Photo: procsilas This post would actually be funnier if this sign I can't read said something other than CAFETERIA in Korean.

Do you ever get the kind of giggles you're sure are going to get you thrown out of a place? We came down with a bad case of them as soon as we walked into a Korean restaurant the other night. We weren't laughing at anything but ourselves. Because the menu was completely authentic.

Yes.

We expected that.

But neither one of us is familiar with Korean fare, and there were no English descriptions offering a clue whether a dish was chicken or beef. Rice or noodles? Soup or stir-fry? Even the lovely woman taking our order couldn't help free us of ignorance. We just had to pick something, and wait and see.

Since most of the menu items did have phonetic spellings in the English alphabet written beneath the Korean words, we had something to go on. So we settled on sharing a plate of whatever number ten was because we liked the name.

"We'd like a J-JAM-B-BONG BOB please," Rufus said to the server.

She was professional, and kept a straight face. But I hope she went in the back and had a good laugh with the guys in the kitchen. One of them might even be the author of this discussion forum post:

From a contributor to a Korean Language
forum discussion on Asia Finest:

"Did it occur to you that Korean has some sounds that English lacks? For the benefit of the non-Korean readers I'll Romanize them as they are typically done in Korea: kk, bb, dd, jj. Ever hear a typical American or Canadian trying to order jjambbong? Sounds like they want a water pipe filled with strawberry preserves."

So what exactly is this balderdash beaut?

Squid soup. Well, not exactly. There's lots of other stuff in it. It's a spicy bouillabaisse-like soup served with sides of rice, pickled yellow radish and raw onions. It was quite tasty. But I wouldn't recommend it with a dollop of strawberry preserves.

So if you ever find yourself ordering this Korean dish, I can't advise you how to say it. Just be wise to the potential cross-cultural jjamed signal. I know for future orders, I'm going to [dare Rufus to] specify please not to put jelly in our J-jam-b-bong Bob.