my favourite soups are french onion, split pea with ham, my mom's vegetable beef soup, my mil's chicken noodle, roasted garden veggie with hot dogs, minestrone, both manhattan and new england clam chowders, tom yum gai, miyeok guk (korean sea veggie soup), chinese seaweed eggdrop soup, roast pork yat gaw mein, and japanese onion soup.
boy, this list got a lot longer the more i thought about it.
i never realized how much i like soup.
funny story about the miyeok guk. (i've told it here before, but here goes for newcomers)
i was eating some miyeok guk at work one day when a friend and coworker, mr. choi - who moved here from korea in his early thirties, passed by and commented that he thought it was strange how much i liked korean food.
i kind of knew what was in the soup: various types of sea greens, onions or scallions, sprouts, fish stock, beef stock, garlic, and sesame oil, but i wanted to know the name for it in korean so i could order it in a restaurant someday. so he quickly replied in his heavy accent, "me a gook!"
i stopped for a second, laughed, and i repeated my question, to which he quickly repeated his answer, "me - a - gook!"
everyone in our shop started laughing, and we explained to him what we thought he was saying, at which time he broke down laughing until tears flowed from his eyes.
he finally slowed down his explanation (much like americans speak english slower and louder to people who don't understand english, lol) to say "meeeee YOK <<pause>> gook. the seaweed is miyeok, and soup is guk".
we all had a good laugh, and now when i ask him questions about all things korean, he speaks to me like an american tourist in seoul.
