Six in Seoul

Friday night in Seoul is always exciting.  This past Friday night was no exception.  We started our night out at Once in a Blue Moon, yes, the restaurant where Hubby and I got food poisoning.  It is such a cool jazz restaurant/club that we felt Twin & SIL needed to see it.  The only catch - we DID NOT eat AND we had a bottle of wine which was opened at our table.  The only way we could get sick is if the glasses were not washed properly. We took the chance and it paid off, we were not puking at 3AM.  Whee.....

When you arrive here, day one is pretty much a wash, first off, guest are always jetlagged. Since we live on a military post, we have to in-process them, which mean we have to fill out paperwork, (which I do early) show copies of their passports to some higher up official whom I don't know. He approves them to stay with us here on post and then they are allowed to get a temporary ID card.  This process is really painless; it just takes a bit of time.  After we in-processed them, we took them (just Twin & SIL) to our favorite little restaurant, you all know which one I am talking about, yes, that is right, the Mackerel Lady.  Now, I have to say, I did not think this was such a great idea for their 'first Korean meal' but Hubby really wanted to do this so I went along.   You ask why?  Well, for some people Korean food has to grow on you a bit, and I thought this might be true for SIL.  I thought she might kill over with a heart attack when we walked by the Mackerel Lady and she was standing outside with her plate of mackerel in the sun, with no ice on it.....SIL did great, although she questioned this practice several times.  The in-laws also thought it was quite odd that we were eating in the Mackerel Ladies house.  We just accept this as an added treat.   

OK folks I know my blogging has been sporadic, but I have lots of excuses...First off, I'm busy, today was the last day of school - HOOAH!  I love summer with the kids, but that is for a different blog.  Also, my sisters are here visiting from the US, so whenever I have visitors I feel like I shouldn't be on the computer too much. 

So today I am blogging about last Saturday night out with friends, what a great time we had!  The first place we went was to Los Amigos -  always a fun place, the music starts early so it is a good place to start the night, plus one of the guys in the band is a friend of ours...the guys from Los Amigos will be playing at our 4th (3rd) of July party this year!  Be here or be square. 

After Los Amigos, we headed to Woodstock....

Date night this weekend: Once in a Blue Moon in Apgujeong, the Beverly Hills of Seoul. If you are on a budget, don't even consider going here.  This is a place where you will want to dress up.  Hubby wore a suit & I wore a sheik skirt with hot boots!   The write ups for this sexy little jazz bar are fantastic. It is well know that this is one of the best jazz bars in Seoul.  Every review was right on, the music was great, smooth jazz, not the crazy hyped up jazz.  It was pricy, but the food was wonderful. Hubby and I had a 5 course meal & a bottle of wine. 

Not surprising to you, I took a few photos...this was Hubby's appetizer. I don't remember the name of it, but it was scallops with an orange sauce.  The scallops were cooked perfectly.  (I have personally been having a hard time cooking scallops, so I was impressed - I really think it has more to do with the type of scallop I am buying here, and not really my technique, but that is another story for another time.)  

My appetizer was not as good...it was pan fried foie gras.  I was a bit hesitant when it said pan fried, but I thought I would give it a whirl anyway.  It wasn't terribe, but I would not order it again. On a good note, the blueberry sauce & the little salad was heavenly!

Next up we had a salad, then wild mushroom soup, then a sorbet.  Now the sorbet seemed a little out of place to us, but this is Korea and things are not always what one would expect.  Not only was this sorbet out of place, but after the first bite it left us wondering just what flavor it really was. I tasted cinnamon & ginger, on the second bit it hit me....SWEET POTATO!  Wow...I can honestly say that was a first for me.  It wasn't sweet at all - more like an icy sweet potato.  It wasn't bad either, just totally different.

For the main course I had lobster tail and halibut, both were equally delicious.  I could eat food like this every night of the week!

Hubby had lamb chops in a blueberry sauce, and if you like lamb chops, you would LOVE these.  Cooked to perfection.  (Sorry, this picture isn't very good.)

So I must admit when we saw the dessert they brought out we both though it was a little odd, but then again, Korean's do love their waffles.  There was even syrup on this waffle.  Surprisingly, it was pretty damn tasty.  Go figure.

 As hubby and I sat and listened to the sweet sound of the jazz band playing in the background, we talked about how hard life in the states is going to be whenever we have to move back. We have been spoiled here in Seoul.  What are we going to do for date night & are we going to have to hire a driver?  I mean come on, you never have to worry about that here, cabs are plentiful! (Not that we have to worry about moving back for quite a while anyway.)  We also talked about what a fabulous place this is. Once is a Blue Moon is one of those places where you want to take guest to, or go to for a special ocassion.  Oh, check out this picture of the piano...isn't it beautiful? Check out the shine. 

