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!

taking pictures at tesco

My husband headed out this morning with some friends to play golf. Since I am still coughing and sniffling, I had a leisurely morning drinking coffee and reading. However, I decided to head over to Tesco for a couple of items we needed. I have found that the best time to go is when it opens (at 10:00) on Saturday and Sunday. Parking is plentiful and you can mull over things a little bit without being pushed aside. I usually keep my camera in my purse for any opportune photo opportunities and today was no exception. It is expected that people will take pictures of tourist attractions, festivals, pretty scenery, etc. But whenever I take pictures of daily life, I worry that I am offending the Koreans in some way. So I try to be very discreet when taking pictures on the street and such. It was very slow when I arrived at Tesco, so I thought that I would take the opportunity to take a few pictures I have wanted to take for some time. I actually think the young lady saw me and thought I was stalking her, but I managed to take a little video of her greeting the cars as they arrived in the parking garage.
Everyone has their own little way of doing it and some are more elaborate than others. She was sort of middle of the road. There are the usual aisles of juice, paper goods, diapers, cereal, etc. Some aisles are more plentiful than others in their options. I guess you could equate a cereal aisle in the states with a ramen noodle aisle here - tons of different varieties. My favorite ones are these - they are quite spicy though. There are some items you might recognize. And there is the Spam of course...! But if you are in the mood for something different, you could purchase a can of this. Or this. There really isn't a frozen food section like we know it. You can't buy the usual frozen vegetables, juice and prepared meals. They do have a small area with ice cream though. I usually pick up a couple of peppers at this area. There is usually different items, such as shrimp (don't get that - I found that the heads are still on!!), calamari, things that look like corn dogs (??) and various vegetables. You use some tongs and pick what you want and the lady either serves you (there is a counter to eat at) or she packages it up for you to take home. We also have a meat area for take home, which I have on numerous times. Or if you wish, you can purchase some mixtures that you can take home and cook yourself, which I haven't. The produce area is pretty good. You can buy alot of the items we have in the U.S. I buy iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, mushrooms, oranges, apples, bananas, potatoes, etc. Some of the items are prepackaged and some you put into a bag yourself and take to a lady at a scale who weighs it and slaps a sticker on it. However, a few items puzzle me. You have to buy a bag of onions and a bunch of bananas. I can hopefully get through the onions before they spoil but I never get through the bananas. They do have alot of vegetables that I don't know what they are. However, I think this is a type of radish that I ate at a restaurant recently. It was pickled and quite good. I will leave you today with something I have wanted to show you for a long time.
I didn't care if anyone saw me, I was going to get this.