So I ended up taking the DELF A2 test on Tuesday morning. It started at 9.30 and ended roughly at 12 noon, including waiting time between the written and speaking components. Surprisingly, there was only one other person sitting for this level - someone who is actually taking twice-weekly B1 level private lessons at Alliance Francaise. He must have felt so wronged being told by his teacher to take the A2 level, because even I felt it wasn't too much of a challenge. Having said that, I'm sure I made at least 2 errors in the listening part, and some grammatical errors in the written. The speaking part, well, I'm sure I passed it, but definitely not with flying colours. The concepts weren't hard; my French speaking skills are just very weak, as I don't get to practise speaking French at all, outside of my once-weekly French classes. I just hope that my score for this part isn't too low, or I won't really feel that I've achieved the level that this diploma certifies.
I guess it comes to show that I can't really rely on my French speaking skills to get me around France without a tour guide. I'm sure I would be fine communicating with pen and paper though! Yes, I am planning to go on a holiday to France next year. Very exciting! I have almost a year to plan for it, so hopefully I will be able to come up with a well-planned itinerary, and improve my language skills in the meantime. Everyone else in my class have been to France before, and I suspect this is why their listening and oral expression skills are better than mine. That's the excuse I'm sticking with for cultural immersion anyway.
On to food-related matters, I tried out a new Korean restaurant yesterday for lunch, called Maru Korean BBQ, which is located along Elizabeth Street in Brisbane City.
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| Marinated beef with rice ($13.80) Maru Korean BBQ Restaurant, 157 Elizabeth St Brisbane CBD |
On the whole non-BBQ option menu, there were only two dishes that appealed to me and which weren't spicy: the Korean-style dumplings and the Marinated beef with rice. The waiter couldn't suggest which was the better option, so I ended up choosing the beef option, because it comes with rice and meat. As usual, the dish arrived with a few side platters, which you can see in the picture above. There was the usual kimchi, as well as pickled white onion and some sort of savoury bean cake topped with chilli sauce. I love that there's side dishes, because you have something to nibble on, even if the dish you ordered doesn't turn out to be that great. The main dish I ordered was okay, but not unlike what I can get at other Korean restaurants; however, they give you quite a bit of sliced beef. This is probably good news for those who are big on meat. The dilemma I often encounter when ordering meat dishes is that I am not a big meat eater, but I still like to eat some meat, for a balanced diet. So when they give a large quantity of meat, more than I desire, I feel that I have no choice but to eat at least the majority of it, so as to not waste food. Thus, this factor diminishes my pleasure in eating it, and is why I usually like eating with other people, whom I could share the food with.
If you eat alone, which I did, and feel a bit bored, you could watch a Korean music program that they show on the TV that they have in each section of the restaurant. Prices were average, food came out in a timely manner, service was good, and the lady at check-out was cheerful and asked politely how the food was. Overall, nothing special, but a nice little place to go to for a quick lunch. I will probably go back to try the Korean dumpling soup, when I next feel like eating Korean food.
Edit: 26/11/12 I went back last night for dinner with a friend, and ordered the ox bone soup with rice noodles and rice, which is also a non-spicy dish. Normally when you order beef anything, there would still be quite a bit of meat in there, but this one only had a few strips of beef. This was fine with me, since, as explained previously, I'm not a bit meat-eater; however, the carnivores out there might be disappointed. It didn't occur to me to take a photo, but the dish looked pretty bland, because there wasn't much else in the bowl of noodles except for the milky-coloured broth. In fact, it tasted a bit bland too. I think they deliberately under-seasoned it though, because they presented the dish with a little dish of sea salt, so that you can adjust the saltiness level yourself. Why they do this with this particular soup and with no other is quite beyond me. I guess it is a good thing for people who have a salt restriction in their diet, or for those who simply prefer a blander flavour.
After seasoning the soup myself, it definitely tasted better, and I quite liked how the soup is different to any other Korean beef soups I've tried before, probably because it actually tasted like they made the broth with real bones, and it was less salty. I recommend taking the soup with spoonfuls of the rice, because it tends to break up the boringness of eating the rice noodles, which, because of the light-flavoured soup base, tasted pretty bland. Overall, I quite enjoyed the dish, as well as the autonomy I was given over the saltiness of my soup. It was also nice to see that they changed the selection of side dishes too. I have yet to try the Korean dumplings, so I will be back.
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