Burning Ring of Fire Chicken

Spring is upon us... it's in our lungs, drying out our throats, giving us colds. And it's all over our cars. In Korea spring brings the Yellow Dust. It brings it all the way from the Gobi, apparently, and shares it with us. It paints us with it. Paints us inside out. I've decided to put off washing my car a little bit longer...

Yesterday was St. Patricks Day, and this year it fell conveniently on a Friday. After a day of arming the children with scissors and cutting shamrocks out of paper (funny how there's always one kid who manages to cut it wrong and gets a bunch of half-hearts instead...) Big and Extra Fantastic hopped into our dirty little Juliet and drove out to Anyang for open mic at Bar Rockssin.

Since Big likes driving and not being in jail, I had to go light on the cowboy sippy sauce; Extra Fantastic was having a Bailey's, so I had a Kalua. Then I played the following short set:

She Moved Through the Fair - Traditional
Ring of Fire - Johnny Cash
When the Doves Cry - Prince
One More Cup of Coffee - Bob Dylan
Lola - The Kinks

We more or less had to get moving right after I finished, since Extra Fantastic had to work this morning. We decided to get something to eat, and since we were in Anyang, we decided to have Buldak, because Anyang has a restaurant that serves the hottest Buldak in all of Korea.

What is Buldak? Buldak means "fire chicken", and as a lover of spicey foods from all over the world, Big can assure you that Buldak is aptly named. First off, it tastes like fire. Not just spicey. I mean the flavor is actually what you imagine fire would taste like, if you could actually eat it. As you savor the firey flavor, the spice starts to kick in, and triggers a complex bodily reaction whereby all the sweat, tears and mucus your body is capable of producing just then leaves more or less simultaneously, through your face.

The secret to eating Buldak is macaroni salad. Followed by Nurungji Tang, a kind of burnt rice soup made from burnt rice from the burnt rice factory, and water. Big isn't joking.


Why do Big and Extra Fantastic eat food that makes them cry? Because Buldak is the perfect food. It makes you experience so much emotion. Joy. Sorrow. Pleasure. Fear. Laughter. Pain. We tried to get ice cream later, but the DQ was closed. Treacherous bastards. Ideally Big would have preferred Pat Bing Su anyway, but it's still too early on the year for it.

What's Pat Bing Su? Sweet bean paste on shaved ice, usually augmented by fresh or sweetened fruits, gummy candies, corn flakes, and/or milk or ice cream... then there's the fancy Red Mango chain which does the same thing, but with frozen yogurt instead of ice cream. Essentially the same thing as Halo-Halo, for those of you who've ever eaten Filipino food. Yummy. Out of season yummy. Big had to forbear the absence of Pat.

Big's dad and brother outdid Big... instead of driving to the next town for St. Paddy's, they apparently traversed half of Canada on a spontaneous roadtrip from Winnipeg to Nova Scotia, representing approximately one twelfth the circumference of the Earth. Smartasses... last I heard they were up to no good, terrorizing the East Coast drinking community.