Udon Know How Much You Mean To Me

A notification came up on my phone from my cousin commenting on my Facebook album of pictures from my trip to South Korea.

“하루종일 면요리..?” = “all day long noodle cooking?” = “geez, are noodles all you eat? get your diet together.”

Okay, maybe not that harsh.

But now that I have had time to reflect on my journey through the food world of Korea and rummage through my pictures, I’ve found that I did indeed consume A LOT of noodle dishes.

Is it my fault that Korean noodles have a tendency to linger in the back of your mind (and on your thighs) even as you reel backwards, full to the brim with delicious goodness?

Through my experiences, I slowly came to the conclusion that, not matter where you are, udon is always going to be a safe bet. In an Asian country, or even an Asian restaurant, there is literally no way a chef could mess up this bowl of noodles to be anything other than delicious. Every time we ended up in a less-than-stomach-friendly place (airport/questionable foreign restaurant/grocery store restaurant?), I found that the udon was the least questionable choice you could possibly make and the best bang for your buck.

Speaking of saving money, noodles also became a staple in my diet because of how impossibly cheap noodle dishes were. I’m talking fast food cheap.

A few days after we got back, my dad dragged us all along for a trip to Columbus, Ohio. We visited the same Chinese/Korean restaurant we always went to in the city and ordered the same noodle dishes as we usually did, only just to become sad at the x2 price and x1/2 authenticity. Of course, it was our fault for going to a heavily Americanized place searching for authentic Korean food, but it was disappointing all the same. Once the relief of being home in our own beds, the pang of missing our second-home set in, and as for now, we have little to do but re-experience the trip through the thousands of photos we took (not all of noodles, don’t worry!)

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The area my grandfather used to live in that inspired a harrowing grandfather-granddaughter noodle-house searching trip.

Worth every minute of the 95 degree weather.

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Next up on my blog post queue: The origin of the beautiful dish above and more Jeju-do adventures!