Jesus Meats

Galbi is a gastronomic part of Korean life.  It's communal and cheap and colourful.

You sit on tiny chairs made for tiny Korean butts around a table with its middle cut out and a deep pit added in.  A bucket of blazing hot charcoal is set in place, with a perforated metal disc placed on top.  there's a lot of discussion as to what to have but really it comes down to what kind of beef or what kind of park you would like, because everthing else comes with whatever you choose.  A seemingly endless array of small dishes full of enticing things get plonked down around the table's perimeter.

Then the fun begins!

Grace, as the youngest, pours out our drinks.  The proprietess, a bossy little thing after Martin's own heart, places stips of meat on the metal disk to cook.  They are then dredged in sauce, and eaten along with rice and kimchi, the national obsession, which is a sort of pickled vegetable with chili sauce.  We have several types of kimchi here, as well as two piping hot dishes, one a mixed vegetable stew, and one an egg soup. 

Oh and why did I call it Jesus Meats?  Well, there is a prominent church across the street, and the only way to indicate which galbi restaurant you want to meet at is to identify this one as Jesus Meats.

Not pious perhaps, but precise.  And delicious!