THE Korean Restaurant in Singapore

I have, on several occasions, lamented about the plight of Korean Cuisine lovers in Singapore – one just doesn’t seem to find decent Korean fare.  But fret not, fellow countrymen, for I think I have found the restaurant that I am willing to return to time after time.  And the restaurant that has won me over permanently?  Hyang-To-Gol Korean Restaurant located on the 2nd Level at Amara Hotel.

I cannot not talk about a bunch of folks I just got to know 3 months back when I talk about this restaurant, because they were the reason why I was even there in the first place.  The 4 other ladies and 1 gentleman I dined with that evening were the very same folks I sat with at the same table for 10 weeks during my Korean Language Class.  We made a pact to dine together during our semestral break of 2 weeks but couldn’t decide on the location (although we were set on Korean Cuisine).  Finally, N recommended Hyang-To-Gol in our WhatsApp conversation.  Since the restaurant allowed reservations (while the other restaurant the other classmates suggested do not), we concurred to give it a try.

You might be shocked at the plethora of dishes on our table if this is the first time you are exposed to Korean Cuisine.  It looks scary, but if you look closely, a lot of the dishes are what the Koreans call 반찬 (‘Banchan’), which are essentially small portions of side dishes.  And each of us had 3 dishes of sauces.  That resulted in the crazily filled table, so filled that the waitresses even had problems looking for space to lay down the dishes we ordered.  In spite of what you might believe, we didn’t order very much food.  In fact, the 5 ladies in the company finished up all the food because the only gentleman with us is currently suffering from an ailment that affects his appetite adversely.  Poor W, get well soon!

Clearly, the ladies eat like I do – little bits of everything.  I was happy to dine with them because if the hubby were dining with me, the table would be filled with meat dishes and ddukbokki (떡볶이), my favourite Korean snack food.  That crazy evening I got to eat some meat, seafood pancake (해물파전), Kimchi stew (김치찌개), mixed rice served in hot stone bowl (돌솥 비빔밥) and of course my ddukbokki (떡볶이).  The meats, in my opinion, were not very tasty but I’m not about to make a sweeping statement based solely on the 3 meat dishes we ordered.  I don’t usually deal with the ordering when with the hubby, so I will only make another conclusion about the meats after another visit with him.  But everything else tasted great, so tasty that they were comparable to what I have had in Korea itself.  Well I have eaten better-tasting ddukbokki and seafood pancake in Seoul, but the Kimchi stew and Bibimbap were really, really tasty.  You have to try these 2 dishes if you ever drop by, especially the Kimchi stew.

I always maintain that, to really learn if the restaurant is serving authentic cuisine, look around at the other patrons.  At Hyang-To-Gol, majority of the patrons are native Koreans.  Hey, if the native Koreans think that the restaurant serves up pretty good authentic Korean Cuisine, I am apt to believe them.

Although the 6 of us are rather close-knitted in class, we found out more about one another over dinner that evening.  It’s always easier to bond when a group has a common interest – in this case, our love for the Korean Language.  To be exact, we all love different aspects of the Korean culture – W, T and I are into K-Pop; W, T, M, N and I are into K-Dramas, and all of us are into Korean Cuisine!  With the exception of C, we are all picking up the language for self-interest.  C has business dealings with Koreans, so she’s strictly speaking picking up the language for work but we are trying to convert her.

This meal cost slightly over S$250.  Because W just took a biteful of the ddukbokki and half a spoonful of rice, we decided that it is not fair to make him pay.  Among the 5 of us, we split the bill.  You could definitely do the sums.  This restuarant is really reasonably priced.

Consuming too much barbecued food is purported to cause cancer so I do consume with this fact in mind.  The problem lies with the hubby and I being totally spoilt by the good food in Japan and Korea.  It’s very frustrating that we frequently cannot find food of the same quality in Singapore.  I cannot begin to even describe how elated I am to be headed for Seoul in 2 weeks’.

Did I mention I really love this bunch of new friends I made?  Hopefully we will all attain proficiency in the language together.  여러분,  열심히  공부세요!

Hyang-To-Gol Korean Restaurant
165 Tanjong Pagar Road
2F The Amara
Singapore 088539
Tel: +65-6220-7160
Opening Hours:
1130-1500hrs; 1800-2230hrs

99/250

Now, What?

A couple of weeks ago my family met up for a dinner.  Because my parents and us lived very close by, we car-pooled and took one car to the restaurant.  During the ride, Dad and I had the weirdest conversation about my Japanese classes.

Me:  I have to go home early tonight.  Have a very important final Japanese test coming Wednesday.

Dad:  You are going to stop learning?  You should continue learning till you finish it.

Me:  Dad, there’s no such thing as finishing learning a language.

Dad:  I know… what I mean to say is, you should continue learning so that you can speak fluently.

