14.071 Chorizo(less) Asparagus (and Squid) Pasta

Cycle 14 – Item 71

17 (Fri) March 2023

Chorizo(less) Asparagus (and Squid) Pasta

3.0

at Falbalas

-Palpan, Jongro, Seoul, Republic of Korea-

with SL, IL et al.

Falbalas is a French(ish) bistro/café. Menu leans Mediterranean.

Located across the northeast corner of Gyeongbok Palace.

SL, Asia sales manager for Hachette Book Group (one of the biggest publishers in the world), is in town. From Taiwan, she’s here with her dog, an enormous golden retriever. They’re staying in an AirBnB near the palace. But the dog barks when left alone, so SL has to bring him along whenever she goes out, like to eat, which means only dog-friendly restaurants – each visit preceded by a phone call to confirm that “dog friendly” includes enormous golden retrievers (when we were looking into pet hotels for Louis during our trip to Japan last year, most places refused to take him because of his size (he’s a French bulldog weighing just over 13 kg) (most Korean dogs, like toy poodles, are less then 10 kg) (SL’s dog is 32 kg).

Falbalas features a balcony that can accommodate large dogs, so there we were.

According to its own signage, it’s also a “European wine and glosery [sic] store.”

The food was fine. I’d requested the chorizo to be omitted from my order, which left the asparagus and squid, making for a delicate seafood dish (seems chorizo would be overpowering). Anyway, we weren’t there for the food.