Toothers!

TheFry cut his first tooth a couple of weeks ago. I am so happy. I was starting to wonder if they would ever come out. My mother told me that I got my first tooth at 15 months, and I was not happy about the prospect of that happening with TheFry (for whatever reason - I don't know...). Anyway, the second one has been pushing its way through this week, which is externally evident in his endlessly crabby mood. Our solution:


(Thank you mykoreankitchen.com via google image search!)

Kimbap Cheonguk means "Kimbap Heaven". Kimbap is like a sushi roll, only it's not sushi (technically). You can put anything in kimbap (and I mean anything). But really, Kimbap Cheonguk serves Korean comfort food to the masses. It is one of many such chain restaurants in Korea.

Most importantly, however, kimbap is not the only thing they serve! Their menu is huge and full of such cheap local quick foods. Here is what we have eaten in the past week:

chumeokbap - a big rice ball filled with such things as tuna salad, bulgogi, kimchi, or whatever inside. Then the ball is rolled in shredded dried seaweed laver (yummy!) and sprinkled with sesame seeds. It is fantastic! And, seeing as how it's about a dollar to buy one of these, I often purchase one for dinner while I am at work.

tangsu mandu - fried dumplings in a kind of sweet-and-sour sauce that resembles ketchup. I suspect that the sauce is probably mostly ketchup. Anyway, it's yummy.

kogi mandu - steamed dumplings with meat in them. We bought a huge package of frozen ones at the grocery store and TheFry loves them!

curry tonkatsu - Tonkatsu is a pork cutlet, tenderized and breaded with panko breadcrums, then fried to yummy perfection. Usually it is served with the aptly named "katsu sauce" - something like barbecue sauce - but you ca also order it with curry. Ordering something with curry in Korea means you will get a mild curry-esque sauce, not really all that spicy, and it will be loaded with potatoes and carrots. Also, because tonkatsu is a Japanese-style dish, the meal is served with all kinds of side dishes that you get with any kind of Japanese-style dish in Korea: corn kernels with mayonnaise, cole slaw with thousand island dressing, etc.

veggie kimbap - kimbap with vegetables, mayo, processed ham and imitation crab. Being a vegetarian in Korea would be extremely difficult.

So why do we do all this? Because walking around in public with TheFry and feeding him restaurant food is the easiest way to placate him when he's angry at the world. He loves the attention he gets from the general public (as long as MamaFish or PapaFish are holding him), he loves tonkatsu and he loves eating in restaurants. He is a connoisseur of sorts, refusing to eat plain rice (I must mix broth with it instead) or eggs (unless they are salted) amongst other things. He has eclectic tastes for an 11-month-old. His father is proud of him.