It’s my first taste of North Korean in 31 years! And Adam’s first in less than one…
It’s disconcerting entering a North Korean restaurant. Monitoring our every move? Imposing quotas? Restrictions on orders? In fact, it couldn’t have been more pleasant.
Smiley, helpful, waitresses who loved Adam. Authentic, really good food at great prices. The one miss? When the waitress thought we ordered the “reeking omelet special with extra fish flakes”. We’ll take that one “to go”.
To be fair, we don’t speak a lick of North Korean, or (despite our studying it for six years) Russian. So it was mostly a point, smile and hope for the best affair. Winning dishes included this delicious tofu, shredded meat, soup…
And Adam loved the entertainment. Imagine karaoke video without the music. Or a never-ending loop of the Windows Media Player laser show. Or a silent version of a North Korean militaristic Romeo and Juliet commercial (the only way I can explain it). Strangely, or perhaps not, Adam’s inclination to watch the videos grew stronger the longer that we were there. It was as if “the colors just spoke to him”:
The atheist, yet somehow spiritual?, motifs were interesting as well:
A baby, propagandized/hypnotized or not, is a universal ice-breaker. No matter what language you speak, folks are drawn to you. Especially, these really cool Korean peeps who were more interested in talking to Adam than their dining companions. One came over, knelt and kissed Adam’s hand. I’m assuming that they just thought that he was cute, not the chosen one, right?
bosas-from-us.com 