Dana Lake ‘23
Production Editor
If you are a person who has had roommates your whole life, the transition to living alone can be a bit jarring. This is especially true for folks in long-distance relationships. Sharing a living space with other people does more than keep the sink full of dishes and lower the rent—it keeps you accountable to a certain standard of behavior. You can’t be too weird and still maintain a successful roommate situation. Living alone, you are accountable to no one. The great freedom to be as unhinged as you want in the privacy of your own home is mitigated only by the knowledge you are making the hurdle back to normalcy higher with every day that passes. This is a realization I had recently when visiting my partner over the summer.
Pictured: Some Truly Delicious Food. Photo Courtesy of Author, Who Totally Embarrassed Herself to Take it like Some Wannabe Influencer, so Please Appreciate the Effort.
When I left for school, we were comfortably within the vanilla rain sounds population, falling asleep to the sounds of gentle rain and the occasional roll of far-off thunder. Things escalated quickly in the fall semester without his temperance. Gentle rain sounds became rain on tin roofs, became rain in the jungle with birds cawing and monkeys howling, became howling snowstorms. By the spring, I’d moved onto the sounds of coffee shops. Finally, my night time white noise radicalization brought me to Korean street food videos, where for the last five months the repetitive sounds of chopping and deep frying have mixed with the noise of crowds and customers to produce the perfect ambient noise to fall asleep to. Or at least it’s perfect if you have followed your own escalating ambient noise progression, which my partner had not. Rather than soothing, he found the videos jarring, and the irregular noises distracting instead of blending together into one great comforting blanket. We switched back to regular rain sounds.
You might be thinking to yourself at this point, wow. This is the worst restaurant review I’ve ever read. This writer ought to run a recipe blog if she’s so willing to overshare personal details that no one asked for before getting to the real content. And while those thoughts might hurt my feelings, they aren’t wrong. The point of all that background is to say, I have been dreaming of Korean street food both literally and figuratively for months. When the chance to try Maru came up, I had to seize the opportunity. Maru is a modern take on traditional Korean food, with a great location on the downtown mall. I ate outside and enjoyed some people watching while our food was prepared, but the indoor dining also looked great with comfy booths and a big open kitchen. It’s a great place for a group outing or a date, with very reasonable prices.
For appetizers, we ordered the Kimchi Jeon, a delicious kimchi and scallion pancake. This food can get spicy if you aren’t used to Asian cooking, but there are plenty of safer options like the pork dumplings, which come deep fried and perfectly crisp. For entrees, there is a lot to choose from, ranging from the amazing Korean fried chicken to the tteokbokki I ordered (and highly recommend). The spicy red soup runs the gamut on chopstick skill levels, from the easy-to-grab rice cakes that act like sponges for the delicious broth, to the master level hard-boiled egg and melted mozzarella. If no one at your table orders a chef’s special which comes with the daily banchan, make sure to ask for it. The servings of kimchi and various pickled vegetables and salads are worth adding on. Finally, don’t miss out on the house made sodas. The yuzu citrus soda came very fresh with candied citrus peels—the perfect drink for a warm summer evening.
Maru is worth checking out. If you can resist the urge to slip the very cute reusable metal chopsticks into your purse on the way out, you may even be able to visit twice. Send your restaurant recommendations or places around Charlottesville you think everyone should try before graduation to dl9uh@virginia.edu.
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dl9uh@virginia.edu