Korean restaurant

Catechol and I went to Haw Par Villa at 9pm last night.

And yes, though i purple-ly made that statement very scandalous, there's obviously nothing very scandalous abt it lar.

I have been ab-so-lute-ly terrified of that place ever since one night five six years ago while i was on the double-decker bus on my way home i spotted the freaky dragon's eyes staring at me when the bus went past. Since then, I have been studiously averting my eyes everytime i'm around that area. Even as a child, i never did enjoy that place much, i thought all the statues of the gods and demons were creepy. The only highlight of the day was the one and only ride of the place: the super steep boat ride, and even for that you have to go through hell first(literally).

So anyway, my ge (gastroenteritis aka stomach flu) stomach has been giving me alot of problems even now, so even though it was already 9pm and i haven't had dinner, i have no appetite to eat anything at all. But then, i had a sudden craving, and just felt like eating korean, anything else and i would puke. So i suggested going to a korean place at west coast which i saw on tv but never figured out its location, until one day (while averting my eyes away from the dragon) i looked across the road and saw a huge sign on the building advertising it. To my surprise Catechol actually agreed to go to such a ulu place.

[Sidetrack: Somehow dunno why suddenly the guys decided that being a feminist i would like them to treat me as an equal, and there was much sexual tension (as in tension about equality between the sexes lar) in the air today. Eg. they asked me if i would be offended if they were to return my tray for me. And when SC called me “woman” as a friendly term of endearment, WQ chided him immediately saying he should call me “fellow human being” instead. Sheez! Since i would be the only rose among the thorns for the time being, i better clear the air soon. I suspect Wk must have given them a speech abt it when i wasn't around, this whole feminist thing just reeked of her doing.]

Anyway back to the subject, the restaurant is really very nice, fantastic for a gathering with friends, and if you are a huge fan of authentic korean BBQ food, complete with the lettuce wrap, and a hundred and one side dishes of kimchee and other funny stuff, this is the place to go. I was really in kimchee heaven and the food is reeeeaaaallly good, albeit abit expensive. The lady boss is really nice too, and unlike the Japanese charcoal grill where you have to cook the food yourself, here the lady boss does it for you.

Actually, i'm not sure if she routinely does it lar, but what happened was this:
After i successfully cooked two pieces of very tough, very burnt but still quite nice beef and wanted to cook the chicken, the waiter came by and whisked the pan away and replaced it with a new pan and left with the cryptic message: “cook all chicken together”. So i stuck all the chicken onto the pan (the chicken was still in large pieces so manouevring was abit tough) and Catechol tried, clumsily, to cut them into smaller pieces. Then suddenly, the lady boss appeared looking rather horrified and shouted, “i cook for you!” And did a magnificent job of cutting and frying the chicken and even did the beef for us. She even went into a lengthy explanation when i asked her what's the purpose of the huge plate of raw vegetables and mint leaves (Catechol very sillily bit into a leaf, thinking it's eaten plain and spat it out immediately). She stood by and taught us how to make the lettuce wrap thing we see on korean dramas and very cutely asked us whether or not we're on our first date and went on to say that in korea nobody eats BBQ on their first date because one is supposed to open your mouth big and stuff the whole thing in. Very, very messy but very, very fun and delicious i must say.

Ooh, and there was this saucer (like the soy sauce saucer) containing two 10-cent coin diameter, 1cm thick white round things on the table when we sat down. I prodded it with my finger and it was hard. I thought it was a sweet for a pre-meal cleanse your mouth appetizer, it looked like one of those hard, powdery japanese sweets that just melt in your mouth. But before i could pop it into my mouth, i got distracted by the cute korean waiter and even more so by the many, many, many side dishes he placed on the table. Heng i didn't eat it loh, cos the lady boss before teaching us how to make the wrap, reached across me for the saucer and to my surprise poured some water on it. To my amazement, the 'sweets' swelled up vertically looking like delicious marshmellows and then continued swelling and swelling until i finally realised that they unroll to become hand towels. Ingenious or what!

Eew! I just realised that if i had eaten them, they would have swelled in my stomach and caused a serious pyloric obstruction and may result in me having projectile vomiting.

Anyway, i highly recommend the place and after reading my entry, you my lovely readers would have no fear of making all the mistakes we made. Except that, till now i still don't know the exact address. I just know it's along west coast road, directly opposite Haw par villa.