The Bagel Ordeal

We ran out of cereal recently, so on my way home from PWC tutoring class this morning, while waiting for the bus, I stopped by the Suseo station Paris Baguette Café.



Despite their obviously foreign sounding name, most of what they offer is still decidedly Korean fare. Hot dogs are baked inside rolls and topped with a strange-looking creamy relish. Other donut-like items look normal enough until you bite inside them and discover they have red bean paste (팥, あん, 红豆) inside.

I grabbed a croissant for SY and the only thing that struck my fancy, a bagel. When I checked out, I asked the cashier in Korean if they can toast it (“토스트 할수있요?”). I figured I could eat it while I waited.

She asked if I wanted to eat it there or to go, and I said “to go,” but she wrapped the bagel in a plastic bag. I guess she didn’t understand my “toast” request, so I said it again.

This time she cut it in half. I asked if she had butter, and she said no. Well, rats. Now that it was cut in half, I couldn’t very well cancel my order. I asked for cream cheese, and she pointed to the $2 disk of strawberry cream cheese. Well, that was the best there was. I picked that, paid for it, and said again, very slowly “please toast it for me.” (토스트 해주세요.)

She said she couldn’t. After I responded with “really?” she asked another lady, and gave it to her to be toasted.

While I waited for the bagel to be toasted, I asked for a knife. They didn’t have any, but she handed me a small fork. I said, “it’s ok,” and handed it back.

Then I saw that they had butter in a big bin. I asked for butter, but the second lady said it was “their” butter, not for customers. I asked if they sold it, and she again said no.

“So I can’t buy it and I can’t use yours?” How do Koreans usually eat bagels? Like a donut? I wondered.

So the toasting was difficult, they wouldn’t give me butter, I couldn’t buy butter, and they didn’t have knives to spread their outrageously over-priced cream cheese. By this point I was really frustrated, so I told her in my admittedly faltering Korean that although this is Korea, it was still really strange.

Am I the weird one here? I thought.

Well, yes, for two reasons.

First, it turns out Paris Baguette Cafés are still more "bakery" than "café," despite the name and their seating areas. Their customers typically don’t run in and get a snack – they buy stuff and take it to eat at home.

That brings up the second reason: Koreans don’t eat unless they can sit down. The idea I had of “eating on the go” is -- traditionally -- something only beggars do.

So I had to wait until a few days later when a I met a friend at a Starbucks. While I dislike coffee, they could do bagels the way I like it: toasted with butter.

Yeah...