-girlfriend’s high school pals. I should have known better when, as I raised the sea squirt to my mouth, all the ladies at the table stopped what they were doing and leaned forward with expectant looks on their faces.
The looks on these people’s faces as they bite down give a pretty good expression of the experience…
And kind of remind me of those Buckley’s Mixture videos: Buckley’s Mixture is a Canadian cough syrup brand which works. However, it tastes so vile, I know a lady who actually used to punish her kid by making him eat it when he was naughty. My theory is that it works because your body says “Good lord! He’s playing hardball now! OK! I’ll get better! Just don’t feed me any more of that swill!” The faces people make when they eat it sort of makes it the 2 Girls 1 Cup of food. (If you don’t know what 2 Girl’s 1 Cup is, it’s an extremely boring video that was inexplicably popular a little while ago, but a total waste of time, and you really shouldn’t bother googling it and wasting your own time, because you’ll be angry at me for telling you about it. For a more detailed description, without actually watching it, comedian Jon Lajoie sings a touching song about what happens in it.)
Lesson learned: when you’re about to sample a Korean food, and all the Koreans in the vicinity drop what they’re doing to watch your reaction when you eat it, and lean forward looking like this (except Korean).
You’re about to be at the butt of a joke. However, you can console yourself with the good news that you use chopsticks very well.
30/11/2008 at 12:06 pm Permalink
I had this experience eating my FIRST MEAL IN KOREA!!! The director of the education office took us (the group of 13 I flew from Canada to Korea with in 2005) out for lunch. It was insanely spicy sea food stu (not sure what the proper name of it is in Korean). I decided to be brave and just eat anything and everything I picked up with my chopsticks.
I put a big piece of what looked like a squid’s head into my mouth and bit down–POP SQUOOSH!!! Oh my god . . .
Nice post, it made me relive the whole freakin’ experience again–I need some McDonalds STAT!
J
01/12/2008 at 12:55 am Permalink
I do not get the attraction of Agujjim…it’s a lot of money for a bunch of fish bones and a plate of beansprouts…when I eat the sea squirt, it always reminds me of the face of a “celebrity” who had to eat a kangaroo’s testicle on one of those relaity shows that requires you to do such demeaning tasks…
01/12/2008 at 1:03 am Permalink
I used to live near a little agujim street where there were a dozen agujim resaurants in the space of one city block. I tried it one time and that was fine. We picked the restaurant that had the picture of the owner on the sign, and bud, this owner-lady had pretty much the ugliest mug I have seen in my life — it was epically awful, and it remains a mystery why one would put a face like that on one’s restaurant, given all the other, prettier pictures one could put up instead — I mean, Steve Buscemi doesn’t have his mugshot on his business card, does he? She was cute, though: when my friend and I sat down, she ran from table to table asking if anybody knew English to help her take our order.
01/12/2008 at 4:25 pm Permalink
Usually when the whole school goes out for dinner, I sit at the table, alone between every one else. I entertain myself by eating slowly, as usual, and trying every combination of everything there is.
Everyone is use do me doing this and ignores me for the most part, so no one noticed when I picked up this squirtamabob. I thought I would bit through t like you do with most food, holding the outside half with my chopsticks. The end result was the three other people suddenly found out what I was eating, or rather TRYING to eat.