seattle's famous japanese secret teriyaki in seoul!

strolling through hongdae i found this restaurant advertisement for "히미츠 테리야끼," korean phonetically saying "secret teriyaki" in japanese... (from seattle). fusion, indeed.

in sprawling seoul, i have the good fortune to live just one subway stop from hongdae, an artsy neighborhood currently popular with young koreans... until this fickle, fad-obsessed lot abandon it next month or year in an inexplicable mass exodus. lately i've enjoyed coming here for the cute boutiques, sorta shitty public art and the pretty young people dressed fashionably. there's also some decent mexican food here.

mr. former mankub leaves for a 6-week trip to europe on sunday, so we scheduled a rendezvous. he had a hankering for japanese lamyun (ramen) but the place was packed. choice #2 was incredibly spicy chicken, hot even for korean standards. salty, pickled food and smoking are all stomach cancer risks, so it's no wonder that korean men have the world's highest rate of stomach cancer, according to the usa-based national cancer institute.

chicken so spicy it humbles even the locals... i want a cartoon turnip shirt, too.

after how my tummy felt a few hours later, i'm on my way. both of us coughed after just whiffing the sizzling plate. one piece later my tongue and mouth stung and perspiration escaped from the pores on my nose. the light korean beer didn't help, so manfriend ordered us some 누룽지탕, a simple rice+water then boil for a while soup. my mother's cooking repertoire is scary and limited, but she often made this simple and satisfying greul, so it has positive associations for me (it's even better when you burn/overcook/forget about it!). anyhow, it worked surprisingly well so we were able to eat more and more spicy chicken (dipping it into sweet mustard and chili sauce, of course) as well as some un-spicy popcorn fried chicken, and spicy duk-bok-e. it was around the time i was admiring my big belly that i noticed the conspicuously thick ladies around us... these women would be considered thin in the states but look chunky here. i guess lots of fried chicken will do that to ya.

ok!