After a quick lunch I meet up with a friend who lives in Tokyo. We used to go to izakaya a lot whenever we got together, but these days it’s mostly home parties. It works out cheaper and we can hang out for longer. (Izakaya in Shinjuku tend to have a two-hour time limit…) The tricky part is whether you can fit a big group into one home and still have fun, but after doing it a few times everyone’s pretty used to it now.
Pajeon and golbaengi somyeon (spicy whelk salad with noodles), made by a Korean friend
Apparently they’re not that hard to make, but they came out better than at most so-called good restaurants in Korea. You wouldn’t guess it from his major or his reputation, but for some reason this friend is an outstanding cook, and he’s usually the one in charge of the food at these gatherings. When he cooks it tastes like the real thing back in Korea, so our Japanese friends all love it. I watched him closely the whole time so I could learn, but whether I can pull it off… I’ll have to experiment next time.
Nabe hot pot
The ingredients were cheap so I didn’t expect much, but it was way tastier than it looks. When I make it I throw in everything in the house, so it never ends up with a balanced flavor like this…
The wreckage the next morning…
I do have photos of us partying all night, but they didn’t come out exactly fresh-faced, so I’ll leave them off the blog. The wines I brought are the two on the right, and the Paleo ’05 had aged beautifully. It was slightly spicy and made a great match with the Korean food, and for this price range you really can’t ask for more. Nobody there knew much about wine, but we played a bit of Drops of God here and there ^_^ and had a great time. The one in the middle I bought on a trip to Kyoto, at a shop that looked like it knew its stuff, but when we opened it, it was corked… Seriously, what is this? Oh well, these things happen in life… Next time I’m in Kyoto I’ll be avoiding that shop.