Koko

It had been a long saturday. What with the monster rainstorm and the creek graduating to raging river status and lapping at my basement door and the roof starting to leak and then the windows joining the club and me doing a balancing act on my roof beams, trying to find the source of the leak in my attic amidst a garden of shredded cotton and glass wool insulation and then my neighbor's heavy glass patio table with umbrella, blowing clean across his deck and almost onto my deck but narrowly missing it and instead crashing down onto my lawn and breaking into a million shards and my flower pots flying off my deck and deflowering my patio and the DirecTV guy climbing onto my roof and fixing my Indian programming satellite dish and five minutes after his departure, the wind blowing the dish back into a state of inoperability and then, to cap it all, my inability, for the second consecutive day, to kill a single fucking terrorist on my new PS3, I was in no mood to cook. So I decided to go to the Korean barbecue joint I had been thinking of visiting for a long time.

"Bring your own bottle", the sign on the door said. The only bottle I had was an empty bottle of windshield washer fluid. Fortunately, there was a beer store next door. I parked in the 2 hour "customer only" parking next to the restaurant and tolerating a dirty look from the Korean-American waiter standing smoking outside, walked next door. I knew I would be back before the waiter called Seoul and got someone to tow my car. I purchased a case of Stella Artois beer. I have a message for the makers of Stella Artois. Get rid of the Artois, man. People usually only ask for a Stella. The Artois portion is suffering from severe disuse. But Artois is a nice word, lets not waste it. Why don't you come out with a new beer or a brand of mens undergarments and call it Artois. Artwa.

As I walked into the Korean barbecue joint, I was overwhelmed by the smell. It was a nice smell. Most of it was garlic, some of it was onion and the rest was whatever Koreans eat. It was a nice smell and it helped me forget my sorrows and made me hungry. The place was full of Koreans and only Koreans. Most of the diners were seated with big steel vessels in front of them. I decided that I also wanted to eat whatever was in those steel vessels.

They gave me a seat and a menu. It was written in Korean and translated into English. Most of the words translated into English did not light my tube. But I saw the word beef here and there. I know beef. It is cow meat and I like how it tastes. So I called the waitress and asked for "seasoned beef ribs". Instead of saying "Excuse me" and waiting for me to repeat "seasoned beef ribs" in my horrible Indian accent, the Korean waitress immediately opened the menu and said, "Show". Here, this is what I want, I said, pointing to "Seasoned beef ribs". Wokay, only one? she asked. I looked around and finding only me, said yes, wonly one.

There were two strange looking bottles on my table. I picked up the tall bottle, hoping to find out what was inside it. The explanation on the bottle said in these very words, "The seasoning in this sauce bottle will give you a delicious taste of food". I picked up the second bottle. It had the same explanation. I decided not to taste whatever was in those bottles. I did not want those bottles merely giving me a feeling that the food was delicious instead of actually making the food delicious.

Before bringing out my seasoned beef ribs, the waitress brought out 6 dishes of what looked like random accompaniment and laid them out in front of me. I inspected them with a critical eye. I could recognize a few of them. This was clearly sauted bok choy in garlic. That was kimchee for sure. This here looked like some sort of seasoned rice noodles with mushrooms. And that one over there looked like raw shredded cabbage salad with thousand island dressing. But I didn't know what that red stuff was and holy shit, that stuff over there actually looked like...could it be...?

"What is this", I asked the waitress, showing all signs of being extremely turned on. Please God, let it be fried pig's stomach, I prayed. "Seaweed", said the waitress brightly, drowning my dreams in a bathtub. Okay, I said sadly, thank you. I started belting the food. The dried seaweed was actually quite tasty. If some American megacorporation were to produce and market it through a multi-billion dollar ad campaign, I would surely buy it.

A few minutes later, my beef ribs arrived. Sadly, they turned out not to be the stuff in the steel vessel as I had hoped. Also, they did not look like ribs. In my expert opinion,the dish looked like a plate of thinly sliced beef rib-eye sauted with mushrooms and scallions. Basically, it was Philly steak without the cheese. Hell, good enough for me. I grabbed my chopsticks and prepared for battle.

"Do you need a fuck?" said the waitress, with concern in her eyes.

"What?" I said.

"A fuck. Do you need it?"

"No, thanks, I am okay", I replied.

What the fork man, why would she assume that I could not handle a chopstick? To me, it seemed like racial stereotyping. I was still steaming as I began to eat, holding my chopsticks upside down.

The beef was tasty. Not spicy. A bit sweet. But tasty. It tasted Korean. I liked it. I would definitely come here again. I polished off five of the six bowls of random accompaniment and then I polished off the beef. I was content. In between, the owner came by to ask me how I was doing. Fortunately, he did not tell me about his Indian friend like an American would have.

As I walked out of the restaurant, I walked into a group of Korean guys hanging out with a lone American guy. The Koreans were all speaking in Korean. It reminded me of my UMass days when I was the only Marathi guy hanging out with a bunch of Tamilians, trying to make sense of what the fuck they were saying.

That was when I knew what it meant to be American.