NYC food adventures with my mom!

My mom is often unintentionally hilarious, and I was reminded of this when I spent the day in NYC with her.

For lunch, we ate soondubu jjigae (tofu soup) at BCD Tofu House in Ktown. Thanks to Hanbin oppa, this summer marks my first introduction to Korean food, and in the past two months, I've had soondubu--now one of my favorite meals--a total of four times. So while I may not consider myself a Korean food connoisseur, some aspects of eating at a Korean restaurant are familiar to me.

Like, for instance, the fact that the large number of side dishes provided with the meal are free. Though I had mentioned this fact, my mom apparently hadn't heard because she was too busy ogling the different side dishes on the tables we passed and excitedly commenting on how good the fried fish that they give each diner looked. So after we ordered, my mom asked the waitress, "Do we get a fried fish with our soup?" And the waitress gave her a blank stare before finally nodding.

Also, for instance, the fact that there's always a raw egg cracked into the hot soup. At Bitgoul in Flushing (the only other place I've had soondubu), they do it before they bring it up, but at BCD, they give you the raw egg to crack yourself. So my mom, intent on trying everything, exclaimed, "Wow, and they even gave us hard-boiled eggs!" and before I could react, picked one up, and cracked it on the table. Fortunately she had only peeled off a small top section before realizing something was amiss. The waitress came back with our entrees, just in time to hear her say, "Hmm it's raw...." as she squinted into the egg. That earned my mom another judgmental stare, and I could almost hear the waitress think, "Noob..." in Korean, whatever that translates to.

We were going to take the subway to Flushing for Chinese food for the evening, but we decided that would take too long. So back to Ktown we went--to a Korean noodle place for dinner. After a woman took our order, I said "gomapseupnida" (a formal thank you taught to me by Narae), and she looked really surprised, smiled, and nodded many times. I was so proud that she understood what I was trying to say! As I was basking in my triumph, my mom turned to me and goes, "What did you say? 'Someone died?'" ...:]

We finished off our day with Red Mango frozen yogurt, red bean mochi ice cream from a nearby Korean grocery store, and a Jamba Juice smoothie. And picked up pastries from Paris Baguette for later.

So this would about amount to my average food consumption when in NYC for a day. Don't judge.