Adoptivus: Foodie Fail

After meeting Little Bro less than 15 hours after touching down on Korean soil, we fought the jet lag and lost by taking an obscenely long nap that ate the rest of our day.  Once we woke up, we really had little we were able to do but eat.

The hotel we stay at is attached to a large Korean mall and train station.  It's bustling, fancy, and very convenient.  As this was our first official night there, we knew absolutely that we wanted something Korean.  The little place with a seven sign menu of mandoo and soups looked like just the comfort food we were craving.

And it would have been perfection, if I hadn't have tried to get all fancy and order in freaking Korean.

Appa and Kim ordered by pointing to the picture of the soup they wanted, but I wanted to be adventurous, so I attempted to order a soup I was unfamiliar with and I ordered it in Korean.

Let's get it out of the way that when our food came it was apparent that we had ordered about five times the amount we could have eaten and must have looked ridiculous ordering the quantity of food.  We wasted so much at the end of the meal and it still makes me cringe to think about.

But the part that still leaves a sour taste in my mouth...literally...was the fact that the soup I ordered was, to my taste, disgusting.  I love me a lot of Korean flavors, but this was a cold soup and it tastes of fermentation and seafood, two things I don't prefer.  I truly did try to take a couple spoon fulls, but it was just too unappealing for me to stomach.  It didn't help that I was watching Appa and Kim happily tuck into some of my favorites.

I'd like to say we figured out a way to save some face in that small little mandoo and guk shop because all eyes were fixed directly on us, but we didn't.  We left that cold soup virtually untouched and despite our best efforts, made a minimal debt in the others.  I couldn't look in the direction of that shop for the rest of our trip without blushing in shame.


We finished the night with some ice cream from Baskin Robbins, and the flavor combinations were so interesting and daring.  I remember sitting at the table marveling over all the neat flavors and building a blog post in my head.  I'm sure it was the fatigue talking, but I remember just being totally blown away by the flavors in that shop.  I'd just met my son and yet my head you exploding from ginseng-flavored ice cream that I didn't even try.

That blog never got written and I have forgotten every flavor on that menu, including every flavor we actually purchased.

I am many things, but a foodie is apparently not one of them.