Korean New Year

i opted for a quiet new year this year in order to avoid the craziness and pressure of "making plans" in NYC. it's great when your friends are all 1 cohesive group, but mine tend to be a little scattered, which in turn makes it hard to decide what "event" to go to for NYE and which one will be the most "fun."  inevitably, i end up wondering about the options i didn't pick which deprives of the whole purpose of making a "choice."

so instead i chose to spend a quiet evening with Sully at home. i'm starting to wonder if Sully thinks i'm uber-boring since i often request that we stay home and watch movies/television when we hang out.  in my defense, i tend to have a great night out with Kiddo and BrownSesame on friday night and end up being a little hungover on saturday which results in me wanting to loaf around. then sunday rolls in and i dread the upcoming work week and decide i want to just relax and do nothing in preparation for the daily grind that monday represents.  

so my NYE was a quiet one. the next morning, Sully and i headed to k-town for lunch (no surprise that this was Sully's choosing).  he was also pretty excited because various restaurants were doing a New Year's Day special and offering a free bowl of TteokGuk to celebrate the new year.  and that's how we ended up at New Wonjo for New Year's brunch/lunch.  

after we ordered our Premium Gal bi ($35.95) and Sam Gyup Sal ($23.95) we were immediately provided our gratis bowl of tteokguk.  while the bbq was good, the best part was the tteokguk.  although i'm usually not a fan of clear korean soups because they require you to season them yourself (i'm looking at you sulluntang), this soup was perfectly seasoned and the tteok was cooked just right so as to remain chewy.

probably the BEST part of the meal (and day) was the 2 ajusshis (old men/uncle types) that had the table next to us. they were the epitome of korean drama ajusshi stereotypes.  one of them was actually wearing aviator sunglasses the entire meal. inside the restaurant. and they were drinking soju mixed with bokbunja (a korean wine) at noon. 

the waitresses and the owner of the restaurant kept coming over to their table to give them exceptional service, although i can't tell if they were actually important or just given deferential treatment due to their age (which wasn't that old, just older than the usual crowds that frequent these kinds of places in k-town). once the ajusshis started bbq-ing, they made every waitress who came over to flip/cook their meat do a shot of soju. 

and no one could say no. 

which was awesome.