Eating in Korea: Seeing Your Food First

When you first arrive in a foreign country that doesn't even use the alphabet you're used to, it can be very scary to order food (especially considering the fact that foods like squid are common). Unless you make a Korean friend very quickly (or someone who knows their way around), you might want to look for restaurants that have pictures or some other way of seeing the food you're about to order.

These pictures come from the same restaurant The first time Alex and I went out to eat without anyone was here because we could see plastic models of the food (which is fairly common here) and there was a menu that had pictures and a few English words, which helped clear up any possible confusion.

We easily found things we would eat and I must say the food was delicious. We found out a few days later that we actually went to a Japanese restaurant – typically the ones that have the plastic food and the picture menus.

Some restaurants (usually the North American ones) have English versions of their menus which can be helpful; but really, I didn't come here to eat food I could get at home any day of the week.

I will also add a word of warning with these restaurants: look very closely. At this very restaurant I ordered something that I thought was chicken. When it came to the table, it clearly was not chicken – it was squid and other underwater things I never would have ordered. I didn't eat the squid (I had some of the shrimp), but ate mostly rice that night. It was not a fun experience, but now I know not to order that again.

That's it for now, but expect a lot of posts about food – it's perhaps the biggest adventure I've had here in Seoul.