Order food or a coffe in Korea and you will be struck by something. Specifically that if you are not too careful the food or coffee you will receive will be better dressed than you are.
For example- a pizza in Korea is so much more than a cheese and tomato, or ham and pinapple...once you have watched the chef personally prepare your base, wearing perfect chefs whites whilst he is enclosed in a perspex case, you will have to choose your topping. Elaborate names are given to choices that usually consist of no less than 6 ingredients. Sweet potato is a firm favourite, although failing that regular potato will suffice. Perhaps the west underestimates the potato as a vegetable, only using it as a side order? In Korea potatos are on pizzas, sandwiches and even heated and given to unsuspecting people as gifts.
The Korea approach to coffee is very similar. Yes you can order a straight forward latte or Americano, however coffee Cocktails or green tea lattes are much more the norm. The former involes a glass dilled with a variety of different shades of coffee providing a layering effect. This is them topped off with a generous amount of cream, perhaps some syrup and a strawer. Why have a regular coffee when you can have a much prettier more elaborate affair.
On the surface it appears that the Koreans general attitude is the more bells and whistles the better. This is clear from their approach to food, drink and even appearance (check out a businessman in his shiny suit compleye with sparkly tie...or couplewear which requires an article of its own, or hikers in colour coordinated North Face outfits) Yet upon spying a foreigner eating in a restaurant they will more than likely offer you a slice of their immaculate birthday cake. Prooving that, perhaps afterall, appearances can be deceptive and their beauty obsession is only skin deep.
