Noodle Bar

Koreans are notorious noodle eaters.

I grew up eating noodles. Chinese noodles, Korean noodles, all kinds of noodles in all kinds of places: in Los Angeles, in Seoul, in Virginia. My dad had it perfectly timed with one place near our house in Alexandria, Virginia: he’d call before we drove over to it so that bowls of jjajangmyun—wheat noodles in a black bean sauce—would be hot and waiting on the table as soon as we walked in. I remember being transfixed by the guy making noodles—the way he’d weave and slap a ball of dough into a ropy pile—then being struck by the sting of the white onions and vinegar served with jjajangmyun. On nights when it was just him and me, he’d make me eat sea cucumber along with the noodles and the weirdness of eating them would be offset by the warm afterglow of pride that came with making him happy.