The greatest place in Daegu

On my Father's suggestion, I'm going to try and write brief snippets representative of my life here in Korea. For a start, I'll tell you about one of the best spots in Daegu.

This is not going to be what you are expecting.  I think the single greatest place in Daegu may very well be...

Costco!  Ok, I know, lame right.  Don't judge me, it's not why you think.  My school is right across the street, so I walk or ride by twice every day.  It's great when I want to pick up 60 waffles (like I did today,) 90 rolls of toilet paper, or a gallon of dish soap.  But it's not the convenient location or the American products en masse that give Costco it's undeniable appeal, nor the churros or Bulgogi bakes (basically a hollowed out loaf of bread full of cheese and succulent marinated beef.  Amazing).  It's the samples.

Ok, I know, lame again, right?  I was struck by my first visit to a Korean Costco by the quality of the samples.  Cheesecake, sliced steaks, mini-grilled cheese sandwiches.  I'm telling you, there is no skimping here, this is not a matter of clearing out old stock.  A couple weeks ago, they were even sampling beer.  Free beer, I thought, does it get any better?! Then I stumbled upon the Krispy Kreme donuts, and had to answer my rhetorical query, Yes, it most certainly does.


But it doesn't end there.

When I polished off my last 60 pack of waffles on this mornings pb and j, I didn't fret.  After all, by some auspicious turn Costco and my school are neighbors!  I popped in on my way home, skipped through the bottom floor (where they were sampling vitamin supplements.  Weird, I know) and up to the grocery floor, the milk and honey realm of samples.  I'm not exactly sure which stars had aligned or who'd hung a horseshoe over my threshold, but there at the top of the escalator was a makeshift tasting room (more of a big table, really, like you'd see at an expo).  Two whites and a red later,  they must have gotten wind of my piqued interest, because they pulled out a bottle of Shiraz from behind the 150,000 won label (about 150 dollars).  Not bad, not bad at all.

Not to be forestalled, I headed off for the frozen foods section.  On the way, more samples of course.  The first I came to was flying fish roe with sticky rice.  Across the aisle, fresh Alaskan salmon sashimi, my personal favorite when it comes to raw fish.  I took two.

At this point, I considered my good fortune thoroughly and advantageously depleted.  I grabbed my chest of waffles and headed for the registers.  But lady luck wasn't done with me yet, because as I turned to go, churros.  All I could think was, This is getting absurd.  A wine tasting, a sushi sampler of my favorite fish, and the desert I was probably about to buy anyway.  And still, there's more, because on they way out of the frozen foods section, I happened upon a table sampling sparkling wines.

I short, American Costcos have some lessons to be learned from their Korean counterparts when it comes to sampling.  Or maybe they've tried this top-shelf take on sampling and discovered the shortcomings, because even though I'm all stocked on waffles, you can bet I'll be back on Monday for a gratis after-school snack.