Tonight I ate dinner at a kim bap shop. In Korea there's pretty much two kinds of restaurants: there are the barbecue places where you go with a couple other people and chow down on some meat, and there are kim bap shops. Kim bap shops offer things like soups, stews, or, of course, kim bap. Along with your meal, you get several side dishes which are ubiquitous in Korean cuisine- things like kimchi and pickled radishes. They're nice and quiet places you can go by yourself for a good meal.
There's a few in my area that I frequent a bit. Tonight I walked into one and noticed a large banner toward the back, which was new. As I'm prone to do, and as a way of teaching myself the language, I typed the Korean words into the Korean-to-English dictionary on my phone one by one, and worked out the translation. What it said kinda disturbed me.
It said: We do not recycle side dishes. If you want more, please ask.
Now, on the surface I should be thrilled that this place doesn't recycle their food, but on the other hand I don't like the idea that this seems to be something worth bragging about. Does this mean that other places I go to do recycle their food, and that some of the kimchi I've enjoyed was picked around by another person, or several other people, before it found its way to me? I suppose it's possible, but I hope it's just a case of one kim bap shop advertising The Fairsley Difference:
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