it might be the desperation to consume asian food when i’m here, but it’s over here that i start exploring korean food. with the number of korean immigrants in australia, it’s not difficult to find authentic korean food everywhere. in fact, it’s easier to find korean food than singaporean food in canberra.

there’s this korean grocery store in the town area that sells quite a lot of duh, korean stuff. so once in a while i’ll drop in to stock up on interesting food. mrs. owner of the korean grocery store is extremely cheery. she bounces around the store to rearrange the store and when she stops near you, she greets you with a big smile and a warm “hello! how are you doing?” it feels kinda familiar there cos i hear the korean customers calling out to mr. owner with a “ahdjoosee!” and mrs. owner sending off customers with a sincere “kamsahamnida!” yeah, i admit i’ve been watching too many korean dramas.

back to korean food, last semester i found little boxes of kimchi and spicy dried shrimps. the spicy dried shrimps were terrific but the kimchi was a little disappointing. so i had a bad impression of kimchi, until the house owner had a little dinner gathering and a korean classmate of their daughter’s turned up with fresh, authentic korean kimchi. oh gosh, i fell in love all over again.

the best thing about the korean grocery store is they sell tonnes of instant korean food. instant meaning anything that can be thrown into the microwave or boiling water and ready to serve in less than ten minutes. they have an endless variety of dumplings with different fillings. there were even different types of vegetarian dumplings, can you imagine?

i made another discovery today:

breaded hotdogs!! did i ever mention that i have a soft spot for hotdogs and sausages? piping hot sausages and hotdogs can make me a very happy person. and these breaded hotdogs made a great snack, even though they were grossly overcooked. i supposed the korean instructions were trying to say “microwave on medium for 2 minutes” but i could only recognise the numeral “2″ so i microwaved it on high instead.

oh well, this is gonna be a staple in my freezer anyway! yummy food at affordable prices!