Thick Bacon Pocket

Place of Purchase: Gil Hospital, Starbucks, Incheon

Cost: 4900 won ($4.37)

KCal: 284

I'm breaking my own rules nowadays. This is not from a convenience store, but it is a sandwich, and I'm in Korea, so it's a Korean sandwich. 

Last Friday I got a bit of a stomachache, didn't think much of it but the next morning it hurt in a quite serious way and went to the clinic near my house. When the doctor checked it out he got that look on his face you don't want to see on a doctor's face, and then said I needed to go to a real hospital to check it further, because he was concerned it was my appendix. 

Sure enough, upon going to a very large hospital, the clinic doctor was correct and by that evening I was asleep with strangers cutting holes in me and taking this arguably vestigial appendage from my body. It was not how I had envisioned my weekend would go, and certainly not one of my favorite ways to spend a Saturday evening. 

This was my first time getting general surgery of any kind so it was all new to me. It was a teaching hospital so the doctors, probably residents, were very young. My anesthesiologist was only like 30. He was raised in California and said California stuff like "like, dude, and "totally" a lot. I liked him, he seemed very smart despite his informal manner of speaking, which he was most likely doing to make me more comfortable. The last thing I remember before going under the anesthetic was "John, dude, don't worry man, just breathe this stuff and you'll be like asleep in like, two seconds, you'll trip out how fast this stuff is". He was right on that one. 

Anyways, everything went fine in the sense that I feel much better and I'm not dead. Recovery for the first 3 days was tedious, as I was not allowed any food or water during that time. Although I was getting calories from the IV, I still started to obsess over food. My surgery was on Saturday, and wasn't allowed even soft foods or water until Wednesday. I think in Korea they are much more cautious than America. Probably in America an appendectomy is an outpatient procedure given the broken healthcare system. 

Anyways, cut to Thursday, and I'm given permission for lunchtime discharge and for real food as well. There was a Starbucks on the first floor of my hospital, and I scurried right down there as soon as they opened. I was sickened by the thought of more rice at this point. 

I got the "Thick Bacon Pocket", a chocolate pudding, and a cafe mocha with whipped cream. It cost almost $13, but that was of little concern to me. This was absolutely not my first time in a Starbucks, but it was my first time eating there, mostly because it's very expensive for pre-made food.

I opened it up when it got to my table and inside was a thick piece of bacon. That was all. No condiments or anything. Just bread and bacon. 

But then I took a bite and all was forgiven. It was good, really good. It was the best piece of bread with bacon I have ever had in my life. I'm sure 5 days of food deprivation tainted my objectivity on this one, but that was a damn fine thing to eat. The pudding and mocha were equally complimentary to what amounted to an exquisite culinary experience nearly unmatched in my lifetime. I was happy to have this hospital experience coming to an end, and Thick Bacon Pocket pleased me tremendously. Simplicity worked in this case. I'm going to give this one my first 5 stars* (It does deserve an asterisk because I hadn't really eaten in 5 days and I wasn't given to exacting standards.)