My Special Place

Years down the line a psychiatrist may well ask me to visualise my special place and when he does, I’ll probably be thinking of Jagalchi Fish Market. Centered around a huge sail-like building in Busan Port that evokes the Sydney Opera House, Jagalchi is billed as the largest fish market in Korea, and its easy to see why. Covering an area roughly 5000 square metres, a staggering amount of sealife passes through this place seven days a week, and I like nothing better than to wander the aisles gaping the ocean’s harvest in all its weirdness.

As you would expect, the market plays host to an abundance of fresh fish, crabs and crustaceans (much of it live) ranging from the familiar to the downright freakish; Monster King Crabs clamber over each other in expansive tanks waiting for the drop of the sellers net, while four-foot long Octopi stare back at you with their black dead eyes. I recently saw a bucket of turtles here, paddling around happily unaware of their surroundings and have even heard that whale meat is available, though have yet to see any myself.

However, while its fun to watch, the best of Jagalchi is in the eating and in this respect a number of options are on offer. An as yet untried (but no less appealing) one is right inside the market itself, where anything you buy can be gutted, cleaned and cooked for a few chun and enjoyed in an upstairs eating section. In addition to this, dozens of restaurants, tents and eating places line the market fringes, all serving up the day’s catch at incredibly attractive prices.

I recently ducked into one of the latter on an overcast Saturday afternoon, enticed by the fish grilling outside and the busy trade within. After asking in bungled Korean for a bowl of jiggae (a spicy soup eaten with rice,) there soon arrived at my table a whole grilled fish (head eyes, fins and all) a bowl of jiggae and a bowl of rice. The fish turned out to be a happy accident, an abundance of flaky white flesh under crispy golden skin coming apart easily underneath my chopsticks. Delicious on its own, the bowl of dipping soy sauce that arrived with the banchan (side dishes) added an extra, previously untried dimension.

For its part the jiggae held its own; the rich spicy broth complemented with green onion, beansprouts and bits and pieces of sea creatures I don’t know the English for let alone the Korean. The biggest surprise however was the chocolate coloured tofu bobbing around amongst the seafood. This chunky, textured addition was nothing like the slimy, watery meat substitute defended so vigourously by vegetarians in the west, instead adding body and substance to the bowl.

After paying up (the whole thing came to less than £3) and leaving with a hearty “chal mokessayo!” I returned to the madness in search of the night’s dinner (a pair of Mud Crabs as it turned out) and gape a little more.

This is what Saturday afternoons were made for.

Bi Bim Bap - a loopa

Part of the fun of Korean food is how easily the names can be punned into western song titles. I’ve passed many an idle hour smiling to myself about the likes of Kim-bop, Galbi there and my personal favourite, Getting jiggae with it. However, while puns are all very well, most of the fun remains in the eating of the stuff and this is no less true of the quiet man of Korean cuisine, Bi Bim Bap.

The perfect way to regain some of that strength after going ten rounds with the Kindergarteners, Bi Bim Bap dishes all follow a variation on a basic set-up of rice, julienned vegetables, a fried egg, dried sea weed and sesame seeds. If you opt to go dol sot (which I do, always) then the whole thing arrives in a sizzling bowl adding a bit of pizzazz to the whole arrangement. Into this tumultuous cauldron go a few spoonfuls of gloopy, firey chilli paste to taste, after which it’s ready to go.

With Bi Bim Bap you’ve gotta work for your supper, giving everything a good mix to evenly distributed the various parts. The result is a mighty fine bowl of food. The rice, a staple of the Korean diet is transformed by the chilli paste and sea weed, while the egg provides an indispensible protein fix. While I mostly eat this basic version of Bi Bim Bap at the diner beside our school at lunch times, we will occasionally go to a special Bi Bim Bap restaurant for dinner, where a number of variations are on offer. My personal favourite is an extra spicy concoction that includes a liberal amount of tender, shredded pork and a bowl of mussel soup on the side.

I originally dismissed this unprepossessing bowl of rice and vegetables as merely a healthier (and as such less interesting) alternative to whatever dead animal I was in the process of shovelling onto my plate, but I am fast finding out that, as with a lot of Korean Food, there is more, much more.

Crunch King

Up until quite recently I thought the only crunch I was going to experience in Korea was the one that sits atop the gloriously chocolately “Crunch King,” (pictured) a Cornetto type ice-cream that tastes even better than it sounds.

However, things changed dramatically last month when I discovered I was thirty pounds down on my monthly cash transfer to my home account.

Since then the Won has been on a (mostly) downward spiral. My first remittance of 1 million won bought me a cool £500 sterling back in August but that same amount now is worth little more than £400. In fact, the currency is so volatile that if I check the exchange rate online before I leave for the bank I’m likely to get a different rate entirely once I get there.

The situation has gotten to the point where I’ve stopped sending back money entirely. Instead, I’ve decided either to keep the money in my Korean account in the hope that things won’t get much worse, or blow all my pay check on a Crunch Kings and electronics. A tough choice and if I know myself (which I think I do) the latter will prevail.

Still, at least Korea has President Lee Myung Bak to steer it through these troubled times, a man whose sole contribution to the global recession debate has been something along the lines of “we must not lose sight of free market economics.”

In this uncertain climate it looks like Sarah and I may have to put our planned trip of “five or sixth months or so” at the end of our contract on ice, having most definitely counted all our chickens before they hatched.