Vietnamese in Suwon

The other day some coworkers and I went out for Vietnamese and some manditory payday shoe shopping. While it isn't always easy to find clothes in Korea (clothes that I would actually wear and not feel stupid in, that is) if you have feet sized in between 5 and 7.5 you will have absolutely no trouble finding a lot of funky shoes at extremely good prices. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy to be able to buy two pairs of shoes at once and to have hardly made a dent in my monthly earnings. Really!

Anyway, I thought I would take some shots of the Vietnamese restaurant chain that I like to frequent for their delicious noodle soups. They have other stuff, too, but the soup is their specialty. I've never had Vietnamese food before coming to Korea, since there are few Vietnamese people in my part of Canada, so please excuse my ignorance if you've had numerous Vietnamese experiences. It's still quite a novelty to me!



The restaurants themselves are very chic. They serve you tea instead of water when you are first seated and you drink it in classy glass cups. Just as I imagine one does in Vietnam, no?

My delicious, massive bowl of Pho. The broth is almost sweet with hints of nutmeg or cinnamon or something... then, of course, l0ts and lots of noodles and large slices of steak with green onion garnish. This soup is definitely good for the soul.

My coworkers and I generally cannot resist the urge to get the appetizer platter as well. It comes with some chicken wings (Vietnamese? I'm not entirely sure...) as well as curried dumplings filled with shrimp, shrimp rolls, spring rolls, and some fresh veggies. I am quite partial to the dumplings.

So the worst feeling in the world is when you think you have mastered something, like using chopsticks, only to go to a restaurant where they give you big honkin' plastic ones that make it impossible to eat slippery noodles. And I thought the stainless steel ones were hard to use when I came to Korea almost eight months ago. They're really nothing compared to the plastic ones. Needless to say, I made a mess at the table.