Our favorite neighborhood restaurant
A little sketch of a place we like.
On most Sunday nights, after I get off work, Nammin’s parents walk with us down the street to our go-to restaurant.
It has ten or so tables. They’re circular and metal and seat about six people around them.
This no-frills, old-fashioned barbecue spot has been Jia’s favorite place to eat since we came back to Korea.
She dances when she learns we’re going.
At the table, she stabs at the pieces of meat with her little kids-only fork and shovels in mouthfuls of steaming white and purple rice.
The woman who runs the place knows us by now and happily plies us with baskets of lettuce and kale and dishes of several types of kimchi.
My father-in-law stuffs a few 10,000 won bills in her pocket, and she doesn’t charge us for the bottles of soju and Cass beer.
It’s a clean, lively place with good prices that you’d only know about if you lived in the neighborhood.
The last time we went we ordered what we always order — galmaegisal (갈매기살), a type of pork — and grilled it ourselves over oak charcoal.
We got there early, before the restaurant filled up, and as it got busier the woman serving us said they were having a successful night because Jia was there.
My sister-in-law’s husband, who loves to eat as much as anyone, was there for the first time, and he said I should write about this place.
I said I would, but I didn’t want any more people knowing about it.
When we were leaving, the son of the family, who is in charge of handling the hot coals, told me in his broken English, “Happy New Year.”
2024 was an interesting one. Can’t wait to see what we do in 2025.
I’m pretty sure it’ll involve going back to this place.
Happy New Year.
Great picture