Posts Tagged ‘jeff’

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HMART I LOVE YOU!

Wednesday, March 4th, 2009

Can I tell you something?

I love being Korean.

If you were to rate me on my Korean-ness, I would probably be a “2″ on a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being a church going Korean who has a perm and drives a Honda). I don’t speak Korean. I barely know any Korean customs. I am neither a doctor nor a lawyer – or an accountant for that matter (basically the three professions that every Korean parent pressures you to become). However, if you were to rate me on how much I love being Korean, I would rate my Korean pride at a “10″ which is basically:  “I can’t fucking believe I come from the country that created kimchee and bulgogi!!!”

While Seattle has a diverse Asian population, most Koreans I know of live just north or just south of the city in the suburbs. Sadly, I can only think of one Korean restaurant that is worth eating at in Seattle proper – I personally think this is a travesty. The last time Paige and I tried someplace new, her bulgogi came out stir-fried with broccoli and carrots! This is enough to make a Korean grandmother roll in her grave.

So last Saturday, Rene, Scott and I went on a field trip north specifically to eat good Korean food and to visit HMart, a Korean grocery and variety store. We first met up with our friend Jeff and his cutie pie daughter Emma at a restaurant called Ho Soon Yi. I don’t know why we do this but every time we eat together we end up ordering so much food that it is completely ridiculous and embarassing. Stuff like Bulgogi, jap chae, seafood pancake (hae-mool pah-jun) and soon dubu barreled out of the kitchen in gigantic portions. Seriously, I could have just made a meal out of the banchan and rice, but nooooo, we had to order the family meal for what seemed like 20. The waitress actually had to pull up another table to accomodate all the food we ordered. They probably looked at us and were thinking, “oh they must be taking a day off from the freedom fries.”

After lunch, we took our engorged bellies to HMart to get our shop on. I had never been to HMart and now I can’t wait to go back. I generally can’t shop the first time I go someplace new like this because I am so overwhelmed by the choices. When you go to a store and you see 20 different varieties of rice – well, it gets kind of exciting for this old girl (What already? I shop at Safeway and I have no life) and I can’t make a decision to save my life.

Since then, I have had a couple of listless nights dreaming of their kimchee deli. They had so many varieties that it was like taking a walk through my childhood. And of course, one of my favorite things was in the food court. While there were a bevy of Korean food options that looked really wonderful, I just couldn’t get over the kaiten sushi cafeteria deli:

All I can say is: God bless America.

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Posted in Daily, Foodie | 17 Comments »

Hot Or Not?

Wednesday, January 14th, 2009

The other day I was lucky enough to have lunch with my friend Jeff, who works on a cubicle farm in one of those big fancy buildings in the business district. Seeing that I am now working from home and rarely get out of my sweats to leave the confines of the West Seattle peninsula – this was a big deal to me. I even got to pay for parking.  Oh how I miss those days!

He and I ate at a restaurant called the “Rock Bottom” (which despite the name, did not seem as though it was suffering any ill effects of the economy going down the crapper). I updated him on my nutty life as a writer and 11 1/2 minutes of fame via CNN. He gave me the latest dish on mutual friends and told stories about the psychotic woman at work whose cubicle walls are so high that they are now dubbed “The Walls of Gondor.”

Somehow we got on the topic of Facebook, or more specifically, my general disdain for all FB applications and his love of FB games. He was trying to explain this application called YoVille which I  now understand is kinda (but not really) like The Sims – but with crappier graphics.  Zynga, the software developer, claims that YoVille is “the coolest virtual world on Facebook.” (There’s more than one virtual world on Facebook? Good lord. I don’t even have a *real* life.)

Here’s is what I am talking about:

Apparently, a YoVille resident can host a themed house party and it shows up on a general events list. Anyone can attend until the host “locks the door” – generally when he/she deems there are enough people at the party.

Jeff attended a party that was themed “Hot or Not?”

I have no excuse for him and cannot explain why.

Here is what transpired:

  1. Boy and girl avatars split to separate sides of  the the living room.
  2. Each person takes a turn standing in the middle of the room so that others can vote whether or not you are “hot or not.” If you are “hot,” you get to stay. If you are “not” you have to leave. No, I’m not kidding.
  3. This keeps going until there are only two people left – one boy and one girl.
  4. The boy and girl go into the bedroom and no one else can see what transpires.

Jeff got kicked out of the game early on because he, or rather his AVATAR, was not “hot enough.”

This is what’s wrong with the world today.

P.S.  Jeff, I will be happy to meet you or your avatar for lunch again soon.

P.P.S.  No, I’m not curious about what happens in the bedroom. My guess is that there is “heavy pacing.”

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Posted in Daily | 16 Comments »