1st
Silkworm larva (번데기)This was
one of the worst foods I've ever had. It's a big hit with the older crowd, and sold on the streets in many places in Seoul. My school obviously convinced me to try it. I think they had good intentions because they seem to love that stuff, but I almost threw up.
2nd Chicken feet (닭발) Rachel (my GLS friend from Cyprus & best 친구 here in Korea) and I accidentally had this one night in Seoul. Back before my Korean reading ability was good, I convinced her to randomly point to something on the menu and have sort of a "Korean roulette dinner". What we pointed to unknowingly, was this.... Now, to be honest It wasn't bad, but that's because we thought it was
fried squid/octopus tentacles, after about 5 minutes of us chomping on the unfamiliar texture, I realized that what I was chewing was cartilage and what we had ordered was chicken feet. After figuring this out I couldn't eat anymore. Looking back I can't believe it took us this long to figure it out. I mean after all they are covered in an orange sauce and once you really pick one up, it look exactly like a
chicken's foot.
#3 Live octopus (산낙지)
Old Boy (2003): A famous Korean movie
I thought about writing this yesterday because I just had this dish again last night. The staff at my school had a huge celebration last night, and for dinner one of the main courses was live octopus. (the other main dish was live shrimp). I've only had this 3 other times in Korea and each time its been with a large group of people. It's a fairly expensive dish, and one that many people in Korea believe is a delicacy. True story: last night I
almost died from eating this. You see, the hardest part about eating this is that fact that they are always moving and wiggling around. Whether its
crawling off the plate, or inside your mouth. Last night I ate a pretty big piece and tried to wash it down with some beer; However it suctioned part of itself to the roof of my mouth. This made for a very strange scene. I had half of it down my throat but the rest was stuck to the top of my mouth, add to the fact that my mouth was full of beer and I couldn't open it or beer would come spewing out. After panicking and gagging but not trying to draw to much attention to myself, I spit the beer into my cup, and had to quickly reach into my mouth and pull the thing off, then drag it out from down in my throat.( think of how a clown or
magician pulls out some string or cloth) Pretty gross right? Well,that's the story of how I almost died yesterday from eating a live octopus.
# 4 Sundae (순대)I was presented with this dish during the "ceremony" where I decided to re-sign my contract for a 2nd year.
This dish is also another big favorite with the older crowd. A co- worker told me that it was big honor to be presented with this from my principal. We had some drinks and ate this as a way of my school saying thank you for staying in Korea again. This wasn't too bad, but If they are going to try to get me to stay a third year, they are going to need to chose something else besides
pig intestines. 
# 5 Bosintang (보신탕)
Last but not least,
Bosintang. (aka dog soup). Now in all honestly I was curious about trying it. There was something about being in a 1st world country like Korea and
eating something that is usually (these days) only found in 3rd world places that fascinated me. One of my drinking buddy's at my school is an older Korean man. He was a big fan of this stuff. One night over many drinks he promised to take me out to a place nearby that has this dish let me experience it. Well weeks went by and I forgot about his promise, until a random weekday when he came into my classroom and reminded me. Contrary to my assumption,the restaurant was not a sketchy hole in a wall. In fact it was a very famous and nice looking place that I always pass by on the way to work. My friend told me how this place was one of the few places our area that had
bosintang. The weird part is that it's not advertised on the menu, and there was a bit of hesitation from the waitress when me friend asked for it. (mostly because he was with a "waygook
" aka foreigner aka me) After some more dialogue between the two, the lady put us in a separate room, away from the public eating space, and served it up to us. I was sketched out of my mind about the whole process, and couldn't help think of my own dog Max. It was really sad, and strange. I've never been that emotionally involved about a meal in my entire life. On the bright side this dish cost around 50 US dollars (for 2 people). I was happy about that because I feel like the high price may deter many of the other people away from this dish. Also I felt more comfortable eating it for such a high price.. as opposed to 3 dollar dog night in the back of some Korean alley.
