Happy Valentine's Day! It's so nice for Valentine's Day to be on a Saturday - all day to hang out with your honey without needing to go to work or church. Today started out great for us. We slept in without worrying about the alarm clock. Last night we had thought about getting up early to beat the crowd to the IHOP for breakfast (basically the only franchise around here, apart from KFC). But then we decided - it's a Saturday! Let's sleep in and fight the crowd at the IHOP.

First, we exchanged our gifts for each other and then by the time we got to IHOP it was packed! The wait was only estimated to be 15-25 minutes - I think that's the default time they say regardless of how long it will actually take. We decided to go across the street to take care of some banking and got that done with plenty of time to spare. It was still crowded when we returned, but it was only about a 10 minute wait from when we returned to get seated. We enjoyed our pancakes and eggs, coffee and hot chocolate (the whipped cream is the best part of the hot cocoa and the waitress put a TON of the cream on it - it was great!)

We walked home (well, Susan basically waddled, because she was so full) but it was a nice clear day and not too chilly (of course, we were wearing our thick jackets and long johns - thanks, Simsons!).

We spent a nice leisurely afternoon at home. We called Susan's mom to wish her a happy birthday (yep, she's a love baby - born on Valentine's Day), Ivan called his family (one of his Saturday rituals), and we hung out.

We decided to be adventuresome for dinner and went to a Korean restaurant we've been threatening to go to for awhile. It's owned by the mother of a gal in our church, but in general Susan is scared of ethnic food, so every time Ivan suggests we go there Susan manages to come up with an excuse not to. Today we decided that if Susan absolutely hated what she ordered then we would go across the street to KFC (something we never eat because it's so greasy). Well, the backup plan was completely unnecessary. We both loved it. It's called Book Chang Dong Soft Tofu. It was a bit intimidating walking in as we were the only non-Asians in the restaurant. When we were seated they gave us this strange drink that at first one might expect to be tea (like in a Chinese restaurant) but instead it's cold and tastes like barley. We finally decided to order two different kinds of soup: Chicken Soft Tofu Soup and Vegetable Soft Tofu Soup. All of the food comes in one of four spicy levels: Very Mild, Mild, Spicy, and Very Spicy. We opted for the Chicken Soup (which Susan was primarily going to eat) to be Very Mild and the Vegetable Soup (for Ivan) to be Mild. Once we ordered the awkwardness only got worse when they brought out 7 little bowls of food that we didn't order (see picture). Ivan had been to a Korean restaurant before and said that these "side dishes" were for mixing into the soup once it came. However, we saw people eating their side dishes with chop sticks - not putting them into their soup, so we got a bit nervous - like Gringos in a Mexico. Also, why did they bring out these side dishes so quickly if they were supposed to go into the soup? In the end, we waited to put them in the soup and it was a good choice.

The soup came in super hot cast iron bowls and it was literally still rapidly bowling when they put it on the table. One of the side dishes contained two eggs which we promptly cracked and put into the boiling soup to make sure they got all the way cooked. The soup was still way too hot to eat. Thankfully, the side dishes were cold so as we added them to the soup it helped cool it down a little bit (although we still burned our mouths several times in attempting to eat the soup). The side dishes included (we think): eggs, some sort of meat, cucumber, bean sprouts, potatoes, Kimchi, and tofu. We both put a bit of everything into our soup and it was quite a feast. In addition, they brought out a large cast iron bowl full of rice. The rice was just enough to fill up two bowls (one for each of us), but when they were done dishing out the rice there was a layer of it stuck to the bowl. Instead of removing the mostly empty bowl, they filled it up with water and left it on the table. We saw other people scrape out the bowl and eat the rice and then drink the water from the bowl, but we weren't feeling that ambitious, so when we left, the bowl of rice water was still full on the edge of our table.

All things considered it was a very delicious, healthy, filling meal and wasn't too expensive ($10 per person). We had a great time (when we weren't feeling awkward about what we were supposed to do with things) and we definitely expect to go back. It was a great Valentine's Day experience!

Labels: Food, NY