11:14.

I do apologise for such a small photo and the shamefully few number of pictures but my handphone's camera was set on a smaller resolution and we were too busy eating. Here however is the Korean dinner at an authentic Korean place R a y brought me to last Monday on our 11th month aniversary.

Side dishes are one of the things we lovee about Korean meals. And we have dined at Korean restaurants in Melbourne (Seoul House at Chinatown, Kimchi Mama at Bourke and Kimchi Tray at Flinders), Singapore (tt Korean restaurant at Heeren) and now, Malaysia. Kimchi Mama and Seoul House so far takes the royal cake at quality and authenticity for me. But Nak Won at Sri Hartamas now rank among the top.

Heck, for side dishes alone, there were 15 dishes. And one full-sized fluffy egg thing steamed in a hot clay pot.












When they first showed us to our table, we were like, "That's kind of big for two" then when the dishes came and basically filled up the whole table, we realised that this is as small as a table could practically be in that restaurant.

The barbeque beef ribs (somehow carved from the ribs so perfectly it falls in two giant big pieces) were grilled over a get this, charcoal fire which they carry over to the table. The waiter didn't just throw the meat on and let it sizzle and let you cook it yourself like so many restaurants do. He stood there throughout, giving the tender, perfectly marinated meat his devoted attention then cut it up and serve us as each piece cooks.

Like yum yum yum.

And they also served us the kimchi soup, ladling the fiery goodness into two bowls for us.

R a y had researched on the restaurant, refusing to tell me where we were going and after work, we went back to my place and got changed to casuals. The town (if "town" is accurate) Sri Hartamas had a lot of Korean and Jap places, looks like some sort of Korean/ Jap enclave along with supermarkets.

Nice place :) We had to walk a bit from our park to get to Nak Won which was away from the stretch of restaurants but when we found it and walked in, it was more wow than those little restaurants we walked past for sure.

I love it that we can always have a good laugh over random, goofy things :)

This time, we laughed till we cried at the end of the meal. We were sitting like beached whales (couldn't even finish all the side dishes, the horror!) and the waiter very attentively fetched fruits and two bowls of clear water for us.












Right, the fruits are dessert, we know but what about the bowls?

As soon as the waiter put down his load, R a y turned to me and said, "This reminds me of the story of this guy who was served..."

I finished: "a suspicious bowl of something that he didn't know was dessert or water to wash hands?"

We laughed.

Darn, we were in the same predictment.

We had the fruits, joking about the two milky bowls of something and making unserious paranoid digs at the waiters watching.

There were these small, very thin sheets of ice on top, or at least, I thought they were ice. My love on the other hand thought it looked like little soup suds which I, after a second look, thought was possible.

The fruits got consumed and we sat around, keen not to do nothing for too long. Then while the waiter was looking away, I ahem, discreetly slipped my pinky into one bowl. Then the waiter looked back and I pretended to be rubbing my fingers while R a y stifled laughter.

"It's soup, I think 'cause there's no oil or any thing," I said.

"Orh, but if it's dessert, there's probably no oil any way," it struck me immediately.

Our tummies were hurting by this point from all the laughing and we were attracting a bit too much attention from the staff and diners. I think we looked a bit insane for a fairly upclass Korean restaurant.

In the end, I waved our waiter over and asked him with a straight face what the bowl contains.

"Is it dessert?"

"Yes, it's made of barley water and [other things I can't remember]'' he said.

"Oh, so what is it called?'' I followed up to sound like an interested patron, not a stumped mountain tortoise from outside Korea.

He said something along the lines of "chay" or some word that starts with C.

Any way, R a y laughed at me and I laughed even more after that but we tried the dessert and it was nice.

Lesson of the day: Sometimes you can drink what looks like soupy water.

To be serious though, it was a great dinner and I loved the whole time. Thank you, Mr R a y C h u a h ;> I love u, honey =)