If you find yourself regularly calling your local Asian takeout restaurant, read on. If you find yourself boiling water and throwing a 98-cent pack of Ramen into it to survive on a budget, read on.
When thinking about how to sum up Asian cuisine, the word “fresh” pops in my mind. In Asian culture, they heavily value having the freshest products possible. This means for consumers, literally eating things that are still alive, or wiggling around the dish as they come to their untimely end.
Eating raw meats and fish can be daunting for a traveler new to Asian culture. For as long as I can remember, my dad would stress at restaurants to always order any steaks or hamburgers to be well done and if they weren’t, send them back until they were. Initially, immersing myself in a culture that relies on raw fish as a main food source was a hard concept to wrap my head around, as it had been ingrained in my mind to never order anything remotely raw. From the street to strange to savory to sweet, dive into the rest of the article to read the must haves of Asian food.
In Asia, their meals reflect their collectivistic culture. For example, when you sit down, you’ll be gifted with a bunch of complimentary sides. Then, the table will order dishes and all share them. When it comes to drinking, the collective culture is extremely apparent. Whether it’s Soju, Saki or Rice Wine, you never pour yourself your own drink. The table will pour each other shots and all at once, drink together.
The Street
To the untrained eye, Korean street food is overlooked. But, once you try it, you’ll be hooked. In this segment of street food, we’ll take a trip to skewer land. You can order chicken on a skewer with mild, hot or teriyaki sauce or simply get rice cakes on a skewer. They also serve freshly made potato slices, crisped to a golden perfection. You name it, and they will put it on a stick. If skewers aren’t your jam, you can get all of the above in a little bowl. They also have egg bread, fresh squeezed fruit juices and other items I’m not sure what exactly they were but they were delicious.
The Strange
For these next dishes, I call them strange because they are such different concepts to foreigners, but in no sense does that make them less tasty as others. We’ll start out with the creatures of the sea. As I said before, there is a huge emphasis on freshness in Asian culture, meaning sometimes your food will be alive. One day I went to dinner expecting a piece of smoked salmon or baked tuna. I was surprised when a platter was set on the table consisting of multiple raw cuts of fish and even shrimp straight out of the water, impaled with skewers (I told you they put everything on sticks). Now here’s where I got a little culture shock. In order to eat these delectable little creatures, you had to look them in their little black eyes as you decapitate them and then suck the meat out of the soft shell. Barbaric? Maybe. But a cultural experience everyone should try? Definitely.
The most frequent question I got when I returned home after a month abroad was, “Lexi, did you really eat live octopus?” With a smile on my face, I recount the story and watch their faces contort in disgust or sheer amazement, sometimes a mixture of both. If you go to Korea, trying live octopus should be on the top of your to do list.
Unlike the shrimp, you’re only eating the tentacles after the octopus is decapitated so it feels a little more comfortable to outsiders. It is served on a plate with a few side dishes of different flavors to dip it in. With your chopsticks in hand, you begin a wresting match with the octopus as it literally suctions for dear life onto the plate. Once you win the match, you dip it into one of the sauces and then pop it into your mouth and if you’re anything like me, you chew as fast as you possibly can so you don’t have to feel it moving around.
Next, we move to the cow; All of the cow. Asian culture wastes nothing. A common drinking food is raw beef with a cracked egg on top. This was really strange to try because of my Dad for as long as I can remember would shake his head at me when I ordered my steak medium instead of well-done at restaurants. It was actually really tasty but I couldn’t get my dad’s authoritative voice out of my head scolding me for eating beef completely raw, so the concept overcame the tastiness.
One thing I thoroughly enjoyed was cow heart. It tasted like a $50 cut of filet mignon and I enjoyed every bite. We also tried cow intestines. These were delicious but they have a gritty texture that threw me off.
The concepts of eating all of these foods felt almost wrong because it’s just not something Westerners do in everyday life. The beauty of it was opening up to a new culture and actively experiencing it. It’s one thing if you observe others doing this but it’s a whole new thing if you throw your inhibitions away and give into the ways of another people.
The Savory
While going through the motions of mundane life, I always catch myself craving Korean Barbecue. If you’ve tried it in Americanized Korean restaurants, you’re only getting a hint of the greatness it is in its origin. Something about thick slabs of pork belly and veggies wrapped in a blanket of leafy greens gets me excited. You can add anything your heart desires into the lettuce wrap including roasted onions, sauces and my personal favorite, roasted Kimchi. Make sure to have someone with you that has enough knowledge of the language to properly order, or else you could end up like me and accidentally order an entire pig.
Next stop on the savor train is Ramen. As a college student, I thought I knew the ins and outs of all things noodle. Oh, how wrong I was. While I was in Japan, I was still figuring out how to communicate through the language barrier so I kept it simple when ordering food and either pointed to a chicken dish or ramen. No matter what was set in front of me, it blew college student on a budget ramen out of the water.
From making your own food at the table to having a pizza delivered to you on fire, Asian takes on other countries’ food will definitely not disappoint.
Order these; thank me later
Ramen
Chicken (any kind, you can’t go wrong)
Lamb skewers
Korean Barbeque (KBBQ)
Dumplings
Seafood pancakes
Pizza on fire
The Sweet
If you still have room after eating one of these incredible dishes, indulge in some sweet. If you’re dining from the street vendors, go no further than the next cart over for a fish ice cream. It is vanilla ice cream sitting in the open mouth of a “fish” made out of batter that reminds me of a waffle, topped with a slice of honeycomb. Patbingsoo is a classic Korean dessert that consists of shaved ice, fresh fruit and condensed milk. If you want to test your skills and make your own, check out this recipe from the Food Network. Last but not least are crepe ice cream cones. You’ll see these stands everywhere while walking through the streets of Tokyo.
There are just too many incredible flavorful dishes Asian culture has to offer, so instead of writing a short novel’s worth of words about all the incredible dishes to try, pictures of them are scrolling at the bottom of this page. If you ever find yourself in Asia, make sure to try the sweet, the strange, the savory and the street.
