A Good Reason to Be Afraid of Korean Buffets

Being vegetarian in Korea is hard. There isn't a word for "meat" in Korean like there is in English. Instead, there's a word for each of the specific kinds of meat: "goe-gee" for beef, "mool-goe-gee" for fish," and so on. So if you want something without meat, you have to specify each kind of meat.

There is a word for "vegetarian" in Korean, but a lot of people don't really understand what it means (and will, for example, bring you fish or even pork), so it's best not to rely on it. I've had to explain the word for vegetarian in Korean to Koreans many times. What's also funny is that even if the people do understand the word, it's so closely related to monks here that they're surprised if you order something with garlic (monks don't eat spicy stuff here) or have an alcoholic drink with dinner.

When I hear about vegetarian friendly restaurants here, I always try to rush right out and try them. It's nice to have the variety when I can since there's not nearly as much I can eat here as I can at home. I'm pretty much limited to 5 restaurants in Daejon at the moment, but I add a new one from time to time, and I can, in theory, go to most restaurants (but I usually end up just eating rice and raw veggies if I do).

A friend told me about a buffet she went to last week that was mostly vegetarian, so I tried it was soon as I could. Oddly, a lot of buffets here are largely vegetarian AND all the vegetarian restaurants I've been to have been buffets. I'm not sure how those things got linked up.

So I walked into the buffet after getting my haircut (see below), paid the astonishing fee of about $3.50 and sat down. The buffet was mostly to make bibimbap, a combination of really spicy rice and Korean vegetables.

Now, I have a history with bibimbap. First of all, it's one of the few things I can eat in most Korean restaurants, so I made myself sick of it when I first got here (before I could speak much Korean or knew where any of the vegetarian places were). Second of all, it's spicy as hell, so it actually gives me a bit of a stomach ache. This is no small feat since, as many of you know, I can handle a lot of spice.

Still, it'd been a while since I had bibimbap, so I made myself a bowl. That was my first mistake. I really piled on the toppings, hoping to try out some of the Korean foods I hadn't yet (such as these huge peanut type things). That was my second mistake. Than I went back up to the buffet, and made myself a second plate of various other things from the rest of the buffet. That was my third mistake.

I was eating away at my bibimbap, remembering why I hadn't eaten it in a while, when I looked up at the sign above the buffet. I normally don't read Korean signs because it's such an effort to figure them out, but if I'm got the time to let my mind work (like when I'm walking or, for example, eating), I give it a go.

"Extra fee of 2,000 won if you don't finish all the food that you take." This is a Buddhist thing. It's considered rude and even sacrilegious to waste food because there are so many other beings suffering because of the lack of food. Never never never, for example, leave food on your plate if you eat at a Buddhist temple.

Now, 2,000 won is less than $2, but I was determined not to have to pay for food that I didn't even eat. And, I suppose, I didn't want to be rude either. I looked down at what was left. There was simply no way I'd be able to finish it.

I ate the stuff on my second plate first, stuff that I wasn't sick of: tofu, noodles, barley. I finished that without a hitch. But then I looked back at my bibimbap bowl: it was still half full, and I wasn't looking forward to cleaning it out.

I ate a few bites and my stomach was already hurting from the spice. Okay, I thought, I'll get some more water and some tofu; that'll calm my stomach down. Not so: it just made me more full.

I shoveled in a little more. Crap, I thought, I'm either going to pass out or puke if I try to finish this all. I needed something to calm my stomach, so I picked up a cider. Cider in Korea isn't cider even though that's how you say it. Cider is 7up, pretty much.

I should note here that the Cider was 1,000 won; half of what I would have paid just to not eat the bibimbap.

The cider calmed me down a bit, but I still didn't want to do any more bibimbaping. I shoveled in a little more and took a rest. Crap, I thought as I looked up at the buffet, I could be eating sweet potatoes right now if I didn't get this damn bibimbap.

I looked down and decided to plow right though. I didn't make it. I got down to about two bites left and though, hey, they aren't going to charge me for this. Anyway, I can pull the foreigner card.

I'm sure you can guess what the foreigner card is, but I'll explain anyway. See, in Korea if you're from another country, they don't really expect you to speak Korean. A simple "I don't understand" solves almost every dispute, whether you really understand or not.

I put my bowl up by the dishwashers (people, not machines) and made a mad dash for the door. I made it, but my stomach was turning as I left the door. I stopped off in a bathroom, fully expecting to vomit from being overspiced, but I just blew my nose instead. Sometimes I do that.

Luckily I had some Mandarin oranges at home (which, by the way, are incredible) that calmed me right back down.

Next time, I won't get the bibimbap.

R