Friday Night Tripery (warning: lurid descriptions and photos follow)

Chris and I had a traumatic dining experience this weekend, and I wanted to write about it in the interest of salvaging something – humor? vocabulary? anything? – from an ordeal that was otherwise among our worst so far in Korea.

A little background: there is this cute restaurant across the street from our apartment that is always packed, but we’ve shied away from it because our friends Jen and Dow went there, and told us that the only menu item seems to be – gasp – TRIPE. Thanks to this tip, we knew the danger existed on the streets of Suji, but we thought that if we avoided that establishment, we would be safe. The thing is, Chris and I are experimental diners, and we claim that we’ll try anything once. For instance, we’re glad we tried the silkworm pupae, and are both excited for our first encounter with live baby octopus soup (although Jen has indicated that she may disown us as friends if we commit The Ultimate Transgression, i.e., consuming live flesh . . . come to think of it, my brother Rob might, too). And our accidental blood sausage event in Seoul had no lasting repercussions. But there is a line we generally don't cross, and it’s really more of a wall – on the far side of it lie the dog meat cafés and, well, the triperies. We really had no intention of crossing that wall.

So anyway, when we wanted something to eat on Friday, we decided it would be too easy to go to John’s bulgogi, the one non-fast-food restaurant in our neighborhood we know to be delicious and welcoming. To find something new, we crossed The Big Street (street names here are either non-existent or entirely irrelevant; people find their way around based on landmarks, and a taxi driver who is utterly unimpressed by the name of your street will brighten up when you tell him the name of your apartment building or the elementary school across from your home) to explore a neighborhood that was appealingly seedy, and happened upon a busy eatery that looked charming and homey. The ajummas were sweet and appreciated our fumbling Korean. We did recognize the word for pork all over the menu, but somehow, after two full months of Korean classes, the term ‘tripe’ has not yet made its way onto our vocabulary lists (I know, odd, isn’t it? That’s usually in week two of Spanish I). We like some pork, and some of the people in the restaurant appeared to be enjoying appealing-looking cuts. Our mistake was to ask the waitress for her recommendation.

The side dishes and the Hite beer arrived, and everything was looking great. The atmosphere was convivial, and small Korean children were vying for Chris’s attention. We felt relaxed and excited for the weekend. Then it arrived: a sizable platter laden with raw, chopped up pieces of some moist beige tubing . . . there was no denying it: we’d been triped.

The word tripe, as you probably know, means two things: stomach lining or intestine, and also “something poor, worthless, or offensive” (often called upon by the opinionated to disparage other people’s taste in books . . . I believe I overused this word throughout college, most frequently in describing Jack Kerouac’s writing). Well, the double meaning is no coincidence. The meat we were served in abundance two nights ago was poor, worthless, and offensive all at once. I don’t think Chris and I have ever exchanged such alarmed looks, because the thing was, this was not like the time I ordered haggis in Scotland. On that occasion, it was served to me in some handy take-away container, easily and discreetly disposed of once I’d eaten enough sheep liver and lungs (cooked in sheep stomach, might I add . . . those crafty Scots) to say that I’d sampled the national dish. But at the tripery, there was no graceful escape. Cultural sensitivity means something to us, and after establishing a friendly relationship with the ajummas and accepting their advice, there was no way we could reject the tenderly presented tripe, at least not all of it.

Well, the next half an hour was easily the most gag-worthy of our 3.5 months in Asia. Chris gets the prize: he is usually a pickier eater than I am, but he managed to load his tripe & lettuce wraps with four sections of chewy tube each. I, on the other hand, could only manage a couple of chews on each 2-tube wrap before I washed each of my giant tripe-amins down with beer. I mean, the stuff is so damn chewy on top of tasting like absolute ass; you could let each bite linger in your mouth for five minutes (five awful, torturous, masochistic minutes), and it would still go down in one piece. Kimchi has never tasted so sweet. Fortunately, we know how to say, “I’m not hungry,” so we prevented the ajummas from grilling the final ¼ of the feast for us.

After we escaped the tripe-hole, we found a nearby bar called Obby Lobby (named for one of the big Korean beer brands, OB – unfortunate initials for any food or drink, all American women seem to agree, especially the “OB Red” variety). There I attacked the peanuts and other bar snacks with unprecedented zeal, and we gradually recovered from our dining catastrophe. The thing is, we still don’t know the word for tripe in Korean, but you can bet it will be the first thing we ask Anne on Tuesday in Korean class.

We’re going to Suwon to see the fortress in a couple of hours, so hopefully I can balance this entry tonight with something a little more appreciative.