Twin Salad Mini Sand

Place of Purchase: CU, Han River Park, Seoul

Cost: 2200 KRW ($2.12)

KCal: 411

Style: Triple bread, cut into quarters, crust on

I was running in a 5km event this morning, and was a little early so decided to have something. Some running people say stuff like "carbo-loading" and eat gels or Clif Bars, I'm not that serious, I just ate because I was hungry. I was fortunate, I suppose to get the last sandwich on the shelf. I started running this year because I was really quite fat and I had gotten to avoiding looking at myself in the mirror or photos, just felt bad inside. I started running and eating less. Stuff happens when you do that, like the laws of thermodynamics take effect and as a result I got smaller and started to like my pictures better and now even take selfies sometimes.  

A lot of people came to the event, more than 500 I think. The longest course was a full marathon. That's too far for me. I felt a little bad doing the shortest 5km course, but 5km is 5km longer than I ran all of last year, so there's that. It was snowing and next to a river and it was a very good memory because it was beautiful. There's also an undeniable beauty in running amongst other people, a bonding because we're all tired and going through that same inner dialog of quitting but we don't and that makes us closer even if we never talk.

Ah, yes, the sandwich. It kind of sucked. The bread was a little stale and the potato and tuna salads were pretty tasteless. It wasn't spit-it-out bad, but it certainly wasn't good. Sometimes food is just calories to put in your body and nothing more, and that's just what this experience was. I did give some of the dry crusts to the pigeons outside the store, and I would think they have high praise of Twin Salad Mini Sand, as they seemed to appreciate it very much. This one goes right in the middle. 2.5 stars

Egg Salad and Strawberry Jam Sand

Place of Purchase: CU, New Airport City, Incheon

Cost: 2200 KRW ($1.95)

KCal: 327

Style: Triple bread, crusts removed

My coworker tells me that this is a trendy sandwich based off the name of a TV show called "Ingi Gayo" ("Let's Become Famous"), this sandwich is called "Igun Gayo", so a clever play on words I guess. 

I got it because the ingredients sounded strange together, and sometimes that can be a pleasant surprise.

This has strawberry jam on one layer, and on the other is an egg/potato salad with coleslaw and fake crab. 

I don't like the combination at all. It seems like not much thought went into this. I'm okay with pineapple on pizza, but I draw a pretty firm line at strawberry jam mixed with fake crab and coleslaw. I don't see how somebody can eat this and get any enjoyment from it. It's not stomach-turning, it's just such a random and unenjoyable hodgepodge of ingredients.
I think some people think randomness and creativity are the same, but they are not. Creativity should have value to others, or in this case taste good. The world, however is a very strange and unfair place, and randomness and bad ideas are very often rewarded by those who can't tell the difference. 

This sandwich being a foremost example of that. 

I will not get this sandwich again, and think it is nothing more than faux creativity, uninspired and thoughtless. Fake creativity is annoying to me, like all those Netflix animations trying to be edgy, sexual and smart and succeeding in nothing but awkwardness or an unfunny person trying to make a joke and sending me into an internal fury. It all sucks. Go to hell, sandwich.

2 stars 

A School Cafeteria Sandwich

Place of Purchase: Haneul Academy, Incheon

Cost: 1000 KRW ($.89)

KCal: I don't know

My favorite part about my weekdays is having school breakfast. I wake up early every day and look forward to it. I always come to work about 90 minutes early because A) I like my job and B)The breakfast is usually good and only costs me a dollar.

The cafeteria has two lines for breakfast. One has western stuff, usually a bread, milk, juice, cereal and yogurt, and the other line has Korean food, which is always rice and a soup, with a protein and vegetables and kimchi. I almost always get the western option because it tastes better to me. I've lived here a long time, and a lot of the Korean food still has very little appeal to me. My wife makes a kind of soup almost every day that makes the whole house smell like old socks. Not my favorite, I'll say that much. I'd say nearly any sensible person when presented a choice would take macaroni and cheese over that soup. My wife says our house smells terrible when I make burritos. I'm not sure how she could say such a callous and culturally insensitive thing, especially about burritos which are objectively delicious by any standard.

The sandwich today looks disappointingly simple. Just some thin sliced ham and a piece of cheap sandwich cheese. I think the four-bread concept is interesting, but just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. I think the triple-decker is as far as humanity should take this sandwich thing, all else is hubris, a sandwich of Babel.

