Joy to the Fishes in the Deep Blue Sea

Habakkuk 3:16 When I heard, my belly trembled;

I had a bright idea tonight. I figured Annie, Karen and myself could talk our English over dinner at a local restaurant. Since I have only been to a few of them, Annie picked one out and then ordered for us. I figured I was safe, because Korean restaurants always serve a lot of side dishes..........seems this was a Japanese style restaurant.

If you know me, then you know I am not a fish fan. I can eat Captain D's but if there is another choice, Betty Lynn is not opting for food with fins. Well, tonight was fish night, and there ain't no Captain D's in Korea. Our first course was a big pot brought to the table on a gas burner. It had odeng in the broth with noodles, tofu and several other unidentifiable items.

Sidebar: Odeng is a shish-ke-bab of chopped up fish and flour that has been formed into ribbons suitable for the skewer. (One friend told me that odeng is fish like a hot dog is pork.) While I forgot my camera tonight, I found this picture for your viewing pleasure:

Odeng is one Korean food that I had already determined in my heart that I would not try and tonight it was the main course. I ate a whole one, but I did not do a lot of chewing.

After we finished the pot of soup out came the next round......Sushi. I was expecting tiny slivers of raw fish inside a roll of rice - NOT. These slabs of meat were nearly as long as my finger, almost twice as wide and laying on a roll of sticky rice. Here is a picture of the octopus sushi I found on the internet, and it looks just like what was on my plate:

Since knives are not standard Korean tableware, I had to ask how to eat them. Seems you are supposed to stuff the whole thing in your mouth. I was trying to just politely taste a small piece and without a knife I had the bright idea to bite mine in half. Raw fish does not give, so I ended up with a little rice and ALL the fish - half of which was dangling outside my clenched teeth. "Whole thing!" they both tell me. So there was nothing to do but eat it. Not a lot of chewing this round either. I ate salmon, flounder and octopus sushi but passed on the shrimp (thank heavens for food allergies) and let Annie eat the only serving of eel.

Tonight, I am thankful for chopsticks. While we talked, I was able to pick up tiny bits of food from the soup with the chopsticks and kill time between my acts of bravery. While none of it was really horrible, it is not anything that I will run out and order again. Mirim told me that you have to try something three times before you know whether or not you can like it. I guess I will never know.