My first saturday in Korea

So my first Friday night was a low key one, my father-in-law (아버님 abonim) and mother-in-law (어머님 ohmohnim) went to their country house outside Seoul for the night to move some personal belongings, more on the country house later. I walked briskly to the Star Park residential complex opposite Adena Palace, where I live. Star Park is a very typical, upper class residential development that sits on a piece of land some 100m squared more or less. There are four L shaped apartment towers connected on the lower 3 floors by shared architecture which contains underground parking, shops and restaurants. The retail space provides local residents with specific daily services such as dry cleaners, french style bakery and cakes shop which are hugely popular as it is considered courteous to bring cake when visiting friends or family. There are several restaurants and a couple of small furniture and drapery shops, all very cosy but I really wonder how many of them survive.

The restaurant I dined at is Nabura (I think, I'll correct this later if I am wrong). It's a typical pseudo Japanese-Korean restaurant blending Japanese tempura, seafood, noodle soup all served with kimchi, spicy marinade radish and mini-grilled sardines. I had eel & rice (unagi bap), which was OK but nothing special. The portion was a little small for my liking and this is something to watch out for when eating in South Korea. Portions are usually pretty good in the bi-bim-bap lunch cafes but the more upmarket, stylish and 'cool' international restaurants are about as good a value as London taxi. Oh, and I ordered a glass of red wine and it arrived chilled, almost ice cold. I've not figured out why red wine is served this way in Korea, I think it's done with the desire to preserve it but it just ends up tasting a little sour...oh dear.

Drinking red wine has really taken off in South Korea as the middle classes earnings have outstripped well beyond living costs and they seek to go all sophisticated and European. I think it's fair to say without sounding like a wine snob that their palettes have a little developing to do...although their capacity for alcohol consumption is unprecedented.