Korean Job Discussion Forums

[sojourner1]

I bought a 400 gram bag of walnuts last night for 15,000 won to put into my banana nut bread to find they wreaked of awful chemical of indescribable quality. It smelled so industrial and artificial, but very strong. The nuts look perfectly fine, but are tasteless. But gawd, the odor. I thought, it's preservative on them since they had to come from the USA I can wash most off. I washed them, soaked them for an hour, and washed them again and their odor touched down to about half of what it was. I ate a few and they were just bland with no taste, but had great texture.

I broke up 1 cup of them and put them in my bread batter and baked it. That smell just came out when that sucker got hot and I had to throw it out. Gawd I feel ripped off. Them nutz must be very very old, but preserved with a ton of chemical. It's bad. I can't eat them.

How do I go about stating my case to the grocery store? He sure acted really unusually thankful, even bowed, and said, "aniga seyo," extra loudly when I purchased these nutz last night. I frequent this ma and pop style small grocer and spend about 400,000 won a month in there, but no one speaks English. I know in Korea returns are not the norm, unless it's Homeplus. I really hate to try a return, but I feel I got my nutz ripped off on this deal.

[Bramble]

Shouldn't you have returned them before eating or washing them?

[Goku]

[Bramble]

[Xuanzang]

I dont think you`ll get a refund. Just write it off and dont buy those kinds of specialty items from small marts again.

[Crockpot2001]

I'm staring looking at my 700g nutsack from E-mart that I paid ~W15k for. They're from california and have been great.

It's also possible that the smell you experienced was rancidity. Any food product with high fat content has that risk although pasturization, antioxidents, and other natural/not-so-natural preservatives can be used to stave this off.

[Bramble]

It does sound like a rip-off. Where did you buy them anyway? Usually walnuts from E-Mart and the fresh produce section of any major Korean department store have a nice flavour ... for that price, I'd expect them to be completely fresh and chemical-free.

[moosehead]

I've bought those before!!!

I think they smelled like cigarrette smoke!! seriously - !! I was thinking people were smoking while they were being processed or something - anyway - I tried everything to get rid of the smell and nothing worked. I threw them out and will never buy that kind again - they were in a little plastic container.

the calif ones are excellent but I can't always find them.

just try another brand is all

[sojourner1]

[sojourner1]

Returned them with no problem. The woman was in instead of the man. I just walked in with the receipt and opened the bag, motioned to smell them, and she smelled them. She seemed a bit disturbed, annoyed, and trying to say something along the lines that I was imagining this, but knew I was right as she found them gross so I just chuckled a little like Koreans do in uncomfortable situations. She said in Korean to get the other remaining bag, but I just picked up some bottles of water and went back to the cash register. She then knew I wanted a return instead of exchange as the other bag looked the same so she refunded my money.

No drama or hurt feelings; just my money back for the junk nutz cuz I aint playing around when it comes to my nutz.

[Xuanzang]

I`m glad this nutz story had a happy ending. So what was the 4K for?

[sojourner1]

She didn't cave in to that bone. I think she said it was an item I got, but I know it wasn't an item I got. Even Koreans have to deal with all these sorts of issues. They can speak Korean, but they usually don't stand up and directly speak in a concise manner about an issue.

[itaewonguy]

[Crockpot2001]

[sojourner1]