My coworker tells me that this kind of sandwich is some kind of fad food from Taiwan. How revolutionary of the Taiwanese to put ham and cheese between slices of bread, I think. I guess using four slices of bread was some type of culinary epiphany to world.

Anyways, the sandwich was surprisingly good because there was a sandwich spread of some sort which pleased me immensely. I immediately went to the internet, and sure enough, the Taiwanese sandwich is a thing. It said the spread was just mayo with a spoon of sugar. I don't know if that's what I was eating, but that sauce was delightful. I'll mark myself pleased with this one, and put it into the "better than it looks" category. I'm giving this one 4 stars (deduction for no textural element and the arrogance of four pieces of bread)

Ham, Tuna, and Imitation Crab

Place of Purchase: CU, Incheon Airport

Cost: 2300 KRW ($2.05)

KCal: 310

Yet another triple-decker sandwich for me, and crustless. I'm coming to expect triple bread in my sandwiches and fear disappointment if I am ever again presented with a paltry two-bread sandwich. I'm intrigued because quite visibly through the plastic I can see macaroni right in there, and I've never had macaroni on a sandwich. Also visible is some lettuce and what appears to be a tuna salad.

I live very near the Incheon Airport. It's one of the world's best and most modern airports. My apartment building is filled with pilots, flight attendants, customs people, and lots of other airport workers. Sometimes they talk to me on the elevator because most airport workers are pretty good at English. Talking on elevators makes me uncomfortable, but at the same time I live a lonely friendless existence so I'll take a little conversation where I can get it. 

I am also cursed with a condition in which I wake up every day at like 4 or 5 in the morning. It's not insomnia, I get six or seven hours of sleep a night, it's just my particular monkey-brain is programmed to wake up early. That's how my doctor explained it, anyways. My doctor is another story, that man is unusual and deserves his own place here.

So on the weekends I get up well before light with not much to do except be very quiet and not awaken the often ill-tempered ogress drowsing in my bed.

Fortunately for me, there's a place for people like me, and that's the airport. It's always open and only a 15 minute drive and has everything a guy like me and his unusually wired monkey-brain could want; Starbucks, Krispy Kreme, Shake Shack, and lots of other fast-food shops, that all are open by 5am. There's even a really big casino near there. Rarely do I buy anything at all when I go because it's expensive and fattening. Usually I just like walking around and watching people. The airport is a good place to look at people and wonder where they're going. I like the energy there because most of the people are happy and excited about traveling, and even though it sounds sappy, that kind of thing makes me smile and I like to be around it. 

On this day, I am a bit hungry and decide to get a sandwich from one of the convenience stores that can be found very frequently in this immense terminal. The cool thing is that the prices for everything in the stores here are the same as everywhere else, no hyper-inflated airport premium. 

It's a good sandwich, nothing too exciting, not different from the tuna sandwiches that would be in my school lunch bag when I was young. It seems the tuna is really dominating the tone of this sandwich party, which isn't a bad thing except for the expectations I had of the flavor explosion of ham and fake crab would bring. Lies. The ham just disappeared into the taste of the tuna, and as for the fake crab, well that was just MiA in this whole thing. The thing about this that impressed me the most is what the macaroni brought to this whole affair, it's a lovely textural element and works well with the tuna, in a delicate sandwich harmony. Macaroni should be in more sandwiches, that's my new position on the matter. Color me pleasantly surprised with this. 4 stars (deduction for superfluous fake crab and unnecessary ham)

Cajun Chicken Sand

Place of Purchase: GS25, Incheon, Jung-Gu

Cost: 2200 KRW ($1.95)

KCal: 358

It's another triple-decker. I like those kind. It's also crustless, but that is not relevant to me since I've never minded them. It looks to be a kind of chicken salad on one layer with some ham and lettuce on the other. It seems appetizing enough. 

