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45 Bul-daK: noT-so-spicy Boneless chicKen on sKilleT Bul-dak “fire chicken” might be on its way out of public favor, as most of the locations we found on Google and Naver maps seemed to have gone under. But at Hong-mi Fire Chicken & Pan-Fried Food in Jongno, we ordered ex- tra-spicy fire chicken and the house specialty, fire chicken on melted cheese. Ian: Having heard Koreans and foreigners say this was the spiciest dish in the land, I’ve been had — BAMBOOZLED! Hot, but not within the upper register of what I usually eat. No challenge at all. I can’t help but wonder if there’s some meddlesome do-gooder in the kitchen protecting the hapless waegookin from themselves. Tastiest dish on the list, but not helping us achieve our mission objective. JoKBal: pigs’ feeT (and friends) Jokbal usually yields no hot wallop. But in the labyrinthine alleys of Dongdaemun, Changshin-dong Spicy Jokbal has a cult following for its fiery-footed swine. For adventurous eaters, the special set is a must: You’ll get chicken feet, two kinds of pigs’ feet and some short-arm octopus. Ian: These always summoned repressed memories of pickled pigs’ feet in jars back in North Carolina, with my Grandaddy suckin’ away at their toe knuckles; hence, I was wary. But this spicy version is pretty damn tasty, although next time I’ll go for the charcoaled slabs of samgyupsal. The spice primarily stuck to the tongue tip and lips, no doubt due to the gnashing of teeth necessitated by the ordeal. Ain’t much meat neither, just a whole lot o’ sauced-up fat and gristle. Although we initially dismissed these as not all that hot, “Ring of Fire” by Johnny Cash was stuck in my head the whole next day … ahem. Matt: Before the main course had even arrived — a small serving of “mini-jok” — the waitress had deposited bowls of bean sprout soup that were perfectly clear and yet … spicy. When the jokbal arrived and I had put on the plastic gloves provided, I soon discov- ered this was no dainty meal. It required plenty of biting and ripping to separate the tendons and ligaments from the bones, which was made trickier by the nettling spiciness. By the end of the meal, var- ious pork joints were littering the table, and this little delicatessen was marked for future visits. Honestly, I think the waitress or cook threw us under the bus. “T hose who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” — C.S. Lewis Matt: I have fond memories of eating fire chicken and drinking beer with a couple of English academy coworkers. It really was a baptism by fire for an innocent young expat. But the fire chicken of my memory is much hotter than anything on the market nowadays. This “extra-spicy” fowl at Hong-mi had a bit of a piercing effect in the back of my throat, but failed to bring on any full-body alert or send me into a state of fear and trembling. “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here”? Not quite. P ar t l y because of chiPs o n our shoulders — because t ime and t ime again we are asked if we can handle it — but most l y because we j ust l ove sPicy f o od , we launched our se oul- b ased crusade: we aimed t o t est oursel ves against t he hot t est l ocal f o od s we could find .