snails, baby

One of the neighborhood chicken restaurants sells snails in spicy pasta—golbaengi-jjolmyeon. I was delighted when I saw this on the menu, so, since the place was out of chicken fingers, I ordered me up some snails, baby. God, I love golbaengi. These are fat little sea snails, often served after having been split in two. (A whole golbaengi, plucked straight from the shell, is roughly comparable in size to a modest Italian meatball.)


The menu used chili-pepper icons to rate the spiciness of its dishes, and this dish was given a three-pepper rating. When I got home and began to dig in, I discovered that, yes, the dish was indeed spicy, but not inedibly so. I ate with gusto, gleefully anticipating the dragonfire that would be exiting my ass within the next few hours.

The dish reminded me of my most wonderful golbaengi experience: a restaurant—whose name I now forget—located in the Chungmuro district and discovered by my Korean buddy JW. If I recall correctly, the swollen golbaengi in my pasta bowl were uncut, which I found delightful. I could eat those damn snails all day long.


_