On tasting, it is decent, tastes good, a nice chicken salad with a piece of ham and some lettuce. I have no idea what makes this sandwich Cajun. I always just thought Cajun spice meant a lot of black pepper or okra or alligator meat, but this doesn't have any of that. Then again, I just may not be wise in the ways of Cajun food. 
Cajun is one of the most mysterious cultures to me. I have never met a Cajun person. I only know Cajun people from TV. I remember there used to be a TV chef named Justin Henry who would get very excited when he made food and say "OOOO-EEEEE!". There's also an X-Men guy who throws exploding cards and talks like that. It's great when Cajun people pronounce something ending with 'n', like "chicken" they say the 'n' in a way that comes out of the nose more than the mouth and is impossible to write in English and it sounds like "Cheeekooohn". It's a super-cool accent in my book. When I think of Cajun people, I think of a big guy with a beard wearing overalls with no shirt and a very old floppy wide-brim hat raping Ned Beatty in that movie "Deliverance". I'm not even sure if that was Cajun people or just general garden-variety hillbillies doing the raping.  I'll make a mental note to learn the difference.

That being said, I don't think whoever thought of this sandwich knows much more about Cajun stuff than I do. It's a chicken salad sandwich, but I agree the name makes it sound more appealing. It's a decent sandwich, good texture and the bread is fresh. I'm OK with this purchase. 4 stars (deduction for not being spectacular)

Lots of Ham and Potato Salad Sand

Place of Purchase: GS25, Incheon, Jung-Gu

Cost: 2200 KRW ($1.95)

KCal: 347

I like the name "Lots of Ham". I should use that as a Twitter handle or an online ID somewhere. Anyways, yes, through the cellophane window, this certainly does look like a lot of ham as they claim. Lots of ham is a very subjective thing, but to me it looks like to be a lot of ham. This is impressive upon unboxing, it is a triple-bread sandwich, and this fact pleases me. The most famous triple-decker sandwich is the club, and while one could argue it's the Big Mac, I would dismiss that outright because hamburgers have no place in the sandwich debate.

I was suspicious, perhaps rightfully so, that they stacked a little ham in the middle to make it appear like a lot of ham. Life has hardened me to be wary of boastful claims like "lots of ham", bad experiences and lies have tempered me to cynicism. I've found the world to be full of shams and trickery. I'm no kind optimist like Mr. Rogers, that's for sure, and certainly no rube when it comes to claims of lots of ham. I was once naive and innocent though.

I was three or four years old. Mom and dad had divorced and Steve went to dad and I went to mom. I'm not sure how or why it happened that way. Mom lived in a little apartment in Isla Vista in California. We lived quite modestly as I remember. One day she gave me some coins she had saved and told me it was enough to go to the donut shop and get myself a plain basic donut. Money was tight, and such occasions were rare, so rare actually this was the only occasion I remember at all. I was able to go out alone for as long back as I remember, a different time for sure. When I got to the donut shop after what was undoubtedly an excited and eager scamper of anticipation, a kid approached me outside and told me that if I gave her the money, she could get me a much better donut than I could get for myself. She was older and taller than me. She was black  and very thin with short pigtails on the sides of her head. After all this time, I still remember her face a little. She said that because she knew the people, she could do this for me and all I had to do was just wait for her around the corner. I couldn't wait outside the shop because if the shopkeeper saw me, they would know it wasn't for her and I would never receive this upgraded donut. That made good enough sense to me, so I went around the corner and waited for quite some time. It seemed like hours until I began to worry. The smallest time can seem like hours when you're waiting for something so important the difference between want and need dissolves into the singularity of attainment.

It was then that she reappeared. It was indeed a fine donut and recall it was creme filled with a chocolate glaze and colorful sprinkles. What a nice kid to do that for me. I ate it all before I got home. Now that I think about it, the story doesn't really add up, but heck, I got my donut. 

Other stuff later in life disappointed me and made a mess of things inside, but not that donut, and not her.

Upon looking inside the sandwich, I am pleasantly surprised to see that there is no lie at all. There is indeed lots of ham in there, objectively so.  It's a good sandwich. There's a slice of tomato and what I imagine is an onion flavored mayonnaise. It's tasty. 

I never had potato salad on a sandwich until I came to Korea. The idea offends American sensibilities. However, it does work and I like it. It's a very simple potato salad, just potato, a little onion, carrot and mayonnaise, but tastes good. I am pleased with this purchase and it makes my day that much better having eaten it.  4.5 stars (could have used a crispy or crunchy element to perfect it.)

