Yes, it's Asian, but Korean food is the total opposite of Japanese fare. In Japan the flavors are delicate and the portions dainty. In Korea flavors are strong and bold, and the portions huge (by world standards). The idea that a guest is meant to be stuffed to the gills is embedded in the culture, maybe because they went hungry for so many years during and after the Korean war. (The standard Korean greeting translates as "Have you eaten rice today?")

Koreans, who don't perspire much, believe that the way to stay cool in their muggy summers is to work up a sweat. Therefore, if you're not sweating yet, the answer is to dump on more red pepper until you are. It's wintertime? That's OK, pepper will make you feel warmer, too. A typical Korean household will use something over a hundred red peppers in a year. So if you can't handle the hot stuff, you're going to need some guidance from your Korean friends or a savvy westerner at first. They'll help you learn which dishes you can take, and negotiate special treatment from the waiters. Of course, if you already like it hot, Korea is the place to be!

When your mouth is on fire, you don't want liquid, you want something bland and starchy. Fortunately, Korean meals always include steamed rice. Usually there's also a main dish and several side dishes (panchon).

Breaking the table legs

The fancier the occasion, the more side dishes you get. They say that a really impressive meal is one that will "break the table legs."

South Korea is on a peninsula and is about the size of Indiana, so no city is ever very far from the ocean. Thus, you cannot escape fish. Even if it's not the main dish, it will surprise you by appearing in side dishes and snacks. Who knows, you may even learn to like dried squid (chewy) and dried anchovies (nothing like the salty tinned ones Americans put on pizza, and a bit unnerving when they look at you with those blank eyes). We did.

Beef, pork and chicken are common too these days. Korean meat consumption has soared in recent years (and the kids are taller for it), but Koreans still eat somewhat more noodles and rice, and less meat, than most Americans. They waste no part of the animal. Stuff that we put in dog food, they put on the table. You can expect to find before you chicken feet, or an entire fish, complete with head (they say that's the best part - the fish head, I mean).

The side dishes usually include various vegetables and seafoods, often with soybean or sesame oil based sauces. Sides always include at least one type of kimchi. This is peppery, sour pickled cabbage (and other vegetables), put by in truly remarkable quantities - think of crocks half to three-quarters of the height of a person - every autumn after the cabbage harvest. The tartness comes from fermentation. Kimchi is made with salt, plenty of red pepper, garlic, and some kind of fish or fish sauce. It's been called Korea's sauerkraut, but doesn't taste anything like it. Koreans credit kimchi for their good health. They even claim that it helps prevent bird flu. Koreans swear kimchi is addictive. Is it? Probably not, but if you give it a chance you may find you like it. We do.

If you're a vegetarian, I hope you're not too strict about it. Yes, there are lots of apparently meatless Korean dishes. But sauces and flavorings tend to have meat or fish as an ingredient, so vegans have a tough time in Korea. Even kimchi is usually made with fish sauce or shrimp.

This situation is gradually improving. Seoul now has a growing list of vegetarian restaurants. Probably the best known (and maybe the oldest) is Sanchon, in the artsy Insadong neighborhood. It's run by a former Buddhist monk and specializes in temple food (Buddhist monks don't eat animals). It has a set menu that varies by day. The servers bring you a bowl of beans and rice, then literally fill the table with panchon (side dishes). None of these is as bland as most temple food. In fact the flavors are surprisingly varied and subtle. Most evenings Sanchon provides some kind of Korean traditional dance and/or music for entertainment. This makes it a good place to take friends and family when they come to visit, but it helps if you're feeling wealthy. When we visited in 2006, the set menu was 35,000 Won per person, easily double the highest price we'd previously paid for a Korean meal.

Cosmopolitan Seoul is the exception. In most Korean cities, there really aren't enough vegetarians to support specialty restaurants and markets. Maybe in a few more years.

Potables: Barley tea (pohri-cha) usually starts a traditional meal - the more formal the setting, the more likely you are to get it. You're less likely to run into it at the casual chain and family-run eateries. It tastes about the way you'd expect for barley, but it doesn't have much flavor.

Soju is Korea's cheap, universal booze. These are the bottles you'll see scattered round the tipsy halabaji in the park. Traditionally soju was made with rice, but today it's more often a chemical concoction based on potato alcohol. It's 40-50 proof (20-25% alcohol). It sells for around 1000 won at the grocery or convenience store, and 2500 to 4000 won at a bar or restaurant. (Did I not say cheap?) Refined it's not, but it's also not as bad as it sounds. Jinro and San (the one with the mountains on the label) are the popular brands.

Makkoli is rice wine. As with most wine you can pay as much or as little as you like. I've seen it put up in plastic bottles. I wouldn't expect too much from those. The most popular beer is Hite. Neither one of us is much of a beer drinker, so we can't really tell you anything about it.

You can get various kinds of soda in the convenience stores and vending machines. The Korean national specialty seems to be Chilsung Cider, which, despite the name, is not made from apples. It's a basic lemon-lime soda. As with almost everywhere in the world, Coke and Pepsi are options. We once had the owner of a little family restaurant proudly appear at our table with two bottles of Coke. You know, exactly like the stuff we could have had at home in the states, had we wanted it.

Coffee and tea are meal-finishers when you get them in restaurants. If you want them at other times, visit a cafe. Take a friend or two and enjoy the relaxing atmosphere (many have couches and coffee tables).