The hubby chuckled when he heard this.  I know exactly what was going through his mind – last October in Tokyo, I couldn’t tell the taxi-driver how to get to our hotel.  Back then he was complaining that I was wasting my money taking Japanese lessons.

And then Dad talked about his own experience with the Japanese language.  He started telling us about how he only took lessons for 3 months back in 1972, and he never forgot the Japanese Alphabet.  He also talked about how he listened to Japanese songs and wrote the lyrics on his own so he could follow and sing along.

Ahh… yes.  The Dad is a huge fan of late Teresa Teng, a Taiwanese singer who sang Japanese songs as well.  Now I know why he took up Japanese lessons.  In a warped way, this is the same reason why I am taking Korean language lessons now.  Little wonder it is said that the apple does not fall far from the tree.

Now that I passed my Intermediate 4 test, I’m back at the crossroads – what to do next?  Continue on to Pre-Advance classes where there is no written syllabus?  Take JLPT Prep classes to continue learning grammar?  I have no idea.  Same goes for my 4 other classmates who ‘graduated’ with me.  Because I have no one in my daily life to practise with me, I know I have to continue taking lessons to stay current.  Otherwise I will forget everything I’ve learnt in the past year or so, like how it had happened a decade ago.

I’m not proud of all my test results, in particular Intermediate 3′s (I just passed).  But to my defence (and my 3 other classmates), none of us studied because sensei told us it would not be a test like the previous levels.  And so the 4 of us naively chose not to study for it.  The only person who did well for the test was the one person who was absent when sensei told us there was no necessity to study.

I miss going for weekly Japanese lessons, and I feel that the longer I am away from classes, the faster I’ll forget.  In fact, I have no language classes whatsoever for the next two weeks because my Korean language class has also come to an end, with a 2-week hiatus till the next level commences class.  I’m not an anime fan, but just to ensure that my Japanese proficiency remains current, I’m now forcing myself to watch some anime in the meantime.  I’m hoping the JLPT preparation class commences soon.

88/250

Of Self Destruction

Or rather, I am quite on the path to self destruction.  No worries, I shall explain further, very soon.

It has been a rather long-time wish of mine to pick up the Korean Language, dating as far back as two years ago.  Between the Japanese and Korean languages, I picked the familiar one to kickstart the self-enrichment process again.  The rest is of course, history.

Now that I have reached a comparatively advanced level in the Japanese language, I wanted to start on the Korean language this year.  And promptly signed up for the class at a reputable school the moment placements were released.  Upon hearing what I did, the hubby commented that he foresaw some problems – that I am bound to be confused, taking both languages at the same time.  I scoffed at his comment, and vowed to prove him wrong.  One of the reasons why I chose to wait till now to learn the Korean language was because I thought I already have a strong foundation in Japanese, and since both languages are grammatically similiar, it will be quite beneficial to learn them both concurrently.  Right?

Wrong.  I went for my first lesson earlier in the week and I was confused with the pronunciation of the Hangul alphabet.  Of the few languages that I know, Italian and Japanese alphabets have almost exactly the same pronunication.  French isn’t so dissimilar from Italian since both are derived from Latin.  But Hangul is completely out of my league.  At this point, it is.

I wanted to pick up Korean for some very obvious reasons: wanting to understand Korean dramas better without depending on subtitles made by fans who are amateur translators, and wanting to understand what Super Junior talks about in Korean when they attend shows or programmes.  Actually more importantly, because Hangul has been acclaimed as ‘the most perfect phonetic system devised’.  I personally find the language intriguing and fascinating.  And due to prolonged watching of Korean dramas and listening to K-Pop, I already have a rich vocabulary of words commonly used.

Unfortunately, I thought my learning progress didn’t quite have a good start.  The good thing is, teachers always appreciate good handwriting, and if it’s anything that I have, it’s legible handwriting.

I came home from class (on Valentine’s Day, no less) and told the hubby that he was correct that I would be confused because I was already messing up with some of the vocabulary.  Words like sea in Japanese (‘umi’) and Korean (‘pada’) are very different so they are not easily to be confused with, but map in Japanese is ‘chizu’ and in Korean is ‘chido’… and they are so similar!  It will only get worse as I attend more lessons.  My, I’m asking for trouble, isn’t it?  Especially when this final 10 weeks of Japanese classes is so crucial to promotion to the next level.

The hubby is not in the least sympathetic.  In fact, he laughed a little when I explained my predicament to him (despite it being Valentine’s Day; I mean, isn’t it the one official day in the year where the husband should be nice to the wife?).  And to add salt to injury, he ended with ‘I told you so’.

Damn, why am I so obstinate?

37/250

Mugging

Still busy mugging for the exam to be taking place in 14 hours’ time.  Confession time: I only started studying yesterday morning and have been at the books for no more than 6 hours.

Leaving you with a picture of grumpy Belle.  I find her expression so cute!

