So, I’m in Seoul right now, I arrived tonight at 10pm at a hotel I’ve never stopped at before, in a district I don’t know somewhere close to Gangnam (I did actually notice a subway sign and tried to remember it, but it’s all gone….).

I was a bit peckish when I arrived so I checked in, dumped my stuff and went off for a walk in search of snacks. It’s apparently a very local district, there’s not a single Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks etc. on the entire block (surely a rare thing in Seoul?).  Anyway, I eventually found a place, a HOF that did fried chicken, “that’ll do” I thought.

So, in I went and sat down, pointing at the fried chicken as I passed it and then pointing at the draught beer. I took a seat and attended to some vital business on my blackberry (a few rounds of Brickbreaker). My beer arrived, followed by a lady carrying an enormous tray of food which she started to put down on the table “No, No” I protested, pointing at the other tables in restaurant, surely the food was for them? No, she shook her hand and continued putting the dishes onto the table until the table for 4 was completely covered with what I can only describe as a medieval banquet. I counted a total of 9 dishes including a hotpot with a number of skewers bobbing around inside, a large bowl of salad, a large bowl of nachos, a large bowl of sliced peach (I think, I never got round to trying), a bowl of pickled radish,  a bowl of that iced bean stuff, two sets of dips and a basket of chicken containing more pieces of KFC sized fried chicken than I could count without emptying it.

Anyway, after staring at my table in disbelief for more than a minute I promised myself I’d eat nothing but raw vegetables and fruit for the next 3 weeks and got stuck in to the chicken, I tell you what, it wasn’t at all bad, MUCH better than your standard KFC fare (ok, the batter didn’t taste as good but the chicken was SO fresh), I polished off a couple of legs and then had a couple of bites salad and nachos, I’d not even made a dent in the pile of chicken.

I moved onto a wing already feeling pretty much full, but, you know, my mum always told me never to waste food and who was I to argue, I soldiered on! Before long I was into the breasts and I was reduced to scraping off the batter from the chicken and just selecting the best bits of meat to eat. By this point I’d figure out that I’d basically been given a whole chicken, battered KFC style, 2 legs, 2 wings, 2 breasts, 2 thighs, which sounds a lot when you break it down like that, but when you think of it as just one chicken it all sounds somewhat manageable, what what!

Anyhow, somehow I managed it, I polished the lot off, well, the chicken anyway, I ignored everything else (save for several nachos and two mouthfulls of salad), I even managed a second pint of beer to try and wash away the grease that had coated my entire mouth and was threatening to bring it all back up!

The last thing to worry about was the bill, how much was all this going to set me back? I went to the till and asked for ther bill, the girl spoke a little english and started speaking “two hundred thousand” “WHAT” I said (that would be like 100 quid). She picked up her calculator: 20,000. Ah, that’s more like it, a tenner! not bad at all for dinner for four with two beers!