WRITING CULTURE 2012: Film, Food & Beyond

Cooking My Own Food and Other Traumatic Stories

November 5, 2012 Written by | 2 Comments

After watching many Korean dramas, cooking my own food at a restaurant was always something that I wanted to try and I’m glad that I finally did it.  While there were some things I was not satisfied with, I got a great enough experience to want to try this at other restaurants.

The restaurant was called Emperor Japanese Tapas Shabu Restaurant and it was located in Chinatown. There were a lot of people in the restaurant and it looked like people were enjoying themselves. The first thing you see when you sit down is a piece of paper where you write down the quantities of the type of meat, soup and vegetables you want. You place the soup on top of the table, which has an integrated hot plate to heat the soup. As the meat is brought to the table, customers dump everything in the soup to cook and then place them on a  small plate to eat.

The food was okay, really nothing to write home about. The beef slices were good but somewhat muffled by the taste of the miso soup I was dumping it in. After putting the beef slice in my mouth, I not only got the taste of the soup but also the taste of the juicy meat, which reminded me of pork fat.

The King Prawns on the other hand was something to write home about. While they looked like gray slugs on the plate, they came out looking beautifully pink and delicious  out of the hot pot.  The feel of them in my mouth gave me a mixed feeling of bliss and disgust. Bliss, because they were succulent and juicy. Disgust, because I could feel the  small legs of the prawns while I was chewing them. However, it is that typical disgust that can be put aside if the food tastes good. Like when i’m told I’m eating rats when I eat rib tips from Chinese restaurants and I roll my eyes and say, “but they taste so good!”. Sorry prawns, but I have to eat you.

However, the smell of the food is a huge part of the reason this restaurant is just “okay.”

The smell is overwhelming. It somehow rubs off on your clothes so that I could still smell the food on me when I got home. While I loved the prawns and the chicken slices, I don’t want to walk around smelling like them. I also thought that the restaurant had very limited space, which made it uncomfortable to cook our food.  I was reluctant to try most of the sauce that my classmates made because I was afraid of reaching over and spilling something.  Given the nature of this restaurant and how much people have to move around, space should have been the first priority. However, eating with my classmates and being distracted by our conversation, diluted this experience…until i got traumatized.

As it always happens when I try something new, I got traumatized.  After cooking and taking out a chicken dumpling–which my classmate claimed was delicious and actually told me that it was cooked— I discovered that it was not cooked at all after putting it in my mouth and tasting the raw ingredients inside.  The taste was so disgusting and cold that it felt like I was tasting  raw chicken with blood and everything. I cannot emphasize to readers enough, let the food cook for awhile.  This was a horrendous experience and after that I only ate the meat and rice. However, do not let my classmate’s mistake and the consequences, put you off this place.

Overall, the atmosphere of the restaurant was one of busy energy, which I loved. What made this restaurant great for me was not so much the food but the experience of trying something new. While I was ecstatic about everything in the moment, looking back the food was good but not anything special. The service was great and efficient but they didn’t even take credit cards. Yet, it felt like I was home cooking with friends which is just as  important as discovering new exotic tastes.

 

 

 

Categories: Restaurant Review



2 responses so far ↓

  •   Juliya Madorskaya // Nov 6th 2012 at 2:45 pm

    Liz! Your pot was off, HAHA. Obviously it’s not going to cook. Try not to let things put you off so easily. Don’t worry, we’ll get you some Vietnamese classic pork baguette sandwiches and you’ll be good as new.

    XOXO

  •   elizabeth griffin // Nov 6th 2012 at 3:09 pm

    it was Jesse’s fault. I asked him if it was cooked and he said “yeah” and then THAT happened. But yeah anytime Juliya Lol XD

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