The Food Court at Uwajimaya Village is a frenzied place. The narrow alley of restaurants and bakery storefronts faces off against the ever bustling deli counter of the Asian Grocery Giant. Sticky crisp duck hang in a warmer as seasoned Deli vets bark out order numbers, “41?”, “41?”, “41!” Separated only by a stream of awkward tables, which patrons begrudgingly share family style, sits Korean BBQ, a quick Korean take out, as close as I can get to my beloved Kim Bap Chung Guk.
As I pour over the menu, a English friendly descriptions and photos, sans Hangul, I over hear a high school student breakdown kimchi with the same enthusiasm Actor Ben Stine repeatedly calls out “Bueller, Bueller, Bueller,” in Ferris Bueller’s day off. “Uh, it’s like cabbage, that is like, uh, fermented, with, uh, chilies.” In fairness to this young lad, I bet he gets asked this question 20 times a day, I’ll put money on the fact the he can probably spot out who will and won’t choose the fiery condiment over a bland hospital-esque salad of iceberg lettuce sprinkled with tinned sweet corn.
Kevin’s aching throat called out for kimchi jjigae, and me, the bulgogi sandwich. Here marinated slices of beef are sautéed up with onions and nestled in a soft French roll with tomato slices, iceberg leaves, blanketed with a slice of sliced processed American cheese. Heaven.
The kimchi jjigae, arrived without rice, but was chock full of sliced pork, chewy rice cakes, tender kimchi, and tofu cubes. Less pungent than those tried in Seoul, this version played a more sweet, salty, spicy almost akin to a Thai coconut chicken soup.
Prices are easy, most hovering around the $6.95 mark. But don’t expect stone pots here, everything, rather, is served in plastic to go containers; gochujang is served on the side for a quarter, as is gim, seasoned seaweed, 95 cents. On the plus side, all dishes are cooked to order.
So, did you think I’d quit school? Run off to the big city to make my fortune and end up on the Food Network with my own show? No, silly, it was just spring break. 10 glorious days of waking up at 10 am, lounging around watching Food Network and Bravo’s Top Design to my heart’s content. (I was pulling for Goil)
The last couple weeks of first quarter went a little like this: zoom, blam, crash, pow, whomp, zallawazoo. Hard and fast. I scored a 93 on my knife test. It was nerve racking. I completely botched my batonnet (far too big, steak fries anyone?) and brunoise (screw brunoise, seriously. I’m over it), but managed 40 minutes. I scored a crackin’ 100% on my final, and even managed to pass the servsafe exam with a 92. Not too shabby. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t finish the quarter with a bit of an ego (Come on , a 4.0, how could you not think you’re the queen of the world- that and forcing kevin to greet me every morning saying “hey queen of the world”).
The change from first quarter and second quarter could not be more dramatic, physically and emotionally. This quarter my classmates and I are responsible for crafting up lunch service for the entire culinary and baking programs as well as the lunch buffet SCCC students and faculty frequent. It is quantity cookin’ baby. Yee haw.
Quantity cooking has it’s purpose, hospitals, weddings, my lunch Tuesday-Friday, but dang is it hectic. For one I am preoccupied with maintaining quality and integrity of the food I produce, on the other hand, I have a time deadline along with a heavy workload. As eaters/consumers we can’t help but be skeptical, a little suspicious even of large vats of food sitting out on the buffet line. And I find that same feeling creeping up on me when I am fixing up 75 servings of salad dressings. “How can this possibly taste good?” I’ll ask myself, assuming that larger = worse. Maybe that is why fine dining servings are so tiny. Tiny = better.
I think I have explained before a bit about my first quarter classroom, it was at the opposite end of the school, a quiet, serene, Zen rock garden of a lab compared with the steam whistles, oven hums, and range fan droning of the main kitchen where the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th quarter students go about their work. I feel a bit out of sorts, if my life experience and obsessive home cooking aided me last quarter, then my lack of kitchen experience has me doubting my performance now. Time management is a huge issue, as is learning when to finish a dish, even if it means not rearranging the shrimp to look like the NYC Rockettes doing the can-can. I hope this is only beginning of the quarter jitters.
