Any tofu lovers?

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Tonight, Shauna and I decided to venture out of "the village" in search of food. Our luck so far has been good with finding places to eat around our little country side town of Beopheung-ri in Paju City. We tried inviting a few people along but to no avail we ended up leaving on our own accord around 6:30pm in search of nutrients.

Walking out through the large wooden arched doors, beneath the Gyeonggi English Village sign, heading south towards the immigration office, around the outside stepping out past two EV buses we took a left in front of the replica of Stone Henge. Another twenty meters we reached the top of the hill deciding to cross here instead of at the lights near the bottom of the hill. As we slowly began the crossing at the cross walk, Shauna noticed two on coming cars approaching from the directions of the lights, we hurried ourselves to the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street as the twin Samsung SM5 cars sped past. Laughing at the absurdity we began our descent towards the lights. Reaching the lights we decided not to go to the local Kim-bap Chan-gu restaurant which ninety-percent of the people we work with eat at on a regular basis.

Instead we meandered to the right around the street lights heading towards the random row of restaurants near the amazingly awesome mandu place Kurt took us to in our first two weeks on campus! This is also the same location as the restaurant we ended up with Justin a few weeks ago. Our chances of finding good food at a decent price was reasonably sound!

Fifteen minutes later we turned another left beginning our journey down "restaurant row." "Aaron, what kind of food do you think you would like tonight?" Shauna politely asked. "Well, I think tonight I am a little less picky then normal but why don't we try that Tofu place where all those people are always standing around out front on that deck. What do you think?" "Sure! The tofu place. I'm sure it will be good food, since the place is always packed whenever we go by!" With that settled we strolled the four hundred and twenty-three meters to the wood steps which took us inside the restaurant.

Entering the place we noticed two types of seating areas; one was regular western style with chairs and regular tables, people still wearing their shoes at the table. The second was the typical korean sit on the ondol floor*, with a pillow beneath you eating food. We opted to take off our shoes and enjoy the meal at the traditional korean styled table.

*ondol = hot water heated floor

Unaware of what to order, besides tofu since we were in an ALL Tofu Restaurant? We just perused the menu looking from this item to the next making sure nothing sounded like or appeared to be either fish nor meat. Eventually, the waitress noticed we had our Berlitz Korean language phrase book perched on the table between us and the menu trying to decipher the letters to the words we didn't want to see on the menu. In a quick broken English tongue she explained everything was indeed just tofu! How could we go wrong?

Quickly, we pointed to a dish that included rice and another that had cold noodles and a stew like broth. We really had zero expectations for what would be served to us. I withdrew my camera from my pocket and snapped off a few random photographs of the restaurant. Then I excused myself to take a couple of full room shots from the other side of the place pretending all along to need to use the toilet. Eventually, I came back to the table watching Shauna look hungrily at the other patrons dishes of food. Sitting down, the waitress approached with a cart of food. Our ban-chans (side-dishes) had arrived! Immediately before Shauna could dig into the food, I began taking photographs of every single dish. One main wide shot of everything then close in tight shots of all the food. I've become relentless at taking food pictures of EverythinG we eat in Korea!!!

Setting the camera down for the moment, we dug into the ban-chans one after another. Each one held an absolute delicious taste against our tongues! This was a serious thrill, to be eating this healthy and enjoying every bite we took! The sensational ban-chans were followed by an even more extraordinary set of entrees! We ate in complete silence, something extremely rare when dining with Shauna!

Shauna enjoys having good conversation with her meals. She was raised to have discussions at the dinner table, unfortunately I was not. I'm much more of the barbarian who eats everything quickly and talks after it all reaches my belly completely full with a smile upon my face. Since meeting Shauna, I have learned to take my time, enjoy the meal before me and speak freely about all kinds of topics related to the food we are eating to everyday topics of life.

The food was more appealing than a Rocky Road with Spanish Caramel Ice Cream Waffle Cone from McKay's Ice Cream shop in Cochrane! I was tickled pink, blue and green! Everything on our table was a fantastic journey of just how delicious Tofu can truly be! It made me appreciate the people who grew it, cultivated it, delivered it, refrigerated it, gave it love, cooked it, and then present it to us on a plate to be devoured by our hungry selves! Sensational my mouth watered over and over again as my taste buds exploded with each enthusiastic bite! Over and over again the smells from each ban-chan drew me into the restaurant, the tastes opened up my heart to the delights sitting within every bowl between the two of us.

If I were a critique I would give this Tofu Restaurant... 4 3/4 stars for everything from the service, to the cleanliness, to the friendly service, to the attempt to speak broken English to us before our meal began, to the hostess who let me take multiple pictures of the establishment and to the cooks who deserve a gracious hug after eating the beautifully crafter treasures they serve to their customers every single day!

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Photos

Tofu Jigahe
jigahe is a hot stew

Soju & Rice
Korean rice wine

Comments

[Bonnie]

Food Writer
Aaron , I think you are missing your calling! You should be a travel writer..you made me want to jump on the next plane , to have dinner at that restaurant .The pictures made my mouth water . Love , Bonnie