Sunday, May 30, 2010

Live Octopus and the Intestine of a Pig

Well lately I have been quite adventurous with food. A few weeks ago Fran (Franqua), Stephan (our Dutch friend) and I were up really late and felt like we wanted to have a little excursion to the local fish restaurant. Most fish restaurants in Korea display their fish in tanks outside, its actually nice to see what you will eat when its alive, if only it didn't look disgusting in its live form. So on Stephan's suggestion we decided to have live octopus not raw but live. Our fish guy promptly grab a fresh octopus out of the tank and cut him up for us. Then he slapped it on a plate and brought it to our table. The tentacles were moving all around. They were small pieces so it was easy to eat. It was hard however to get the little suckers (pun intended) in our chopstick's grasp. Once in our mouth we could feel the little suction cups stick to our tongues. It was really weird. You had to make sure to chew them otherwise you could possibly be in a lot of trouble if they go down still sucking. We were living dangerously. There was a little red sauce for dipping that made it even better. My personal thoughts on octopus is that I enjoy it, but in certain ways. I like it either raw or fried, anything in between just doesn't taste to good.
On another occasion I went out with all the male teacher's for a bonding guys night out. We ended up going to a restaurant that serves pig intestine. It was in fact quite delicious. It tastes similar to sausage yet much chewier. It had a lot of flavor and went well with the Soju that was flowing. Basically they bring a plate of cut up intestine to your grill and you grill it. It's as simple as that. Well that's enough food for thought for now.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Dan,
Just last night we were watching a show on The Food Network, and they were having an Amazing Race type contest around LA, competing in food challenges. One challenge was to eat live, raw octopus, just as you describe, but FAST! It made ME squirm, just to watch them. I'm proud of you for being so adventurous! Not so sure that I could be.

Yes, I've probably read all hundred of your posts--they come directly to my email account. Love 'em!

Lori Grose