Lucky 59

Time to blog about one of my favorite topics: food! A couple of weeks ago a shop on my way to school closed down. Nothing new, seeing as how the galbi restaurant near my house was turned into a meat market overnight, and now I find myself hearing "moooos" in the early morning. However, this time the shop turned into something I have been eagerly awaiting - Western food! While my area in Daegu does have some of the usuals, Mr. Pizza, Outback Steakhouse, McDonalds, and so forth, those are all about a half hour walk away from me. So when I saw the name of this new place, 59 Pizza, I quickly made my way home and googled it.

I've been under the impression that pizza in Korea is expensive. Cheese sure as hell is. But at 59 Pizza you can get a large pepperoni pizza for, get this, 5,900W! While the opening date was on December 17th, I wasn't able to be one of the first customers due to a lack of cash... even today my pizza was purchased on borrowed funds, but that will change come Thursday. So after school today, and a crummy lunch, I decided I would give the place a shot. I was debating whether I should wait until my students were all home, but whatever, they probably assume I've eaten there three times already.

I walked in and the lady was really nice. A bunch of those flower arrangements that are always present with the opening of a new restaurant/store/etc were along the wall. All I had to do was point to the picture of the pizza I wanted (they don't really have a dine-in area) and the size. Larg-e of course, since it's only 1,000W more than a regular. Now I'll have a few meals other than spaghetti this week, hooray. I was afraid the pizza box would scorch my hands as I walked home, but that was not an issue as the box has a cute little handle on it:

The pizza smelled good the entire walk home. It felt like the longest walk ever. I felt guilty walking home with my pizza box, like a typical waegook, too good to eat Korean food. Which is actually not the case, but they probably think that. I didn't want to pass the restaurants near my house, like the orange restaurant though, so I walked down a different street to get home.

As I am writing this I am on a full belly. The pizza met my expectations, although they weren't very high. One peculiar thing about it was the sesame seeds in the crust. Still can't decide whether those are worth complaining about. It definitely didn't have the grease like pizza back home, but still it was pretty tasty. For only $5, who could say anything? I restrained myself from eating the whole thing, so I am looking forward to cold pizza tomorrow. :) Take a look for yourself: