탕짜면: When I found out that Chinese restaurants in Korea — about as Chinese as Chinese take-out is in the U.S. — not only made deliveries but also could divide one serving into two dishes, I went a bit mad. For a while, I’d split between different types of noodles, indulging myself in varied flavor/textural maps, from the unctuous and dense to the spicy and runny, all from the comfort of my home. These days, I’m partial to combining tangsooyook (a take on sweet-and-sour pork) with jjajang myun (black bean noodles), a dish commonly truncated to tangjjamyun.
Korean delivery, or baedal, is fast, cheap, and tip-less, unsurprisingly affecting the integrity of the cuisine (as convenience does everywhere). Because most 24/7-delivery houses err on this side of “middlingly passable” on the palate, I’ve started ordering my tangjjamyun from a legit sit-down restaurant with normal operating hours and decor that wouldn’t be out of place if transplanted to Wilshire Blvd (read: snazzier than the average bunshik). It’s not the best Chinese-Korean food I’ve had in my life, but it’s a pretty big step up from the norm.
Note to the unschooled: Most delivery houses bring your meal in real plateware, which you then leave outside your door for them to come pick up later. It’s all just kind of magical.
