Stereotypes are like McDonalds – convenient but usually
wrong.
So I am reminded on today’s “urbex” (urban exploration in
American hipster, apparently) in Sydney’s western suburbs in search of Korean mundoo dumplings and a fitting start to
the Korean New Year.
I’m this guy who prides himself on his pithy cultural
observations, his curiousity and his acceptance of our diversity. Hey, I've got the patter of pluralism down pat.
But wheeling to Eastwood (one of Sydney’s Korean hubs
together with Strathfield and Liverpool Street in the city), the loop in my
head is saying Koreans are “tough”, “resilient”, “determined”, “all business” and
“harder than the Chinese or Japanese”.
Huh?
Indeed, I’m seeing mental pictures of dudes with wrap-around
shades and cigarettes yelling into their mobile phones to make sure their
container from Inchon has landed on time at the Botany shipping terminal. Or,
checking their kid has topped geometry at the after-school tutoring centre.
Double huh?
Thankfully, my monkey mind still manages to read the signs
sometimes and see the writing on the wall (literally), and show me how dumb I can
manage to be. Here at Eastwood, there’s something really playful going on. More
Pop Tarts than martial arts.
And so with TOBAWOO Restaurant at 104 Rowe Street on the
“Korean” (as opposed to the “Chinese”) side of Eastwood train station. The
official slogan is: “TOBAWOO Boasts in
pork meat dishes cooked with the diner’ well-being in mind.”
The she-chef’s about 23. Cheerful and slim with a pink
Yankees cap on backwards and make-up from what must be Loreal’s “steam-proof”
range. The pigs on the tandem cycle on the wall look like they’re having a good
time too (including with their random rhino friend).
My porcine buddies are well represented in the seafood soup with mundoo and sliced rice cakes that I order for the startling total of $10.
The mundoo are “full
moon” as opposed to most dumplings’ “half-moon”. Their dough’s wrapped around
like ballerina arms arching and just meeting. They’re strong enough though to
hold the filling of: ground pork with chilli, ginger and garlic; jap chae (the comforting and clear Korean potato
noodles); bean sprouts; scallions; carrot slivers, and; heaps of yellowy scrambled
egg. Unlike many Chinese dumplings where all filling ingredients are minced
into a kind of gray pink paste, here the ingredients retain their proud independence
and texture.
Textural surfing for the tastebuds seems the name of the
game.
From the spicy spikes of the mundoo
to the mellowness of the fish broth to the hold-your-horses, pasta-like disks of
the rice cakes to the four little side dishes: kim chee chilli cabbage; pickled and spiced tofu; lettuce with a
reduced butter dressing, and; pickled shitake mushrooms.
Back and forth I go with the steel chopsticks – so skinny
you could pierce your ears with them. My eating feels on my body and mind like
jumping from the sauna to the spa to the pool. Sensational.
Around me, Korean diners are, well, having fun. Lots of it. Waving steam off their soup with their phones (at least I was right about something). Toasting each other with water from the complementary pitchers. Asking for polaroids to put up the cafe's wall. On a Tuesday in the 'burbs...
The flip side of my mundoo (see below) looks a bit like a small brain rather than a baby's bum (see above).
I am reminded that mine can be even smaller when I
look at the world as I believe it to be rather than as it really is. I am reminded of all that I miss when I’m not
looking in the right direction.
But hell. It’s New Year’s (Korean, that is). So, time for
another resolution.
How about this one? Keep an open mind. Truly.
