Marathon eating: Shabu Shabu

Hmmmmmmm!

As you all know we LOVE food and we write about Korean food often always claiming our next entry to be the best food yet. And today is no different; there is another dish that deserves to be added to the best list.

Not only is this food incredible delicious but it also healthy and inexpensive! Yip,  you heard me! People are constantly weighing their options...do we go here? No it's expensive. Do we go here? No, it's not healthy. Do we go here? No thanks, I'm not a big fan. Most Korean food is healthy, delicious and inexpensive, but I will explain to you why Shabu Shabu is even more worth your while.

There are many different types of Shabu Shabu, including seafood, ribs and beef. Beef is our favourite; it is not everyday in Korea that you get an inexpensive meal with beef in it. We are used to beef being very cheap back home so we would eat it quite regularly. For 300g of mincemeat in South Africa you would pay approximately R30 (just over 3USD) but for the same thing in Korea you will pay roughly 40,000Won (34USD). It is crazy! So the moral of the story is, we don't get to eat a lot of beef which is another reason why Shaby Shabu rocks.

I am getting ahead of myself, I will get back to the beef a little later. Like any good Shabu Shabu, it starts with the vegetables! Yummy!

The burner, the broth comes on

You get a big broth to boil on you table and you slowly add a cocktail of different vegetables to the broth, which include: cabbage, other green leaves, mushrooms, and some fish cakes (not a vegetable I know but it goes in the same time as the veggies). Then you start to eat away at the vegetables dipping them into some or other scrumptious sauce on your table. You have a couple of spoons of the broth, with is absolutely yummy and then you start adding the meat.

Shabu Shabu has very thin slices of meat because it cooks in a matter of seconds once added to the broth. So you add the meat and what you have left of the vegetable, turn down the heat so that you have a low simmer going, and continue to stuff your face full of wholesome goodness!

Once the meat is gone, which with our carnivorous appetites is quite quickly, the broth has thickened somewhat and is ready for you to add the noodles. So now the broth has added flavour from all of the meat and vegetables that it makes these noodles amazing! Turn up the heat, and soon it will be time to eat again!

Throw some of the noodles into your bowl! Add some of the yummy sauce (Oliver is a big fan of doing this) and chow down!

Now in some Shabu Shabu places this might mark the end of your culinary experience (like the one we are showing photos of) but in others (like our favourite spot introduced to us by a good friend but where we did not have a camera handy) the meal continues. By now, your stomach is reaching proximity but you just can't help but push on!

The next stage requires you to add some rice and egg to the now boiled down broth. You give it a couple of minutes to figure itself out and by then you would have given your tummy some time to breathe! It ends up being a delicious rice porridge...my favourite part of the meal (even more so than the meat). If you are really lucky you will also be served a delicious cinnamon drink to finish off the meal.

So Shabu Shabu is no ordinary meal, it is a marathon of eating which is also healthy and cheap.....how cheap? On average you can eat Shabu Shabu for about 8000Won (Just under 7USD).

A damn good deal if you ask me!

Ppost by Claudia

The Wonderful Won

The currency in Korea is won and it has taken some getting used to. This is because everything sounds expensive as a result of most items costing thousands of won.

Won denominations are as follows: coins 10, 50, 100, 500, and notes 1 000, 5 000, 10 000 and the big 50 000. Hmmm but what does it mean?

Well 1 000 won is about 1USD which is about R8 in South Africa. Now that is all good and well but telling how cheap and how expensive a country is is all based on what you get for your money.

In some regards Korea is very very cheap and in others not so much. For example:

• An average taxi ride will cost you anywhere between 2 200 - 3 000 won (super cheap!)
• A Shabu Shabu dinner (a four course meal which will leave you stuffed) for four excluding drinks will cost roughly 35 000 won (very cheap)
• It is about 6 000 won for 150g of beef (flippen expensive...)
• In a restaurant a draught beer will cost 3 000 won (average)
• A cheap free standing fan...because you need one in these stinking hot summers... is roughly 35 000 won (resonable)
• When it comes to take away joints, pizza in particular, prices can fluctuate dramatically from one place to another. In one pizza place a decent sized good tasting pizza will cost 5 000 won but in another it will cost 15 000 won.
• Vegetables are also dirt cheap in Korea, they form the basis of most meals and you can only buy in bulk. For three massive cabbages you will pay 2 000 won.
• Depending on where you buy it, a bottle of Soju is anywhere between 1 000 and 2 000 won (cheapest hangover ever)
• A decent room at a pension or motel will cost between 35 000 - 50 000 won for the room (not too bad)
• A city to city bus ride (about two hours) will cost you about 10 000 won (cheap cheap cheap) and might I add that these buses are also incredibly comfortable!