So, all in all this was a great night! 

OH, WAIT....it is 2AM...I wake up sweating and feel like someone just punched me in the stomach.  CRAP, do I have to puke?  CRAP, CRAP, CRAP!!!  I jump out of bed holding my stomach, run to the bathroom and make it just in time to barf my guts out!!  Not 30 minutes later, Hubby is right behind me!  NO FREAKING WAY...we have food poisoning!!!  Now, I eat on the streets here in Seoul ALL THE TIME and I have never felt the least bit bad.  We go to a swanky little uptown joint, spend a wad of cash and feel like death warmed over!  WTF?!  So, we are both puking all night...Hubby has to be up by 6:30AM to catch a flight to Tokyo!  Poor guy. He said he was sick on the plane several times.  I was lucky, I got to stay home in the comfort of my own bed, and use my own toilet to puke in, I couldn't imagine being stuck on an airplane feeling the way I felt.  Earlier today I got an email from hubby and he said he still feels bad today (Monday).  Thankfully I was better by Sunday night, but you should have seen my house...the kids were all still in their pj's because they had to fend for themselves, and since Boy 1 is off grounding all he did was make sure his siblings had bags of chips and boxes of cereal in between rounds of war craft on the computer.  Need I say more?

The Jazz Story - what a place!!!  So, we are driving down this really nice street in Samcheong-dong, couple are holding hand, people are laughing, this looks like a great area, but when the cab driver let us off, we had NO IDEA where to go, he dropped us off at the end of this popular, fun loving street going no where.  We started walking the wrong direction, back towards the fun when our cab driver honked at up and pointed to some dilapidated stair case going into a building that looked like it should have been condemned years before.  I thought maybe he was confused, or setting us up, but no, when we arrived at the top of the stairs there our friends were waiting there to greet us.

Now really, I would have never gone up those stairs if I didn't think something great was waiting for me up there.

Once we entered, there was so much to see...like many places in Korea, it was a bit overwheling.  The first thing I had to take a picture of was the chair I was about to sit in.

Really?  Green duct tape?  It just added to the charm of this little place! Not all the chairs had duct tape on them, but most of them did, sometimes the tape was the traditional silver duct tape.  The tables were made from trash cans, with rounds of glass sitting atop the trash can, our table was a jack, it was bigger than a car jack, but definitely a jack of some sort.

The next thing I HAD to get a picture of was the menu.

Now, our friend Randy is the person that found this place.  He heard about it from somewhere.  His source told him the food was good, so I did not eat before I went.  Now I like Korean food, so even if this was Korean food, I would be good with it.  My suggestion to you however is to eat before you go!!  First of all, the 'snacks' they bring out are 8 peanuts. Yes, you read that correctly, we got 16 on the second round because there were 4 of us & I'm sure they thought we might need more since Americans eat WAY more than Koreans.  OK, would you like to see the salad we ordered?

And here is the main course:

My mom taught me: If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. I am not going to say anything.

Even though dinner was not a huge hit, we really did love this place!  It has a charm like no other.  The next great adventure I had here was going to the bathroom, I walked in took one look, turned around, ran back to the table and grabbed my camera! First off, this might freak some of you out, but if you see it often enough it is no big deal, it was a coed bathroom.  Boys and girls together.  Don't worry, the bathroom stalls have doors, the urinal on the other hand does not.  Speaking of the urinal, check it out!!!!

I'm not sure (I didnt' get close enough), but I think the silver thing on the wall is an ash tray.

OK, now for the toilet!

Are you having fun yet? 

At 8 the band started playing, and to our surprise, they were singing in English & by no way did the music they were singing resemble jazz.  The lead girl in the band did not even have an accent while she was singing, she was amazing!  They were singing ABBA, which everyone but Hubby was stoked about, they sang Santana, Joan Jett, Stevie Wonder and many more - all songs we could sing along to, and we did!  Did I mention we were the ONLY Americans in the bar?  One big difference we have noticed between Americans and Koreans, when music is playing, Koreans nod their head a little, and that is about it.  The Americans are loud, singing & clapping right along with the band. 

This was a great place to go & if you live here I would highly suggest it! 

Our friend Tammy and Randy..

Notice the two signs....no picture taking & no smoking....look in the left corner of the picture, between the two fingers.