tasty tesco tweekim

The grocery store I go to in Goyheon is called Tesco Home Plus. Everyone seems to call it either Tesco or Home Plus. If you remember, this is where they do the exercises to the Hokey Pokey or If You're Happy and You Know it Clap Your Hands. I have read that you shouldn't shop for groceries when you are hungry because supposedly you will buy too many groceries, especially items you hadn't planned on. Well, Tesco apparently hasn't heard of this ploy of American grocery stores. Because if you get hungry while in the store, you can just sit down on a stool and eat some noodles or numerous objects on skewers. I didn't have my camera but maybe I will get a picture of this area of the store in the future. (By the way, I have resized my photos. So just click on a picture to get a better view, then you press the back arrow and it will take you back to the blog.)

Anyway, you can also purchase some of these items and take them home. They package them up for you with a package of soy sauce and slap the price on it. I had tried a couple of the items, but I decided to go for the tempura today. These items came to $5.00.

My favorite of the whole bunch were the green peppers. They serve these peppers raw with meals - they can be quite spicy - but Ken eats them. The peppers at Tesco are stuffed with some sort of cellophane noodles, veggies and possibly a little pork. Then they are battered and fried. Anyway, I love these with a bit of soy sauce. I have scooped some of the filling out so you can see it. Also, everything is pictured on a salad plate (so you can get an idea of the size).


This next item was what I thought it would be - calamari (squid).
It was chewy but still tasty. I definitely would eat it again. This picture is with part of the batter taken off.

The Koreans eat quite a bit of sweet potatoes. They put it in many recipes and even use it to make a type of soju (their traditional Korean liquor).
I really don't like sweet potatoes. I think it is mainly the consistency of them. Anyway, this had sweet potatoes in the middle. This is a photo of the inside with the batter scraped off.
Not my favorite.


The next item was a little turnover filled with much the same items as the pepper but with something else I couldn't quite identify.
It had a different flavor and it wasn't bad. It also had more of the pork or whatever in it.

I had no idea what the next piece of tempura was. It was chewy and had a slightly sweet taste and really wasn't bad at all - I would eat it again. I was guessing it was some sort of dried fish though.... and it was.
Ken wasn't thrilled, but I had him take some to the office and ask the secretary to verify that it was dried fish. She replied with the following email:
The inside food is a “Dried Filefish”.
That is a Dried filefish fried food.
Korea people call “ZIPO(Dried Filefish)TWEEKIM(FRIED FOOD)”
“ZIPO TWEEKIM”
Enjoy with a meal^^*

I have saved the best for last - and not necessarily the best tasting. I had purchased this previously, so I knew what I was in for. By the tail, you can see that it is shrimp.
What you don't realize is that it is the WHOLE shrimp from head to tail! Nothing like crunching down on the head, antennae and legs of a shrimp when you aren't expecting it. It is obvious that they didn't devein the shrimp, but at least they could de-eyeball it!