I'll have the usual please

Back at home, I used to frequent this little Vietnamese bakery called Gala Bakery near my house at least three times a week back in my college days. It had the best cafe sua da, Vietnamese iced coffee, and pate chaud, these little pork/chicken baked pastry-type things. They were very good. I went there so often that when they see my car they’d automatically have a cup of coffee sitting on the counter waiting for me to consume it. Oftentimes I’d simply get a coffee so I’d simply walk in, hand them the cash (with exact change), take my coffee from the counter, and walk back into my car. During those times, the only things said were, “Thanks” and “You’re welcome” in Vietnamese.

Over here in Seoul, there are two places that have the same sort of familiarity near my place. The first was is an older street vendor who sells these chicken skewer thingies that I tried with a Korean friend when I first got here. I see him every day as I pass him to go to the subway, I’d slightly bow as I say hi. He doesn’t speak a lick of English and I’m slowly progressing in my Korean so we don’t really speak much. When I do order from him though, I simply stand in front of him and he readily cooks the chicken skewer with my preferred sauce.

The other spot is this little Korean dumpling place in the street market near my apartment. I often walk by the little shop as I come home from work. There’s this nice Korean lady who often runs the front of the store that I see when I’m there. I remember one day she asked how the dumplings were, since she saw me all the time, and I told her I thought they were super delicious. Every since then she’d always give me an extra dumpling. I gather that I’m unique in that I spoke to her in my broken ass Korean and that she’d see me about the same time every day. So every time I come there now she knows exactly what I want. It’s rather nice.