Omarise

EGGS and toasted sesame seeds are a big feature of Korean cuisine.
Yes, of course noodles and steamed rice take prime position at the head of the Korean food pyramid, but eggs and sesame seeds are not only for taste. They're also for presentation.

Almost every Korean dish has egg in it in some form - nothing fancy.
It comes fried and slapped on top of your cold bibimbap, slightly warm and gooey, or raw and runny atop your dolsot bibimbap, cooking to a crunch against the hot stone pot as you mix it in with vegetables and rice, also crisped by the heat.
In tteok-poki ordered at a hawker stall, request a keran and it's a whole boiled egg imbued with a sweet spicy sauce from bubbling away in a street-side vat. At an eatery, it's a cold boiled egg cut in half and lying atop the dish, more as decoration.
In a jjigae, it may be a raw egg that poaches gently at the table.

Sesame seeds are sprinkled on everything, and really do add such a lovely subtle nutty flavour.
In gim-baps, toasted sesame seeds, and maybe a dash of sesame oil, is added to the steamed rice, and then after they're rolled a smattering goes on top. A lick of sesame oil is also brushed onto the seaweed to seal the roll.
Sesame seeds almost always make a feature in panchae - side dishes - and then there's the sweet side of things - tteok balls filled with a sweet honey sesame mixture.

Back to the egg.

This dish is called o-ma-rise, which sounds almost English as it seems to hint at "omlette" and "rice". Omarise seems to be a dish popular with school children and is almost non-spicy, so a good starting dish for somebody with a low threshold for hot foods.
We don't order omarise often because it's fairly devoid of vegetables, but when something plain is the call of the day, it's perfect.
It is simply a half-plate of steamed rice mixed with seasonings and a sprinkle of chopped vegetables. Then a circular egg omlette is folded over the top, tucked beneath and drizzled with a kind of Korean gravy, a squirt of mayonnaise and maybe a dash of tomato sauce.
In between mouthfuls of steaming carbs, there's a nice crunchy cabbage coleslaw with a spoonful of creamy dressing on the side, and of course doenjang guk (soybean soup) to wet the palate as well as kimchi for a sour spicy kick.

Sometimes, when at a Korean eatery enjoying my favourite dishes, I love nothing more than to sneak stares at the locals eating - the way they load noodles onto their spoons with such ease and dart their chopsticks between bowl and kimchi, bowl and kimchi, spoon to soup to mouth, bowl and kimchi. Or the way they press rice onto their spoon or cut their deep-fried pork cutlet into bite-sized pieces with a knife and fork always before eating (the only dish where they don't use chopsticks) - they never cut pieces as they go.

Aaah, people-watching and eating is such a good combination.