After work today I arranged to meet up with my mother, who has been spending an euforic few days in the centre of Paramaribo. She had always intended to go to Surinam, and the overlap of me being there and her was something of a not-too-large coincidence to say the least. We're not in each other's hair though -she has her own arrangements, trips and plans, and occasionally they overlap. In this case, during dinner time.
It's an arrangement not too remote from what I had with my family when we all visited Korea in 2001. While the six of us were all there at the same time, people took their own business elsewhere, and occasionally we met in linchpin places. We all had our own stuff to do, yet we did always manage to meet up at the crossroads.
The crossroads was a quiet, rustic bar at the Waterkant, right across the presidential palace. We had some drinks, enjoyed the view (students of an Art school were doing a realistic study of a ramshackle house next to the bar. I was taken aback by the sheer lack of decent material (their only tool being a crummy HB school pencil, eraser on the butt and all), but this seems to be one of those things Surinam excels at -they make do with the most spartan means, and that's not the oiled-man-torso-&-cgi-bloodbaths kind I'm talking about.
After a drink we ambled on to Mr. Lee's, which was considered a reputable Korean restaurant in Surinam. We had tried on Sunday to get there, but after a rather uncomfortable walk through unlit, unsavory neighborhoods, we discovered the place to be closed at Sunday. Taking note of the opening times, we gave it another shot today.
The facade was truely Korean. Upon entering, we had to walk over a quaint little bridge. All of it looked more promising than ever.
Upstairs, a Hindu lady offered us a table. Okay, Italian restaurants in Amsterdam tend to be served by any other nationality than Italian, but I had to admit it was a bit of a difference ;)
Turned out most of the card was the Surinam approach to Chinese food. We ordered a bottle of Soju, which blissfully was the the good old Jinro Soju you could get from any South Korean evening store you walked into, and we cheered blissfully while waiting for our Bulgogi. We were pretty much alone except for a single other guest, who curiously eyed our little ritual. We cordially invited him to drink along and had conversation with him.
He too came to this place with the idea that Korean food would be a treat, but picked a dish that definitely wasn't. We offered him a seat at our table to eat some of what we knew would be somewhat closer to Korean cuisine, and struck up conversation during dinner. Turned out Jerry was originally a teacher in the Netherlands who had moved to Surinam for a while to recover in the more agreeable climate after a surgery. We had an amicable dinner conversation, compared some notes (he also teached in Amsterdam, so was familiar-ish with the place) and left him with some tips on what to eat at this place for a more true korean food experience.
The Bulgogi was good, and it came with Kimchi, of which I had to order another portion just because it had been too bloody long since the last time I had some decent Kimchi. When we were ready to leave, the "true" Korean in the place came from the kitchen, a young guy who was born in Busan, had stayed in Delft and now lived here. He revealed that the Korean community in Surinam totals about 50 people. I think there's more active dutch demosceners than that.
I smell of garlic now, and I really can't give a toss. Good food does that to people.
Labels: korea, paramaribo
