Big Fun in Little Korea

Before I proceed with our normally scheduled blog, I must congratulate the Gaping O for his award-winning smack talk. Due to his creative efforts, the DePaul faithful will most assuredly get in Hasheem Thabeet’s gigantic head when we play UCONN this Wednesday. And perhaps, as a result, the Blue Demons just might cover the 48 point spread.
I’m thankful that as a student I will be admitted to the UCONN game for free. The much ballyhooed economic recession has hit our household particularly hard (Well not so much Lori, but me. I guess the old Wall Street adage is true: “The apothecary business is vaccinated against recession”). To combat this economic adversity, I’ve adopted some creative eating habits. For example, when attending wing night at a local bar, I employ a tactic I learned back in high school: I order 40 wings and promptly consume 15-20 of them. Then I lick the sauce off the remaining wings and put them in my pocket which I have carefully lined with aluminum foil. These pocketed wings are intended for lunch the following day, but they usually end up being an after dinner snack for Lori on the ride home.
We’ve also taken to exclusively eating at restaurants that really give us a bang for our buck. Out of this group of cost effective restaurants one in particular has emerged as our favorite. OB, a tiny Korean establishment on the outskirts of Little Korea, can be called a restaurant in only the loosest sense of the word. Sure there are a couple of tables, chairs, and food, but beyond that the traditional definition of the word fails to suffice. To begin with, to gain entry into the place you must ring a bell and wait for the old Korean man seated at the bar to peek out the square peep hole (like the ones used in speak easies), and only after sizing you up for a second, allows you to enter.
Despite the ominous entry way and the frigid greeting, you are at once made to feel completely at home by Yung, the busty, middle aged proprietor, cook, waitress, and entertainer. If you are unable to read the Korean menu, she is happy to make suggestions for you. You know you can trust her recommendations because she shows her affinity for her food by eating directly off your plate. Now normally this would be disquieting for the average patron. I was quite put off when I first heard of this practice. But after experiencing it for myself, I can attest to her amazing ability to make this seem completely normal. I think she pulls this off by removing your inhibitions with her disarming charm as well as enormous bottles of Korean beer. While refilling my glass for the 5th time, after taking a swig herself of course, I noticed that this particular brand of beer boasts on its label that it is “Now Formaldehyde Free” in a matter of fact kind of way. It suddenly dawned on me that perhaps it was all the embalming fluid in American beer that makes us so uptight concerning servers indulging in our entrees.
At any rate, I didn’t have much time to contemplate the formaldehyde situation because with dinner complete, it was now time for the entertainment portion of the evening. The entertainment at OB consists of Yung and her drunken regulars belting out some Korean tunes on the Karaoke machine. This suits me just fine. After a few rounds of formaldehyde free beer I’m quite prepared to regale the joint with a resounding rendition of this little ditty. Plus I like Asian Karaoke videos in particular because they are always so literal. For example, when “Cecilia” is shaking the singer’s confidence daily, the video shows a distraught Asian youth vigorously shaking a tree to signify his frustration.
After the microphone has been passed several times, it’s time to bid Yung farewell and pay our check. Dinner, drinks, and entertainment all for under 50 dollars is hard to beat. So for those of you in Chicago I highly recommend checking it out with us. For those of you who are not, it’s just another reason to visit!