Hiatus

Taking a short break from blogging to concentrate on my JLPT preparation.

Be back soon!

Level 5

Today marks the beginning of the 5th level of my Japanese Language lessons.  A decade ago, I stopped attending classes after the 3rd or 4th lesson of this level.  Why?  Because I found my first job that required me to perform shift duties, and honestly, it was getting too tough.  The lessons, that is.

So I really need to persevere on, to overcome myself.

Exactly 2 weeks ago, I took my test for the previous level.  79% was my score.  I’m really scoring from bad to wrose – 97% to 91%, to 82% and now, to 79%.  Still the top of my class, but it’s nothing to shout about.  My classmates are no longer my competitors; not at this level.  I am my own competitor.  And I really need to pull up my socks.  Doesn’t help that I find my interest waning, and I’m starting to waver.

This is the problem with me – I pick up things very quickly, but I also lose interest in them as quickly.

Thank Yous in Different Tenses

So during our last trip to Japan in December, the hubby asked me what was the different between ありがとうございます (arigato gozaimasu) and ありがとうございました (arigato gozaimashita).  I told him the difference is that the former is in present tense and the latter in past tense.

Then he asked a question that stumped me – how come sometimes the sales personnel say it in present tense and sometimes in past tense?  I told frankly that I don’t understand either.

And so last week during class, I finally remembered to ask my Japanese teacher about this.  To which he replied, it depended on whether an item has been selected, purchased or post-purchase.

• Item selected - ありがとうございます because she is thanking you for wanting to buy the item;
• Item being paid for at cashier - ありがとうございます because she is thanking you for purchasing the item;
• Item purchased and leaving shop - ありがとうございました  because she is now thanking for having already purchased the item.

Ah… finally I knew the difference.  And then I asked my sensei, ‘It’s all Thank You, why make it so complicated and confusing?’

He replied, ‘日本語はちょっと面倒際ですよ。。。’
(Japanese Language is rather troublesome, isn’t it?)

To which, all my classmates and I nodded our heads in agreement.

Unsatisfactory Outcome

This is the score I obtained for my test yesterday evening.  Unsatisfactory to me, because I truly struggled for the 50-minute paper.  On top of that, I committed some silly mistakes that I should not have committed.

I came home and the hubby asked how I did for the paper.  He laughed when I threw him my paper as I continued munching on the subway sandwich as my late dinner.  And then being very mean, he said, ‘So your sensei’s prediction is true after all!  You fell to 80+!’

I wanted to strangle him.  Of the many ways he could adopt, he chose to pick at my raw wound.  Grrr…

If it’s any little consolation, I still came up tops in class.

The next level starts next week, with no break in between.  Ohhh… stamina, where are you when I need you the most?

Bella Paris

Today is a short post because I am studying hard for my Japanese revisional test this evening.  It’s a non-promotional sort of test, so my results don’t really affect entry into the next level.  But, my sensei has predicted that since I obtained 97% for Elementary 1 and 91% for Elementary 2 tests, I would be falling off the 90% mark to obtain 80+% for the coming test.

I am not in the least pleased with his prediction, so am now doing my darnest to prove him wrong.  Haha!

My Paris girl has been extremely co-operative recently, where photoshots are concerned.  Of the few shots I’ve taken of her since she came to us in Dec 2005, I believe this is the most flattering one depicting the real Paris – not the often sullen one you see in other of my pictures.

She’s a sweet girl – just too excitable to be likeable.

Age & Learning Capactity

I took some Japanese Language classes whilst in college, and then promptly went on to neglect and subsequently forget most of it even before I graduate.  Right after graduation, I picked it up again at a private school but was compelled to drop it after I found a job that required me to perform shift duties.

Not having the perseverance to continue pursuing the language had always been one of my biggest regrets in life.  12 years later in Jan 2011, I decided to pick it up again, from scratch.  Till today, everything I’m learning in class was the exact same material I was taught more than a decade ago – I still have my notes from the past to prove it.  Yet, I cannot remember 90% of the repeated content.

Because I’m determined to attain certain proficiency this time, I have been putting hours into revising after classes.  But progress is surprisingly slow and I have great difficulty remembering past grammar that I’ve learnt.  In fact, I’m embarrassed to admit that I have put in much more effort this time round compared to 12 years ago, to much slower progress.  I’m still ahead of my classmates because after all, this is repeated learning for me.  It’s just that I cannot quite accept that my brain has degenerated this much in just 12 years.

I tried blaming it on my current sensei because back then, I had a really good sensei (but she has since left the school).  Ultimately, I cannot deny that age is catching up on me.  And that it has a direct detrimental effect on my learning capacity.

Aging is a scary thing.  It creeps up on you quietly and stealthily.  You don’t even realise it until it hits you.  I think I can deal with looser skin, lower metabolism and balding issues better than gradually losing my brain function.