Tag Archives: ordering food

25 Apr

Super Salad

Whose story: My brother, Eunwoo

Terry and his bro, Eunwoo

Hello! My friends out there! Good to talk to you again! My apologies for the absence of new posts for a week! As I told you, my brother and sister-in-law came to the U.S. from South Korea. We took a trip to Tampa, Florida, having a wonderful time together. It was only one week being together and they went back to Korea. Came back to the house from the airport, Jessy and I felt so lonely and the house looked so empty. The week really flew by and now they are not here and we do not know when we are going to see them again. Man, I miss them already. This is one of the things I do not like about living abroad, being apart from family.

During the trip, we of course had been to many restaurants. For the first day, we went to an Olive Garden in Tampa for lunch. After we ordered drinks, my brother talked to us, “They are going to ask us about super salad later.” We then asked him, “What is super salad? We’ve never heard of it? Is it a special salad you had before?” He told us the story he experienced on his biz trip. He went to a restaurant in New Hampshire and ordered one main menu. Then, the server said, “Soup or Salad?” It was so fast that my brother understood as “Super Salad.” He thought it is just a kind of a salad and answered, “OK!” The server was like, “What do you want? Soup or Salad?” My brother was, “OK, I want the super salad.”  Then, the server was, “No, I mean it comes with soup OR salad. Which one do you want?” Finally, my brother got it and ordered salad. We all laughed about it and, hearing the story, Jessy and I realized that it really sounds like SUPER SALAD if we speak it fast. As soon as we finished the story, the server in the Olive Garden came to us to take our orders. As soon as my brother ordered a food, the server said, “Soup or Salad?” We all laughed again and talked about the story to the server. I was like, “Wow, that is really like super salad.” We also went to a Subway. I ordered sweet onion chicken teriyaki sub. My brother watched me ordering and, as soon as we got back to the table, he told his wife, “OK, there is a lesson today. We should not go to Subway in the U.S. They ask too much and it is not simple at all.” Well, I guess I am not the only one having a hard time to order a sub in the U.S. (Not any more though 🙂 ) I guess ordering a sub in Subway could be the real English test for non-native English speakers. Travel guide book authors should add the step-by-step guide of ordering subs in the U.S. in their survival English travel books. What do you think?

Today’s injuries in English taught by Andrew : Athlete’s foot

Definition : A fungal infection of the skin of the foot, usually between the toes.

Korean equivalent : 무좀 (Moo-Zom) Well, I think this one should be SOLDIER’S FOOT in Korea because almost all of the Korean soldiers experienced this. When I was in the Army, I had this too. Such a horrible infection to bear with! So itchy 🙂

22 Mar

Potatoes, eggs and cheeses

Where: restaurants.

Moving to foreign countries is hard in so many ways. One of the hardest parts is food. In America, if you go to a restaurant or bar, take a few minutes to look around to see what people are eating. I mean really closely and carefully. Chances are you will see potatoes, cheeses or eggs from almost any table. Or maybe you will see one of them from any person’s menu. So, today, I would like to share some of the scenarios with you so that you can have some ideas what you will go thourgh if you have to order any food in America.

1. Let’s say you order from a brunch place : Many of the menus would have eggs. The followings are the different types of eggs you can order. (scrambled, over-easy, over-hard, sunny-side up) My favourate is sunny-side up. What is yours?

2. Let’s say you order a burger from a bar : They might ask you whether if you like cheese or not. If your answer is yes, then “What kind of cheese do you want?” is the next question you would get. These are the most common cheeses you will see in American bars or restaurants. (American, Swiss, Cheddar and Provolone) Sometimes, I ask the server “What do you have?” to make sure I order one they have at the moment. My favourate is Provolone. What is yours? Oh, they also ask about your meat like “How would you like your berger?” Then it is actually the same thing when you order steaks. (Well done, medium well done, medium, medium rare or rare)

3. And, if you order any main menu in restaurants, there is usually a side. And it is mostly potato. Of course, they will ask you! Now, you should get the pattern! They will ask you like, “What kind of potato would you like?” There are french fries, home style fries, mashed potato or baked potato with sour cream. (Am I missing something?) 

If you order french fries separately as like an appetizer, they might also ask you, “Do you want cheese with it?” Then, if you say “Yes I do”, sometimes, they also ask you, “Do you want it to be on top of the fries or separate?” What? Still did not get it? They will ask you forever!

There is also sweet potato fries!! Yummy!

Sometimes, I wonder what would happen in America if there is no cheese and potato. It will be a chaos.

Oh…. I almost forgot. These days hot (spicy) food is getting famous in the U.S. So, if you go to any of Asian restaurants, they will ask you the spicy level. The question is “How spicy do you want?” It is a scale of 1 to 10. (1 is the mildest and 10 is the hottest!)

I thought about the reason of this continuous questions and selection process for ordering food. I think it is because of the culture and history of the U.S. America is the country of freedom. People love to choose and would like to have the freedom of selection. Let’s suppose that if you go to a restaurant and every menu has fixed ingredients. Thus, if get to pick only a food from the menu! I am pretty sure that restaurant will fail in America. Well, but this is only my opinion. I am curious about your thoughts on this.