Hospital Food

The bane of my existence. Everywhere you go, hospital food will suck. Big twist, there's something worse you can get in my hospital: "western" hospital food.

That's right, Western food prepared Korean style in a hospital. If there is a binary to a long-standing 5-star Italian restaurant in Rome this is it. The cafe lady offered me a Western meal the first day saying it was a "hand-made steak." Hand-made might not have been the word she was looking for but it was still a red-flag. Consequently, I'll be eating Korean food for my entire stay and I'm pretty happy about that.

This morning the gentleman in the bed next to me ordered the Western Breakfast. This is Korea and the law plainly states that there is no specific food for a specific meal. His breakfast was some sort of soup and a sandwich. But the sandwich did not look like anything I've ever seen in my life. It was a double-decker sandwich, cut diagonally, with what looked like a potato puree with bits of veggies in it. Then the top layer looked like more of the same with cheese and on one side there was jam. I was intrigued and watched this man struggle to keep it down. Needless to say it made my breakfast look ten times better.

When we were taking our trays back to the cart I asked him how his breakfast was, he muttered, "Rice is better." I told him if I was given the option back home to have Korean food in a hospital or say mac and cheese I will take the latter everyday. In a low-budget, and untalented system have people stick to what they're good at. For example, in homage to Breaking Bad, I would not hire Todd, or even Jesse, to work in an actual pharmaceutical laboratory. Just make meth; leave the complicated stuff to a professional.

As for the typical hospital meal its not half bad. I'm getting Korean food I would never make at home. It's like eating a cafeteria lunch... for every meal of the day which gets depressing if you're not reading or watching something to distract your taste buds. Usually there's fish and soup and some vegetable. There's always kimchi and rice. Although, like prison, I've managed to swap food for food to make my stay a touch better. When my former neighbor left he gave me several packs of kim (dried seaweed I eat with rice) for an orange. I've told a lot of visitors that I'd compare the meals to school lunch but there are way more things that repulse me. One plus is there's a beef dish at least once every other day and I rarely eat beef here because Korean cattle is very well-fed and the price reflects that. Still, the downsides outweigh the upsides by a country mile.  

Having an abundance of snacks makes living much more tolerable and once again thnks to all the givers of snacks. There's still no official break out of the hospital day yet because my doctor didn't see me today. Why you ask? I was taking a dump when he came to my room, I heard his voice for a fact. Someone knocked on the bathroom door and I told them to give me minute. No one replied. Probably because the doctor and his lackeys was already on the elevator to see his next patient and he never came back. Either way, our relationship is on a slippery slop. Next you thing you know he'll realize he left his watch on my clavicle, or maybe he's a part-time chef in the hospital kitchen. That could explain a lot.