Galleria

After hearing the many recommendations and praises of relatives and friends about this place, I finally visited this Korean supermarket. Who'd ever have thought that this would turn out to be a first-class adventure!

Korean gadgets are really coming into their own around here, and this supermarket had all the brands. I loved the pots and pans, and plastic-that-looks-like-real glass/stoneware plates, cups and saucers, and bowls. I couldn't believe my eyes when I spotted these one-piece pincer-like chopsticks for the digitally challenged. There was no shortage of Korean groceries, fruits, vegetables, dry goods, candies, and also a good selection of non-Korean stuff. A rhythmic bang drew me to the centre of the store where I saw this machine that takes in a few grains of rice, and then "bang!" instantly out pops a big round, lighter-than-air rice cake. Then bang, another one, and bang, another one, and another one, and another one, .... Uhh! I had to catch up to my companions.

Then there it was - the food court! This is what my friends had been telling me about. They had stressed the variety, and the convenience of the place. Instead of paying at the food station counter like most food courts, here you ordered and paid at a cashier, and got a ticket with a number on it. When the food was ready, a l.e.d. flasher at the station that made your particular dish displayed the number on your ticket, and you got it. The menu was impossible to understand - bolsot bibim bap, koatgaetang, soegogi beoseot deopbap, nakji jeongtol, boodae tchigtae, haemul ttukpaegi, toeji kalbi kui - !!?!!?! It was all Korean to me. However, there were pictures! I ordered by pointing to a picture of something I felt brave enough to try, but not to pronounce. The cashier gave me a ticket.

Korean food is not subtle. The flavours are bold (hot), flavourful (hot), and fragrant (hot). Koreans believe in garlic - with a passion. My dinner companions had seafood something with noodles in soup. They loved it. They loved the automatic sushi rolling machine at one of the food stations, too. My I-do-not-know-the-name-of-it dish consisted of browned noodles with beef, assorted asian vegetables and fungi, something spicy in it, and lots of garlic. It was really good, lovely to begin with, and increasingly spicy right up to the last morsel. A Korean family at the table next to ours emptied what must have been half a litre (I kid you not) of spicy red stuff all over their food. They ate it without even the slightest wince or hesitation.

I really needed some water after witnessing that. Styrofoam cups were available at the food stations to be used for a water dispenser - so I helped myself. My dinner companions asked why I didn't use the Korean cups. !!?!!?! There was such a thing as Korean cups? They showed me. There they were. Small metal cups stacked together inside what looked like a wine cooler - only it was a machine to store, dry, and keep clean cups clean. One of my companions took a small metal cup out of the cooler like thing, used it to drink some water from the dispenser. Then said, "you can drop your used cup in this receptacle." I looked and there was a thing you could stack your used cup in - sort of like a reverse cup holder you would normally get soft drink cups out of in a cafeteria. Wow, they think of everything!

After eating, we had dessert simply by walking through their bakery section. We were too full to indulge in the gorgeous-looking sweets. We worked off some calories by browsing the frozen food section. You know they have everything pre-sliced for doing your own hot-pot at home?

Life is good. I gotta do this again.