So in general it is cheap to drink, eat and get around (what more do you need!) but if you are planning on staying for a while then electronic items are likely to be more expensive than you would expect from an Asian country. Oh, and you can pretty much forget about eating beef (unless it is a treat) because it is just too pricey.

If a beef craving does attack...then I would suggest finding a korean buffet (yummmy) where there will be some decent beef available (not quite a South African medium rare rump steak but good nonetheless).

Hopefully this insert has given you some insight into the expenses you would encounter if ever you decided to visit Korea.

Post by Claudia

Kicking it in Wonju

So after a pretty long string of blog entries about places we've visited and been to and gone to go see, I can quite happily say that this entry will be about our very own hometown, Wonju.

Last weekend, for the opening of the World Cup, we made a huge mission to try and find some people to watch the game with, and after a whole bunch of running around and stressing, we met a group of other foreigners keen to watch the game. We watched the game with them and met a whole bunch more people.

One of the people we ended up meeting at a later date was Grace (http://coupdegrace.tumblr.com/), who was really keen to show us around Wonju. So we figured, hey, might as well check out our own city. We almost know Seoul better than we do beautiful Wonju.

So we met up on Saturday afternoon, and headed off to the local video game arcade. When I say arcade, the first image that might pop into someones head is a somewhat dingy, possibly 'wouldn't let me child go there' kind of place, where most of the machines are broken and have been stashed in some far away corner behind other machines that also don't work. NO! This is different.

For starters, you pay on entry to the arcade. The fee is 4000Won (about R28) for 2 hours. OK, seems pretty reasonable, a small amount of cash for unlimited gameplay. But it only gets WAY BETTER.

The first thing you see when walking into the arcade is a room with ping-pong tables, for you to use as you please (most likely to play ping-pong...)

Keep walking and you'll see the start of the arcade...the Wii room. Yes, a room filled with Nintendo Wiis. Each one with its own game in it and each one hooked up to a ginormous flat screen, HD TV. Beautiful. Remember, still only R28. You can pick one (if it's not busy being used) and play as much as you like. Very cool.

The next area you walk into is the PS3 room. Again, yes, a room filled with about 10 PS3 stations, again each one hooked up to its own very large very flat and very HD TV!!! There are even 2 stations that have couches. Big comfortable sofas, so you can literally lie down on while playing PES on what must have been 40 inch televisons. Insanity!

The last room you walk into is the 'regular' arcade game area. This area is packed with (working, not broken) arcade games, from racers to fighting games and from dancing games to drumming games. It really is just so cool. We even ended up jamming some Street Fighter II.

I can really only say that this place is insane. You could spend hours there and not get bored. If you do overstep your time, you pay a little extra, but it's very possible to just go and renew your time for another R28. Absolutely wicked fun!

There is also a room where you can sit down quite comfortably, buy some food or drinks, and play 1 of dozens of board games that are available. Going to this arcade is a really cool way to spend a day, geeking out amongst the computer games and then sitting down for a game of Rummikub is something that most people could enjoy.

After we had enough of the arcade and it's wonderous offerings, our friend Grace decided to take us to a cool restaurant that she knows for what was, according to her, some of the best Shabu Shabu around.

The Shabu-Shabu consisted of what is basically a 5 course meal, and we ended up paying 8000 Won each (about R54), so in other words, dirt cheap! But amazing, absolutely amazing!

After the dinner it was time for another round of gaming, but this time in a PC Bang, where we pay 1000Won/hour (R7) for the use of their high speed internet, amazingly comfortable chairs, awesome sound systems, and obviously the PCs. We ended up sitting for about 2 hours, playing a whole bunch of different network games! They even let you buy all sorts of snacks and food and drinks, etc. to keep you as glued to your chair as possible. Plus, almost all PC Bangs are open 24hours. For those late night gamers, they offer cups of coffee for 100Won (R0.70). Insane!

The last stop for the night was a DVD Bang in the same building, where you get to choose your movie from a large selection of DVDs ranging from very new to quite old, and watch it in your own private 'cinema'. The DVD rooms usually have cinema style chairs in them, but we got a room with a couch, some blankets and a huge screen to watch our choice of movie! DVD Bangs really are a very cool way to watch movies for a group of friends! Plus, for the smokers, smoking is totally OK during the movie!

That was about it. We stepped out of the DVD Bang at about 1.30 AM, into the pouring rain, but not before buying some Samgak Gimbap from a local 24h convenience store. But more on that in another post!

Post by Oliver