Allez Cuisine...



Sunday, while helping two friends pack for their big move to the Big Apple, I was sent out for sustenance at a nearby Korean restaurant.

Me: I'll have two orders of #68 and one order of #66 for take out, please. (Yes, I order by number. Their language has been around for a very long time and they don't need to hear me massacre it. If they didn't want you to use the numbers, they wouldn't put them on the menu.)
Waitress: [unpronounceable entree]?! Are you sure?
Me: Yeah, why?
Waitress: Did you read the description?
Me: [reads description of #66 again: Korean sausage in beef broth with vegetables] Sausage, beef broth, and vegetables, right? You don't think I'd like that?
Waitress: That dish is very .... difficult. Americans don't order that.
Me: Well, if you say so.
Waitress: How about [another unpronounceable entree]? (Chicken soup with dumplings.)
Me: That sounds easier...

Too difficult? My mind started wandering while she rang up the order. Difficult? What exactly was in that sausage, I wondered? Some ground up gonad of a rare and bizarre bottom-feeding eel-like creature? Beaks? Pig prostates? Giblets? Or perhaps "difficult" didn't mean "unusual food" but actually meant difficult to eat. Was the sausage covered in a chitinous carapace-like exoskeleton? Does it contain fuel oil that you have to light while trying to eat it with wooden chopsticks? Was it skittering around the bowl on its 50 pairs of legs? Was it covered in millions of tiny soft, but poisonous spines?

I watch too much Iron Chef.

Posted: Wed - February 21, 2007 at 09:36 AM        

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