I got a surprise gift of chocolate in a heart shaped box this morning for Valentine’s Day. This being Korea, I’ve still got a month to get my act together for White Day, when men are expected to give candy to their significant others.
Had I eaten all the chocolate given to me by my students it would have caused serious tooth rot and stomach problems. Not so much because of the quantity, but the quality of Korean chocolate still leaves something to be desired. I will say that Korean chocolate is a LOT better than it used to be these days.
For dinner, my wife met me between classes at Mr.Pizza. This chain of pizza places is upscale for a Korean brand. We had a “Garden Secret” pizza, with roast chicken, lettuce, ranch dressing, blue cheese and a baked-in sweet potato crust. Despite the unconventional toppings, this is probably one of the best “Western” style Korean brand pizza’s I’ve ever had. It’s better than anything made by Pizza Hut by a mile, and it’s got a lot less oil than Dominoes. We could have had a pumpkin crust, but I decided to go for a “sweet potato” crust since it was more of a sure thing.
I remember one of my first dates with my wife, when we accidentally ordered a sweet potato pizza crust. I threw a hissy fit about a sweet tasting pizza and claimed it was an abomination that must be stopped. These days, I prefer sweet potatoes to pepperoni any day. Now I’m drawing the limit at pumpkin crust at the moment but that’s because the pizza was expensive and I didn’t know what it was going to taste like. I’m not even against the experimentation in what they can put on pizza anymore. Korean pizza continues to mutate, and my standards are far more accepting.