Egg & Pork Cutlet

Place of Purchase: GS25, Incheon, Jung-Gu

Cost: 2700 KRW ($2.40)

KCal: 490

This is actually two different half-sandwiches, one with an omelet, and the other with a pork cutlet, so it merits separate reviews.

At a relatively high price-point of 2700 won, I will point out that I have high expectations for this. 2700 won is pretty expensive for a mini-mart sandwich.

t looks very promising. It doesn't appear they went skimpy on the ingredients, the egg part is thick and so is the pork cutlet. The sandwich is obviously inspired by Japanese cuisine, tonkatsu, (pork cutlet) and tamago (folded egg).

I first went to Japan in 2002. When I first arrived in Korea, I had to complete my work visa, but had to do it outside of Korea, so they sent me to Osaka for a day. Fly there in the morning, come back in the evening. I was very excited to see Japan since prior to coming to Korea the week before, I'd never been outside America except for Mexico. From the airport, I took a fancy train to the city, and followed the directions my work had given me to find the Korean consulate. I gave them my application and had to wait four hours. I met a Canadian guy named Pete who was doing the same thing as me. He liked to drink beer too, so we went off and did a lot of that and walked around Osaka. It was fascinating, the cool buildings, pachinko parlors, and even vending machines that sold beer. It was a fun four hours, there's a magic to seeing a place for the first time, and you don't know it was magic until it's over. It came time to get our visas and go back to Korea. We had the same flight so that was nice. From Osaka to Seoul is less than two hours. Pete brought two bottles of sake onto the plane and drank them during the flight. I think it was strong sake, because he was very drunk by the time we got to Korea and lost his passport somewhere between the plane and checkpoint. That was the last time I ever saw Pete, stuck behind Korean immigration, drunk without a passport.

I wonder what he's up to now.

The egg part is good. Very simple, but good. It's just a plain scrambled egg with what I guess to be Kewpie mayo with it. It tastes fine, but I think it could use some texture like pickles or salad. It doesn't offend me, but it does not raise my spirits either. 3 stars

The pork cutlet part is bad. Shockingly bad. Star Wars prequel bad. It's a soggy mess and the sauce is unpleasant in taste. What looked so delicious through the cellophane window is a disaster and a lie. Whoever conceived of this should be ashamed. I don't wish physical harm on them, but I hope they get yelled at for something they didn't do, or get grape jam on their favorite piece of clothing. This is an inexcusable act of villainy. This brings disgrace to the Korean sandwich industry. I'm giving it more than '0' because it did not give me food poisoning .5 stars 

Scramble Sausage

Place of Purchase: GS25, Incheon, Jung-Gu

Cost: 2200 KRW ($1.95)

KCal: 482

I can't seem to decide if the name "Scramble Sausage" is appetizing or not. Through the cellophane it's messy and hard to see any contents of the sandwich. The "Konglish" word 'scramble' means scrambled eggs. 

It's actually quite a nice surprise. I had no great expectations of Scramble Sausage, but this is good. It's an egg salad with pieces of corn (niblets?) and chunks of a garlicky smoked sausage mixed in, and surprisingly generously so. 

I like sausage. My favorite kind of sausage is breakfast sausage. It reminds me of when I was a kid waking up to the smell dad cooking Jimmy Dean sausage patties. He always cooked breakfast on the weekends, and I always have that very nice memory of sausage patties. His breakfasts weren't always good. One time he made a breakfast scramble with canned peaches and eggs. That wasn't very good.

They don't sell breakfast sausage in Korea. I rather miss having it.

Dad also used to cook hot dogs on the barbecue. He would cook them until they burst and had a charred black crust. I always just figured that's how they were supposed to be cooked and even now like that charred taste on my hot dogs.

Oh, how dad loved his barbecue. He would fire that thing up every weekend almost without fail. He even put up a covered patio so the rain would not stop him. His hamburgers were immense, beastly things the size and shape of softballs, in no way resembling a patty. They were usually raw and cold in the middle. Dad said 'medium rare', but no, they were raw. Sometimes it was chicken, sometimes pork, and of course steak. But still, the smell of breakfast sausage brings me back to those times best, makes me think of dad and his unique array of food.

I miss dad. He died a few months ago. I wish he hadn't.

 I will get Scramble Sausage again. Thumbs up for Scramble Sausage. 4.5 stars. Small deduction for the corn, which I didn't think brought much to the party.