A Quick, Long Lunch at a Korean Fast Food Joint

 After a three or four month gap, it was time to visit the T&T supermarket at Middlefield & Steeles, in Toronto.

Visiting a gigantic Chinese supermarket such as T&T is an experience of its own, but this story is not about the supermarket.

After the shopping, I was hungry. Thinking back, there were probably two key reasons why I felt hungry at that point – the tasters – from the pieces of dim sum, grilled oyster mushrooms and even a lump of sticky rice -- I had inside the supermarket, and of course the sight and sounds of a food court. This is one of the few ‘ethnic’ supermarkets with its own food court.

As usual at such places, it was tough to decide where to go – should I go to a Chinese restaurant, or to the Japanese. I was going from one end to the other when I noticed a customer taking from one of the stands a tray with a bowl of colourful soup.

I went to the woman behind the counter to ask what it is. With a very friendly face she pointed to the board behind her, and said it was tofu soup. Coming to a Chinese food court and having a vegetarian soup? I was not impressed but the sight of that dish was too enthralling, so I asked her what it contained. Tofu and seafood.

Sea food?

I ordered it.

 

And as I waited for the dish, I noticed that it was a Korean restaurant.

After a while, my dish(es) came. The tray contained a small dish of kim-chi, a small dish of rice and a medium-sized bowl of the soup. It was piping hot. Orange-reddish in colour it had a very spicy aroma.

If you are in a hurry, this is not meant for you, because it was so hot that it took me more than 30 minutes to finish it. And I am not a fan of fast eating anyway.

But as it became lukewarm, the soup gave up its treasures. Not too spicy but with a tinge of sourness with lots of tofu slices, a few slices of sea food and a fresh egg that is ubiquitous in Korean hot dishes. Adding spoonfuls of rice helped to mellow the hotness of the soup.