2.342

13 (Tue) December 2011

Sacheonsik Tangsueo

1.0

from E-Mart

at home

-Oksu, Seongdong, Seoul, Republic of Korea-

solo

The name of the dish, which I think looks bizarre as transliterated into English, means “Sacheon (사천) = Sichuan” + “sik (식) = style” + “tangsu (탕수) = sweet & sour” + “eo (어) = fish.”  I’ve never seen the dish on a restaurant menu.

In Korea, for reasons that I’ve never been able to determine, any Chinese dish that’s spicy is classified as Sichuanese.

Another in a line of E-Mart’s late-night, last-minute, everything’s-gotta-go sales, this was the first time that quality was an issue.   Every piece seemed to consist solely of batter.  As far as deep-fried batter is concerned, it didn’t taste entirely awful.  The package included sufficient amounts of iceberg lettuce, which allowed me in a flash of uncharacteristic optimism to regard the whole thing as a salad topped with mushy fishy croutons.  I could hardly expect any more for 2,988 won.

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