These are just some side dishes I picked up at the local E-Mart grocery store. Really, I had seen the baby crabs in the freaky side dish case and had been wanting to try them. They look like spiders. I was wondering, “Do you eat them with the shell on?”

The answer is YES.

They’re not too bad. The shell is like the coating of an M&M — maybe a bit harder. Yet you can eat them whole. They taste like crab in sauce, sort of. I think they taste more like shrimp. After the novelty wore off, I wasn’t that hot about them–

Especially when I had the marinated oysters. These are one of my favorite Korean side dishes. They’re salty Korean raw oysters smothered in gochujang, peppers, onions, carrots, and garlic. It’s a sloppy dish that could be served at the most discriminating hotels. It’s a nice common food in Korea that would be considered more sophisticated elsewhere in the world.

I usually have them with rice at restaurants. Yet at home, they go great with a certain unnamed buttery flavored cracker. That was my breakfast on Saturday.