Goofy for Galbi

I have about a million food allergies, so sometimes finding something I enjoy eating, that doesn't make me sick is a challenge.

A funny thing happened to me on Thursday morning this week.  I actually woke up without stomach pain.  The last time that happened I was still a public school teacher living halfway around the world.

Last week at the Remembrance Day service I was at, the MC told the audience to buy a beer for a veteran.  I took this heart, but did not want to encourage the consumption of alcoholic beverages, so instead I decided to take a veteran out and buy them lunch.

Hee Seop had spent 2 years in the military as part of his compulsory service while living in the R.O.K.  He said he knew of a good restaurant where we could get some authentic Korean food.

It was called Sura, and it was located on Pembina Hwy.

Truly, this was a meal worth getting a little bit sick for, hours afterwards.  We had bbq'd beef ribs called Galbi.  The ribs were cooked in a sweet sauce and the meat was cut up into thin, bite sized slices.  The main course, of course, was plain white rice, which went very well with the beef.

The chopsticks were metal, but they had these long plastic handles on them.  Soju was available for the cost of $16.00.

Soju is a cheap alcohol that tastes like a watered down vodka.  It is sold in tiny bottles, under a half liter in size, and if a person drinks two bottles of the stuff, that person will be quite drunk.

Soju is a big part of the business culture in Korea.  A friend of mine used to say he used to practice drinking Soju at home alone because he thought it would help his career.  Apparently lightweight drinkers don't get very far in Korea.

In Canada, if you see a man sleeping in the street, odds are that person is homeless.  In Korea, it was all too common to see drunken Korean business men sleeping on the sidewalk or on a bench.

One time I saw two drunk Korean business men sleeping on the sidewalk together in Guri.  One of them was using the other guy's crotch as a pillow.

I guess when the stuff costs a dollar a bottle, you can drink it like water.  When it costs 16, not so much, though I did hear from Hee Seop that he and his friends still liked to play some of the Soju drinking games from the old country.

In one of them, players pass the bottle cap around and try to flick a piece of it off with a snap of a finger.

After that has been done, the same players try to guess the secret number printed in the cap.

In the game Titanic, an empty shot glass floats in a half full glass of beer.  The shot glass is filled until it sinks and that person has to drink.

I was driving, so no drinking games for me.

I give the Galbi at Sura 2 thumbs up and 5 stars (out of 5).  It didn't matter to me that my body almost violently rejected the food a few hours later (hell, most things do this to me).

The Galbi did remind me of the food I used to eat in Korea, so on that front, mission accomplished!

For an authentic taste of Korean food in Canada, I highly recommend the Galbi at the Sura restaurant, on Pembina Hwy.

Just tell them Neil sent you.

bon appetite,

rymr