It’s a Very Pancho’s Birthday

Unfortunately, I will have to put off writing the inevitable “Carne Station shit-show” post until said restaurant is not booked on the weekend. Luckily, our second option for Alex and Brian’s joint birthday extravaganza included enough homosexual and transgendered eroticism to more than suffice for an evening on the town.

Our first stop was the infamous “Pancho’s” in Itaewon, the home of the second-best Mexican food I’ve had in Korea and the third-weakest drinks. Observe: sketchy half-lit neon cowboy.

We started off the night in good fashion, drinking mojitos and eating Velveeta-approved cheese dip stylings. The food was pretty good, though strangely cheeseless for a Mexican place (they replaced cheese with a pretty serviceable red sauce that may or may not have contained products that came from a cow’s udder).

The highlight was certainly the flamboyantly gay owner, dubbed Pancho by anyone who couldn’t speak to him in Spanish (his name was “Gabriel,” smart-assedly claims Janet) though I don’t actually know what his name is. The Swiss son of a Chilean and a Spaniard, he takes to dancing in the giant open spaces of his restaurant to the awkwardly low-volume music.

Other highlights include the largest birthday sombrero in the Seoul area and the guaranteed smiling satisfaction of a certain Westerner not necessarily in need of Authentic American-style Mexican food, but rather a faithful reminder given the local tastes and available ingredients.

(I was talking about Alex.)

After that we went to Funky Funky (a subject for the next post) and a random 노레방 (“norebang’ = singing room = karaoke) for some good natured, drunken musical fun…

~ by David Ogles on December 17, 2007.