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2007-01-31
Korean Restaurant
I went to a Korean restaurant Chilbo Myunok, after seeing Chinese commercials in LA18, the local Asian TV channel. Having Chinese commercials, I supposed that they are a friendly place to non-Koreans.
Everyone there, except for valet parking and busboys, is Korean. They greet you at the door in Korean, and waitress talks to you in Korean, and she doesn't speak English too well. The food was pretty good, no complain here, but I got an interesting experience at the end.
I ordered too much and couldn't finish the cold noodle. While tasted okay, it was a bit too spicy for my liking. I figured I would take it home and eat it the next day, maybe with plenty of soda. So I asked the waitress for a to-go box. She said no. Shocked, I thought there was some misunderstanding. So I asked again, and she said no again. However, she didn't seem to be able to further elaborate other than saying "you can't take that out."
Then another waiter came by to help. His English was better, telling me about some "special ingredient." It took me a while, but at the end I realized that the noodle was prepared with a secret ingredient and so they do not allow it to-go.
The whole thing was so dumb. If I were to find out their secret ingredient, wouldn't I just bring a small container and secretly put some sauce in it? After all, the restaurant is understaffed and it took forever to get the attention of a waitress...
Everyone there, except for valet parking and busboys, is Korean. They greet you at the door in Korean, and waitress talks to you in Korean, and she doesn't speak English too well. The food was pretty good, no complain here, but I got an interesting experience at the end.
I ordered too much and couldn't finish the cold noodle. While tasted okay, it was a bit too spicy for my liking. I figured I would take it home and eat it the next day, maybe with plenty of soda. So I asked the waitress for a to-go box. She said no. Shocked, I thought there was some misunderstanding. So I asked again, and she said no again. However, she didn't seem to be able to further elaborate other than saying "you can't take that out."
Then another waiter came by to help. His English was better, telling me about some "special ingredient." It took me a while, but at the end I realized that the noodle was prepared with a secret ingredient and so they do not allow it to-go.
The whole thing was so dumb. If I were to find out their secret ingredient, wouldn't I just bring a small container and secretly put some sauce in it? After all, the restaurant is understaffed and it took forever to get the attention of a waitress...
Labels: food
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It's unfortunate that you had rather unpleasant experience. Just to help you understand, generally Asian restauranteurs (including Korean and Japanese) do not recommend their "soup noodles" taken home, for one thing, because the noodles get really "bloated" after a while due to the "secret ingredients." Believe me you wouldn't really like the texture. I guess they couldn't really explain themselves, and thus came up with this "secret ingredients" thing. However, if you still insisted, if I were them, I would have separated the noodle from the soup, and put them in 2 separate containers for you to take out. So that maybe you could enjoy the soup at least. I also think there's a health concern when it comes to cold soup base. When you take it home, you can't really heat or boil it again, etc.
# posted by 
: 9:04 AM
: 9:04 AM
That could be the reason, although I'm not sure if that's the case. I was already too full with other dishes, so it was either throwing it away or taking it with me. Anyway, I think I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt, since the food was pretty good...
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