Korean Job Discussion Forums

[jbpatlanta]

Did anyone else see the show on KBS about restaurants reusing food. It comes on KBS Friday nights at 10:00. The English name is Consumer Reports.

Last week they went around to several different restaurants to see if they reused food. My wife told me that several places reuse the kimchi. Basically she thought that the restaurants took the kimchi you didn't eat and used it to make kimchi chijae and kimchi fried rice.

This show took their hidden cameras into different restaurants. It showed the ajumas taking half eaten rice back to the kitchen and putting it back into the rice cooker to be used again. Some ajumas were washing dishes and sitting beside the sink were containers for side dishes. The ajuma used their soapy hands to scrape the dishes and put the side dishes into these containers to use again. They were even reusing the samjang too.

The show collected several different samples of kimchi and other side dishes from restaurants. They examined them and found rice in the kimchi and small pieces of meat in the side dishes and kimchi.

This past Friday was the follow up show. They went back to some of the restaurants and a few of them were trying to change and not reuse things. One restaurant owner said that it "was so hard to change but she was trying" (seriously whats so hard about throwing everythign away?!).

Watching it makes me not want to eat in alot of restaurants in Korea. The show went to different levels of restaurants. They went to galbi places and even to the very expensive traditional Korean food restaurants that cater to tourist.

There are currently no laws reguarding this reuse of food. The people in charge of inspecting restaurants said all they could do is issue a warning put they could not give the restauarant a penalty. They claim they will make a new law to make this practice illegal, but we know how well the laws in Korea are enforced now, right?

There was a ray of hope. You can watch the ajumas cleaning up the tables. If they carry everything back to the kitchen separately and carefully, the place may be reusing food. If they combine all the leftovers into one container at the table then they throw it away. Another clue is the size of the side dishes. If they give a large amount of the side dish they may be reusing the food. If there is only a small amount of the side dish then they may not be reusing it.

What would happen back home if a restaurant was caught reusing food?

[Join Me]

I wish you wouldn't have posted this. To be honest I have always wondered about this and suspected that some restaurants do this. The problem is you have no idea which ones do or don't. The fact that there is no law against this is repulsive.

[crusher_of_heads]

[silentwhispers]

That's why I always mix up all the side dishes and rice... make it unusable.
Though, I've heard the same thing about Mexican restaurants in the US and their chips/salsa.
I can't believe there are no laws though considering how hepatitis is so prominent in Korea...

[ytuque]

How often do Koreans wash their hands after using the restroom?

[silentwhispers]

[potin14p]

my students told me something similar about the soju you leave in your glass ending up in the next customer's soju fruit mix. yum!

[Join Me]

[cruisemonkey]

Don't you do shots out of the same glass everyone has when your principal hands it to you?

[justaguy]

Recycled food is perfectly safe to eat.

It's already been tested by humans.

[Join Me]

[spliff]

I never eat out so I'm not affected by this.

[Join Me]

[spliff]

Wouldn't be surprising, but it hasn't killed me yet.

[blaseblasphemener]