and I'm back.

[kaigou]

1. I really hope that wasn't supposed to be authentic Korean food, because if so, bibimbap has about as much taste as rice and vegetables. When the biggest flavor is coming from tofu, I'd say there's something wrong with the picture.

ETA2: I have been reassured I could not possibly have been eating the Real Thing, and I have also been taunted with several mouthwatering recipes. Fortunately, my step-dad spent a lot of time in Korea and knows his Korean food, so maybe when I'm home visiting I'll finagle him into getting us lunch from his favorite little Korean diner. So no fear, I will not remain ignorant forever!

2. It's really fucking hot out there, so I categorically refused to wear black interview slacks. I wore jeans. I did not wear short-sleeves or open-toed shoes, however. I do have my standards.

3. I talked to the recruiter before the interview, and told her that this would be a pointless exercise on my end. Why couldn't I see the work environment? What information could I possibly get from a single person in a restaurant that would give me any idea of whether I would want to work there? Her response: "Actually, that's a really good question."

4. If I do end up taking this contract, the first words out of my mouth may possibly be: "for the love of all that's holy, do not put someone else through that, or at least take the fucking hint when they say they can't make it for lunchtime."

5. The high point: walking to the address and passing a guy on a big fat low Harley. He starts up the engine and immediately the car alarms go off on the little hatchbacks fore and aft of him. And me, my inner 18-yr-old just thought that was awesome.

6. Do I want this contract? Let me put it this way: I have bills to pay, so I wouldn't turn it down. But it's nowhere near the top of my list, either.

7. If that really was authentic Korean food, then I am the victim of a massive PR conspiracy or something.

[Also: apparently when this town says a place has "atmosphere", what that really means is, "we don't have a big television but it'll still be so damn loud you'll need to yell at your lunch partner". Why can't I ever find out these local translations before the fact?]

Comments

[hollyberries]

Uh, no. Bibimbap is supposed to be a combination of delicious veggies and rice (and marinated beef if you're not a vegetarian). They didn't even put gochujang on there? :O

Re: Interview - Ugh. I hope you get the other one!

[sevenall]

Of course not. Bibimbap is spicy and delicious. Yum. I love hwedupbap best, though.

http://www.maangchi.com/recipe/bibimbap

That said, last time I made Korean bbq with banchan, I noted that the dishes tended towards the same flavour profile - garlic, chili, spring onion, fish sauce, ginger, sesame oil.

[kaigou]

I THOUGHT SO. Beef wasn't offered, so I went with tofu, and then they offered some kind of sauce on top. A miso-soy-something, and the other... I don't know, I could barely hear anything. Marinated beef would've been perfect on top, balanced things out! But no. Next time, I shall have to ask at my local Korean grocery where they might recommend, and try there instead, because I've seen the recipes for bibimbap and it looks good. This version did look good, it just had no flavor. Sigh.

Also, that was seriously some of the worst miso I have ever had, and I do at least know good miso. And that stuff was... well, the stuff you add to boiling water tastes better than their miso. Very disappointing.

[kaigou]

I know fish sauce! If I can taste tofu, trust me, I can taste fish sauce. There was NO FISH SAUCE. Or ginger! Or even garlic, or sesame oil (not counting the sesame oil they used to sautee the tofu). These are all spices I like (though I tend to prefer my fish sauce in moderation, never having really acclimated to it, so as long as a dish isn't spiced/seasoned like you're eating pure fish sauce, then I'm fine) -- so I figured bibimbap would be right up my alley, and a nice change. I shall just have to hold out for a time when I'm near one of the little diner-like Korean places in town -- where they're trying less to be hip and cool and really just want to feed people.

[kaigou]

Hey! That's the recipe that made me want to try the dish in the first place! So I can at least say that what I ate did have fernbrake, red bell peppers, and carrot, but none of the rest. And it certainly didn't have the sauce -- and even the sauce thing they brought out "on the side" couldn't have been more than a tablespoon or so. I mean, I know television isn't really real, but still, what I saw people eating on television seemed to involve a lot more sauce, enough that you could mix everything up and then eat it with a spoon. Sigh.

I'd try to make it at home -- the problem is that not knowing what it should taste like, I'd have no idea if I just made something really good or totally screwed it up. (Which would be fine, if it were always me, but knowing me, I'd screw it up and think it tastes good, then try to eat it in a restaurant and not like it at all, and not be able to hide my confusion and end up insulting my hosts, and that wouldn't go well, so best to eat the real thing and learn its good parts instead of eating the fake and not knowing the difference.)

What I want to know is

[christeos-pir.livejournal.com]

What is 'baked miso' and how do you make it, coz according to my research it's used to lure the Binbogami ("Poverty Kami," a deity who drains your luck) out of your house.

[sharibet]

They did a lunch interview for a contract position? Wow.

Did you at least get some kind of idea whether the job would be bearable as a short-term gig?

