How to Eat in a Korean Cafeteria

Start with the divided plastic tray. These appear to be standard everywhere. Food goes directly on the tray. Pick up your spoon (a cross between a British tablespoon and a sundae spoon) and metal chopsticks (an extra element of fun because they are so slidey).

If it's a good day, there will be a cidery kind of drink or a tea, and paper cups to put it in. This is really a dessert, but if you're a stupid American, you can drink it with your meal.

Next on the line is kimchi--it can be either cabbage or radish, red or white, but it's ALWAYS there. It goes in one of the twin small compartments. In the other one goes whatever chilied-up vegetable of the day there is--it always looks like tempting greens, but is rarely something that can be agreeably chewed & swallowed without immolating your entire digestive system. Occasionally, it is sesame leaves, which are wrapped around a glob of rice in a deft chopstick movement that I can actually sometimes pull off.

If there's no drink, there will be a salad. It's usually mostly cabbage, sometimes mixed with lettuce and served with a super-sweet dressing. The best is when it's fruit (usually mixed with cabbage), although sometimes they will mess with your head by putting chili sauce on the apples.

Now comes the entree. Many days, they will helpfully have the meat & vegetables in separate concoctions, but not always. Sometimes, there are eggs, or these pancakey things with green onions in them. (If you like green onions, this is your country) Many times, there are mushrooms that look like squid. Sometimes it is actual squid. Once, there were tofu cakes, but I guess that's a "once in a while" treat. They're also partial to sticking hot dogs in stuff, so keep an eye out.

At the end of the line, to fill the large round and square spots in your tray, are the soup and the rice. ALWAYS, without fail. (so no matter how hot or meaty the lunch is, there's always rice) The soup is so hot it can kill you, but will often have tofu chunks in it, or seaweed.

Koreans don't drink anything during meals, but if you're a weird American and/or the kimchi vaporizes your skin on contact, there is a filtered-water dispenser and tiny metal cups. Right next to the dishwater rice, next to the door, because they're all meant to be consumed on the way out.

When you're done, you really should put all your uneaten food in your soup bowl, then dump in in a bucket containing a cafeteria concoction far worse than anything you managed in your school days, put your silverware in the dishpan full of water, and stack your tray and soup bowl in the big steel sink.

If you see any cafeteria workers, you might mistake them for a haz-mat team, with full-coverage uniform, bonnet or ludicrously tall chef's hat, apron, and knee-high rubber boots.