This evening we went out for shabu shabu again :) Yummy! Waiting for our taxi from English Village, my weekend boss, Mr Kim, happened to walk past us on his way home and was quickly shanghaied into giving us a lift to the restaurant. He's such a great character - he knows me well now, and I walk into the cafe to a cry of "Emily Teacher! Pretzel?" (I'm putting on Michelin tyres by the day...) Anyway, it was three girls and one lad in Mr Kim's luxury SUV, and just before the restaurant, he pulled into a parking lot and gestured out the window, saying to our male colleague "Stamina! For you!" - we realised we were outside a dog restaurant! Laughing we asked if that was how he managed, but Mr Kim just snorted at us, laughing, and pulled off again :)
I shared with Wallis this time, a sometime vegetarian, so managed to get a non-meat pot. This is Wallis, Leigh and Cait waiting for the veggies to cook.
It was delicious as usual, but oh-so-hot! Wallis and I were saying how the heat is different from Mexican or Indian heat - and how we'd both love a steaming naan bread to go with our soup! In Korea, the heat comes from red pepper paste (I think I've mentioned before that it's the reason behind Korea's status as the highest rate of stomach cancer in the world!) Here you can see the red pepper paste residue on the edge of the pot!
Divine! The noodles are so so fresh, it's a completely different meal to the usual dried pasta.
We'd been sitting there a while when a young family came and settled at the table next to us. They had two little girls, about 6 and 3 years old - gorgeous in the usual Korean way, big black eyes and lush hair :) They immediately noticed us (well, there were about 20 of us!) and the younger of the girls, unable to use chopsticks yet and therefore only wandering up to her mum now and then for a bite of her meat, latched on to one of my colleagues - completely unable to take her eyes off him. She'd watch for a little, then run screaming with laughter to her mum! Reuben's a natural with kids and started making faces at her, and soon she was sticking her tongue out at all of us - from the safe distance of a couple of metres and within clutching distance of her parents... Later another toddler arrived and was similarly transfixed, but this one quickly lost courage and retreated to the safety of her dad's arms!
It's fun and slightly odd to be in a job where all the men are great with kids, and love to play!
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