Friday, September 24, 2010

Race Class and Inequality in Places that Serve Noodles in Korea

No not really. I just wonder why a plate of spaghetti can fetch up to 15000 won a person while freshly made noodles from Korean and Chinese disciplines of cooking top out at around 8,000.

Seriously, we went to an Italian pasta shack where my wife had some kind of spicy seafood spaghetti. It was 17,000 won. It was good, but it was basically Jjam Bbong with tomatoes in it.

Down the road from that place is a Naeng Myun restaurant that was featured in the famous Korean food comic book called Shic Gaek. The noodles there are always fresh, and the lady makes naengmyeon broth from a combination of beef and quail. The price 6000 a bowl.

There are a lot of Chinese joints that have dudes stretching and throwing big strings of noodle dough around, that usually charge like 3000-4000 for some Jja Jjang Myun or Jjam Bbong. Also whenever you go to a noodle specialty restaurant and here a noise that is something like a food mixer engine running, that's usually the cook running noodle dough through a noodle maker. That means you aren't eating no pasta barrilla.

Eat it and appreciate the labor going into your meal.

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