Demilitarized Korean Food

Asian cuisine - a misnomer in itself, since Asia is so vast and diverse - has held a special fascination for my tastebuds because I lived in essentially blissful ignorance of anything related to Asia right up through eleventh grade at boarding school in Nigeria, where to be honest, we rarely had any interaction with anyone from that continent.

Discovering Japan, then China, Korea, Hong Kong, Vietnam, India, and so on came well after high school - starting with my chosen major of Japanese in University, and my introduction to what remains my bedrock favorite cuisine, and on through a job which let me work with, and visit, and immerse myself in at least part of the culture of Japan, Korea and China, and of course, the food for which they are justifiably famous.

So, I started late diving into all the intensity and distillation of thousands of years of evolutionary cooking, and if there's one thing I am discovering, it's that I probably will not live long enough to taste everything there is on offer in even one of these cultures, let alone all of them.  But man, it's beyond fun to try, and even more so to find something every now and then which is so impossibly good that it becomes one of those cravings that you really need to have on a pretty regular basis.

Of all of them, the one I know least, and yet the one that packs the biggest culinary punch in the mouth (in the most indulgent and satisfying way) for me has got to be Korean.  Oh yes, if adventurous, we in the West will occasionally grace our hot dog with sauerkraut, for example.  In Korea, sauerkraut is mere baby food compared to the punishment endured by their cabbage.  Kimchi, the national dish - innocuously translated as 'pickled cabbage' -is a riotous symphony of fermentation coupled with tongue-searing pepper and supersaturations of garlic guaranteed to trail in your wake for four days after eating.  Kimchi is frank, in-your-face, unapologetically direct food.  So is Bulgogi, and other variants of marinated and barbecued meat - soaked for hours in spiky-sweet, vinegar and garlicky goodness, then seared on a blast-furnace griddle in the middle of your table - the very essence of what meat and fire together should produce.  Putting the two together seems impossibly egregious - but match them on a bed of plain white rice, or cold glass noodles (jap chae), and the blend becomes obvious and right - a match which is made in heaven, a result of centuries of experimenting to make it perfect.  Not unlike the perfect giant sushi hand roll, or pad thai, or Szechuan chicken.

It's always deeply satisfying to watch food which you used to have to drive miles to eat, suddenly show up then in places like the food court at the mall.  Look around you next time - next to the A&W, Arby's, Mrs. Vanelli's Pizza and Taco Time - there's a Manchu Wok, a Teriyaki Experience, a Thai Express, or a Pho Noodle House....

The problem is, most of them tend to dumb down the exotic factor which made them so attractive in the first place - maybe because the 'real' flavors are still too exotic to sell.  But at least you can get sriracha hot sauce at just about all of them, in a bottle next to the hoisin.  Not bad - we're getting there.

So, when a new guy shows up in town, hope stirs again that maybe we've made enough progress to get the real thing this time.  Sadly, last night proved again that there's a long way to go.

How could you go wrong with a place that brazenly calls itself Kim Chi at the Market Mall food court in Calgary?  Better order the special - looks like a sizeable pile of beef and chicken piled on rice and sauteed veggies.  Haven't had my Korean quota for the month, but this is a good night to do that, being that my wife had Thai soup, so the garlic will happily cancel each other out.  (It is nice to be considerate and eat garlic when your spouse does.  Trust me.)

I ordered the special, and then cavalierly added a small order of dumplings.  Whether Korean, Japanese or Chinese - all know the essence of a sublime dumpling - pork, garlic and greens nestled in a soft wrapper, crisped on the bottom, juicy throughout, begging for a quick marriage with vinegary-sweet soy dipping sauce....(eyes closed, imagining the first bite, while the chef wokked away at my entree, and gently laid the parboiled meat on the grill to finish it....

Wait.   He's speaking Chinese.  Not that there's anything wrong with a Chinese guy cooking my Korean food, but you know, I was hoping for really authentic.  I know Italians who would laugh at my attempts to make pizza like their nonna does, too.

No matter - it looks pretty good.  The chicken is fiery red - should be a warning of spicy times ahead, okay, okay....the spare ribs are charred in all the right places, okay - that's a lot of rice, but all the more to soak up the garlicky meaty runoff - and the vegetables look al dentishly fresh...

I turn to walk away - "Sir!  Sir!  Don'r forget your dumplings!"  Ah yes, of course, thank you very much.

First bite.  The dumpling.  Remember the porky garlic, the crispy underside?  Think again.  This one tasted exactly like an old sponge, lovingly soaked in old cooking oil.  The dipping sauce?  Aqua Velva aftershave, thanks.

Second bite.  The chicken.  Have you ever eaten chicken that's just barely done?  That uncomfortably cool slithery taste that says "Hey, buddy - put me back in the pan for a few minutes, wouldja?  What are you trying to do, get someone killed?"  I swallowed, hard.   The red color?  Mealy, forgettable - like those gumballs from the machines outside Zellers, where the flavor almost gets there, then disappears into shapeless, taste-free disappointment.  And those lovely black hash marks from the grill?  Like a briquette on the palate.

Third bite.  The spare ribs.  Look - fat is crucial to eating well - it carries taste, it marries with salt, it's no accident that properly used, it deserves its place at the pinnacle of the food pyramid, if only for short bursts of pleasurable reign.  The fat in this meat, though, was trying to avoid my teeth, adroitly slipping out of the way as I, increasingly concerned, tried to find some edible flesh in there between the bones. 

Maybe the rice, then.  It did look brown, and invitingly teriyakish.  But there the resemblance ended.  This was nothing more than the pooling of mediocrity - which I suppose may have been designed to simply not overshadow the bean sprouts and carrots, both of which left no doubt that they had been grown in the dirt.

I am not normally squeamish.  But the spectre of Salmonella, coupled with the odd slithery quality of the flesh made me start to really worry about the prospect of seeing my whole meal once more in its entirety, this time tinged with violence and wreathed in porcelain....

I survived the night.  But I will not be returning to that place.  Even though its name promises a Korean experience you'd normally want to impress your friends with.  Forewarned, dear reader.  If you want real Korean fast food in Calgary, you're way, way better off at Koryo in either North Hill or Northland Village malls.  Those guys make food you remember.