Of Ducks and Cows

On Friday night my boss took my co-workers and me out for yet another staff dinner to welcome two more new teachers (a lot's changing at SLP!). For the first time since I came to Korea I got to try Korean-style smoked duck which was absolutely delicious. Like other Korean specialties such as galbi (beef) or samgeopsal (pork) they bring you a plate of the marinated meat (and of course a million side dishes) and you grill it yourself. It was so good!

While the duck was excellent, my steak experience on Sunday was not. Now in Korea it's widely known that ideas here about cooking steaks are quite different from ours in the US. For example if you say "rare" they pretty much just bring you a package of raw meat, still in the plastic. Ok that's not exactly true but it's not too far off. Basically you just have to remember here that things are always a few steps rarer than the scale we're used to. So if you like your steak medium-rare in the States you should order it medium or medium-well here and it will come out the way you like. I, for one, like my steak medium-well with just a hint of pink and I mistakenly ordered it exactly that way, forgetting the Korean scale of steak cooked-through-edness. This is what I got:


Really? Medium-well? I hate sending things back but for someone who only likes a hint of red in her steak this was a bit much. Maybe I'll stick with the duck next time and save the steak for when I'm back in the States. Because if there's one thing we know how to cook in the U.S.A it's a juicy, mouth-watering, cooked-to-perfection sirloin!