My first Korean meal!

Being a new food blogger, I always want to try something new and different. So on a Saturday afternoon, after reading almost every menu in Castle Towers and deciding that it was too expensive, we headed down to Eastwood where I had read a few reviews of restaurants there. Being Asian, I go there all the time but have never been to the other side of the station- apparently referred to as the "Korean side". I was very surprised to find out that on that other side, there was a whole street full of restaurants!!!

By then, it was around 3 and we were all quite hungry since we only had breakfast. So we walked into a this particular restaurant because it was one of the first ones we saw....and it had good pictures on its windows! The restaurant was pretty small and had a pretty unique design (which i later found out to be typical of Korean restaurants)- on one side of the room, there were a row of tables and chairs, on the other side, there were tables but no chairs! Since I'm hopeless at describing things, here's what I mean:

How cool is that?
You can't really see much in the picture. Which is because of a mix of my poor photo taking skills (as always) and my very weird camera (not my normal one) which has takes pictures with the worst colours ever!

Of course, we chose the chairless tables- thanks to my sister who requested that we sit there. Whilst this was at first very fun, by the end of the meal, we all had pins and needles!
Ordering from the menu was quite difficult- although there was an english menu, our lack of knowledge of Korean food meant that we had no idea what each item on the menu actually was. This problem was solved when my mum took the waitress outside and used the photos to tell the waitress what she wanted to order. It was quite funny =]

Complimentary appetisers

First to come out were the appetisers. As this was my first time in a Korean restaurant, I was quite surprised when the waitress put these down on the table and even more surpirsed to find out that they were free! (except for the sauces which came with our meals). Apparently, this is common in most Korean restaurants. I'm not usually a nut person but the nuts in the sweet sauce were so addictive, I kept eating them throughout the meal. I don't usually eat hot (as in spicy) foods either but I was feeling particularly adventurous so I tried the kimchi and the jelly-like thing (i have no idea what it is). Both were quite hot (for my tastes) but delicious. I'm pretty sure my excitement had something to do with it but I had only started on the appetisers and was already loving the meal! Even the salad, which only consisted of lettuce and carrot with dressing (if i remember correctly) tasted good!

Despite the small size of the appetizers, they took quite a while to eat because the kimchi was so hot, I couldn't eat it quickly and we had to eat the nuts one at a time because we were using chopsticks. The other food came very quickly so we never got around to finishing the appetisers....

Seafood Pancake- $13

I later found out that seafood pancake is usually considered an appetiser which I find hard to believe because of the size of this one. The seafood pancake was quite large and was very very satisfying. Sadly, I don't remember what it tasted like, only that I loved it and would order it again!

Bibimbap- $13

Bibimbap is a funny name. My mum recommended it to me- the chinese call this 'stone rice'. I was quite baffled as I didn't see the link between stones and rice. It made a little more sense when the dish arrived- it is served in a bowl made of stone (or some other material similar to it). The bowl is very hot so it continues to cook the rice for a while and almost instantly cooks the raw egg yolk when it is mixed with the rice.

Meat Soup with Rice- $12
This meat soup came with rice. It was served in the same type of bowl as the bibimbap.....I wonder why it isn't called 'stone soup' in chinese? I have no idea what this is- it was a soup with had meat in it but tasted like much more than that. The problem with eating something you've never eaten before is that it's difficult to figure out how to eat it. We ended up putting the rice into the soup and eating it that way.

Overall, this meal was one of the most exciting ones I've ever had. It was also very filling. The service was excellent and the food was delicious- i would come back here anyday!

For anyone who's wondering what's with the name (since my last post was about a Korean BBQ dinner), I've never had a non barbecue Korean meal. So I consider this to be my first =]

Myung-Ga BBQ Restaurant

120 Rowe Street,
Eastwood
NSW, 2122