If you just order cha (tea), you're likely to get nok-cha (green tea), which is still one of Korea's specialties. If you want what we call black tea, order hong-cha (literally, red tea).

Coffee (pronounced kah-pee) has pretty much pushed tea off the map for the average Korean. If you like that infamous Starbucks ashtray flavor, I suggest that you look for that very name. I'm a fan of traditional Finnish roast coffee (very mild light roast), and even I found most Korean coffee to be on the mellow side. (That's a good thing.)

Coffee is decidedly pricey at around 4000-5000 won per cup in the cafes. Back in 2000 that was about the only place to get a tolerable cuppa - I've had restaurants bring me coffee mix (see below) - but on our last visit the Seoul street vendors were offering coffee to go, for about half what the cafes had been charging.

If you make your own coffee at home, get ready for sticker shock. If you can find a tiny bag of ground coffee cowering among all the boxes and jars of instant coffee, just wait until you see the price. (I think I recall reading that Korea taxes ground coffee much more than instant coffee, for some reason. This would explain why the cafes charge so much.)

In the average Korean's kitchen you will not find a coffeemaker. You will instead find boxes of coffee mix. This is instant coffee packaged in little paper cylinders, with sugar and fake cream already mixed in. It's every bit as abominable as it sounds. Try to forget that I brought it up. For decent coffee with minimal hassle, you want Korea's great secret caffeine source - coffee bags. Unlike their US counterparts, they're NOT mostly instant coffee, but rather the real ground deal. They make a quite passable if slightly feeble cup.

Dining: As with most everything else, Koreans aren't much for dining alone. This goes a little farther than in most other countries - everyone generally gets the same thing. It depends on how used they are to dealing with foreigners, but in a lot of True Korean® restaurantes, if you try to order different main dishes for different diners, you're likely to confuse the waiter.

The guidebooks say Koreans don't talk much during meals. We didn't find that to be true. Our friends loved company at the table, and jabbered about as much as we usually do.

Koreans eat with a spoon and metal chopsticks. Wood chopsticks are generally available and are often easier for westerners to handle. You get your own rice bowl, but everyone eats side dishes (and sometimes the main dish) from the same plates or bowls. That is, you don't take a serving from the side dishes and put it on your own plate. The tables are small; you just reach for a bite with your chopsticks. This can be a bit off-putting at first for westerners, who tend to be unduly worried about germs. You'll just have to learn to deal with it. I think the pepper and garlic kill off the germs anyway.

For more on table manners, see our culture page.

If you cook, you might as well learn to cook Korean; western ingredients are hard to find and pricey. Chances are you won't be able to bake because few apartments have an oven (they have a small fish broiler instead). Fortunately, Korea has wonderful bakeries.

However, a few cautions about bakeries are in order. First, I probably don't have to say this, but stay away from the breads with meats baked in - y'know, the ones that have been sitting out there on the counter in the summer heat all day. Yuck. Second, be aware that some items will be unexpectedly sweet; Koreans seem to think of breads as sort of dessert-ish. Finally, anything baked that looks like it has chocolate filling in it probably doesn't. It's more likely sweetened red bean paste. Easy there, cowhand, it's not that bad! But it's also not chocolate, which is what your taste buds were all primed for, no? (You'll also find sweetened red beans stuffed into rice cakes, heaped onto ice as a summer cooler, and even injected into ice cream bars. Some westerners tell me that they find this idea of beans as a treat kind of repellent. I'm only half joking when I say that maybe these folks shouldn't go to Korea.)

If you get a hankering for Western food, you can always visit one of the growing numbers of western (or pseudo-western) restaurants. Your students will be happy to accompany you, as this will be a treat for them.

The most authentic Western food will come from the hotel restaurants in big cities. When you get the tab, you'll understand why some westerners think Korea is expensive. Therefore, we now move on to cheaper Western fare.

Korean pizza (pronounced peach-ah since Korean has no Z sound) is interesting and often good, but it speaks with a Korean accent. If you expect something just like the pizza parlor at home, you'll be disappointed. Your pizza will arrive with a side of sweet pickle slices and a container of hot sauce, and unless you're specific about toppings, it may have corn and/or sweet potato on it. Go for it expecting a multicultural experience, and you won't be disappointed.

Most medium sized or larger cities will have the inevitable McDonalds, probably a KFC chicken spot or a Korean variant, and maybe a midpriced mass-production spaghetti factory. Most of these will be similar but not 100% identical to their western counterparts. They'll cost as at least as much as they would in the west - that is, on the high side for what they are, especially in comparison to Korean restaurants.

There are also mid- to high-priced Italian and French eateries in most larger cities. These are OK. Whether they're worth the price depends on how homesick you're feeling.

Finally, let us not forget the Korean-operated "American" restaurants. These typically serve a few Mexican dishes, a couple of Italian dishes (spaghetti with marinara sauce and optional seafood), and perhaps ribs. Breaded veal cutlets are standard issue in these places (this seems to have been adapted via Japan). You're apt to get a salad of iceburg lettuce and corn (huh?) with a choice of perhaps two or three salad dressings, none of which is any darn good (the "Thousand Island" appears to be a mixture of ketchup and mayonnaise). Your bread will most likely be served not with butter, but with whipped cream, which is actually pretty tasty.