Pakistani, Pancakes, and Persimmon

Yesterday, Nana and I spent the first day of our Chusok break bumming around downtown--by which I mean blowing a whole afternoon at the War Memorial Museum, about which Nana will have much more to say. But bookending our gluttonous dorkiness was gluttony of an altogether different sort, and it's of that kind of gluttony I'd now like to tell.

Now, let me preface these remarks with the fact that Nana and I have been craving Indian food for weeks, after hearing tell of a decent, if pricey, lunch buffet at a place called Mughal in Itaewon. As it turns out, we would be disappointed by neither the decency nor the price. The restaurant is set back on the little hill behind the Hamilton Hotel, and the narrow alley you've got to climb seems to deter crowds, though that may just be a function of the Chusok holiday, which pretty nearly vacates Seoul. A pretty place, with a terrace we opted against (kind of cool yesterday, and drizzly), cloth napkins (rare here, as far as I can tell), and, most importantly, non-spicy food options that weren't as bland as bland can be, which was a big deal for Nana. Of course, there was plenty of spicy food, too--great lamb korma--to supplement the samosas and tandoori chicken, and piles of naan and basmati rice. (Bleached short-grain white rice gets pretty bland when it's the only starch in your diet for weeks!) At 18,000 won (about 19-20$), it wasn't cheap, but I think it was worth it. And coupled with the quirky basement Italian restaurant we found near Yonsei University earlier this week, Mughal means we're 2 for 2 on finding good, non-bank-busting foreign food in Seoul.

Yesterday's second food adventure, then, was a pancake dinner (hey, it would have been a pancake breakfast EST!) with some work friends here in Nowon. (Yet another attempt to gorge ourselves on something we've desperately craved.) Despite the outrageously expensive maple syrup--seriously, we're talking whiskey prices--and the stray whole kernels of corn lurking in the batter, the meal was a rousing success. And, of course, totally unnecessary, given how much we ate at lunch a scant 6 hours before.

But the highlight of the evening--with the exception of Nana playing "azimuths" on a triple-word-score (yes, even in Seoul, we're still incurable dorks)--was definitely the persimmon, which, despite all appearances, is not in fact an orange-ish tomato. (Nana's description: "Like a peach, but grapier.") My new goal: find persimmons in a small enough quantity that I can eat them before they go bad. Curse you bulk fruit stands! [shaking fist]

(Edit by Nana: It was a double-word score. But it was still a sweet word.)