Today we had the lunch that we had traveled 6,000 miles to enjoy. Food wasn’t the main reason we ended up in Korea, but it certainly was a consideration. And if ever there was an archetypal culinary experience we sought, it played out in a rather sticky, rickety and worn establishment with a 12-item menu, run by an equally worn yet spritly elderly couple.
First sign that it must be good: A packed house, with half of the seating in the traditional raised platform style where you sit on the floor. An ancient woman was putting on her shoes after her meal, and her presence seemed like an endorsement sufficient to seal the deal.
We sat in a cramped table against a wall adorned with pictures of grandkids, under a blaring analogue television. Izzy had to lean to one side to avoid an awkwardly positioned, yet fiendishly cheap looking framed print. Then the gastronomy commenced:
5 side dishes, with the usual napa kimchi joined by fish kimchi, and a third variety made of tiny, inch-long dried minnows.
The typical Korean table-top barbecue grill arrives, and is quickly hissing with a meaty bowlful of pork belly. While we tend the sizzling pork–trying not to get stung by spitting pork fat–a bowl of bulgogi (marinated, sliced beef) appears, hissing in its heated pot. Bibimbop follows, and the now-brown pork belly is quickly joined by a lovely slab of galbi (Korean short ribs). Galbi is sliced and diced using shears, crispy pork belly is wrapped in lettuce… and sounds of chopsticks and grunts of satisfaction fill the air.
If good food prepared well brings you the flavor of a place, today we tasted Korea.
Home on the Roam 
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