Also, things got crazy-busy on this end, so I didn't have a chance to reply to your previous note about why bar food was objectionable to you, but until you mentioned the intimate/eroticized aspects of eating with fingers, I hadn't even considered that aspect. Mostly I was just hearing my very proper German grandmother saying, "Civilized people don't eat with their fingers!"

(I eat finger food all the time, having grown up in California, but am very careful not to do so when I'm visiting Germany.)

My favorite Korean dish is spicy pork bulgogi, which my neighborhood restaurant serves on a sizzling iron platter with onions that slowly caramelize as you dig into the paper-thin slices of melt-in-your-mouth sweet chili goodness.

[kaigou]

Ahahaha I have seen pork bulgogi and it looks soooo goooood, but this place was mostly vegan/vegetarian (not all, but mostly). No beef, oddly.

It's not technically contract -- it's C2H, which hasn't fallen in popularity at all. The contract is almost always a formality, and just a way to pay the recruiters/headhunters instead of paying a flat finder's fee. Shrug from me, it's all cash in the end.

It took an older (male) friend pointing out the finger-food aspect to make me sensitive to it. But in a business meeting? I still wouldn't eat with my fingers unless I'm really good friends with everyone at the table. Certainly not in interview.

Eh, doesn't matter anyway. I couldn't hear most of what the guy said. Place was so damn loud. No television, but no soft surfaces, so all the noise bounced -- and we ended up with a table of four almost literally in my freaking lap, and boy were they having a lot of fun! Very noisy. I may not have heard a lot of what the interviewer said, btu I can assure you that at least someone had a lot of fun at lunch today. *eyeroll*

Really so very NOT what I'd ever pick for an interview, and I told the recruiter that afterwards, quite bluntly: "I haven't a clue if I even answered the questions he asked, because I could only catch half of what he said, if that much. And for that reason, I haven't a clue whether I want to pursue the position, because I haven't a clue what they do or what they're really looking for."

What I could understand/catch, sounded more like a sales pitch than a job description, and I really hate getting sales pitches. I just plain hate hype, is what it really is, and I hate feeling like someone's trying to snow me. Thing is, he might not have been snowing me in the parts I couldn't hear... so I have no idea.

Regardless, I have interviews tomorrow, elsewhere, and they're higher on my list. Fingers crossed, especially since we're back to sane professional interviews where food is not involved!

[nagasvoice]

Also, noise is too easy to cover things where the recruiter says you heard and agreed to things that were neither.
And noooo, that's not how bibimbap is supposed to taste, horrors!
Take it as a bad reflection on the employer's taste in recruiters.

[kaigou]

Take it as a bad reflection on the employer's taste in recruiters.

You mean the sales pitch part? No, that was from the employer himself. Recruiters usually take one look at my resume and know I'm pretty much immune to that now. It's only employers -- especially, if not exclusively, young white males -- who try to do the sales pitch crap on me, and I never take it well.

[kaigou]

I'm not sure, but if it's really bad miso, then it's what came as the appetizer. That was honestly the worst miso I've ever had, hands down. I'm not sure if it was baked or not, but if skunked counts, then I know where you can find some.

[rurounitriv.livejournal.com]

I don't claim to be an expert on Korean food, and I'm not 100% sure I've had that particular dish (it's been a few years) but I've never tasted anything that bland in a Korean place. Korean food that I've tasted has had real depth of flavor, lots of spices but not necessarily bite.

Now I'm craving Korean. I don't think there's a Korean place within 60 miles of me. Woe.

This is so OT but

[soukup]

o.O what is happening in your icon?!

bwahahaha

[kaigou]

It's Kusuri-uri from Mo No No Ke, and the sword he carries. I noticed he has this thing of stroking the lion-dog-head of the sword when he's listening. AND NOW I AM SEEING IT AS SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT, omgwtf.

*blamesyoutotallyforruiningtheicon*

Re: bwahahaha

[soukup]

Oh, I thought maybe it was a Pez dispenser. Why? Does it look like something else to you?

*looks innocent*

Speaking of Korean food

[thejeopardymaze]

Do you know of any good cookbooks on that subject?

[majoline]

I think it was just a crap restaurant, since bland =/= Korean food in my head.

[sharibet]

Had pork bulgogi for dinner tonight, actually, along with a dozen or so of the tiny side-dishes served with the main course: daikon radish salad with Meyer lemon dressing; candied minnows with garlic; kimchi cabbage; kimchi daikon; kimchi zucchini; slices of omelette with chopped bell pepper; fish cakes in a peppery-teriyaki style sauce; bean sprouts with sesame oil and garlic; and squares of seaweed jelly topped with what tasted like a fermented miso paste sauce, chili flakes, and green onion.

Yesterday's interview sounds like an absolutely dismal experience, and I hope today's interviews were a bit more professional, at least. Good luck with the job hunt--I find they're usually really draining, with bonus whacks to one's self-esteem.