Here It Is

Here is my table at the restaurant. The soup was served with jasmine tea. It was really good tea and this taste discovery has put a new item on my list for the Asian Wholesale Market here in London.

The waitress, Julie, has lived in Canada for 5 years. Julie is going to university here on a visa program. Since arriving here in Canada she met and married her husband. James, the owner of the restaurant is the brother of Julies husband.

Julie comes from a smaller city north of Beijing that has a significant Chinese - Korean population. Nearly all of the Koreans that live in her town were born in China. Their Korean ancestors arrived in China approxiamately 100 years ago. They obviously speak Chinese. What is interesting is that their part of the city is all Korean signs, and the Korean language and culture has been passed down and maintained over the generations since arriving in China. So that is why Julie was able to learn a fair bit of Korean in her town. Two of her best friends are Korean speakers, and here in Canada, Julie lives next door to a halmoni. What a surprise to go to Greektown, then end up in a Chinese restaurant speaking Korean to the wait staff.

The meal was good, the service was excellent, especially compared to London non-Asian restaurants where I would have been required to spend 2 or 3 times the money and then beg for service. And even then, it would be screwed up. That's one of the reasons I mostly only go to Asian restaurants here in my hometown. The service is better and the food and prices are as well. I digress, in addition to the good food and service, yesterday I met some really nice people, too.

How did it compare to the Oh Nara in Koreatown? My experince has been that the Oh Nara is hard to compete with. The Oh Nara is excellent as far as quality, service or price.

But yesterdays find was worthwhile and I will return in the future.