The other day, it was hot and muggy and disgusting, and we went for dinner to the Korean/Japanese place here in town, Sushi Yasu. I ordered oshitashi (cold spinach with sesame), a bunch of nigiri, and “cold noodles,” confirmed by the waitress to be zarusoba, cold soba noodles with the most delicious dipping sauce known to humankind, and a perennial hot-weather favorite of mine.
But i think we had a language barrier situation, because instead of soba what arrived was mool naeng myun, the cleverest invention of Korean cookery: tasty noodles, tasty beef and egg, tasty julienned raw vegetables, in cold broth… WITH LOTS OF ICE CUBES.
I can’t think of any other food short of beverages that actually goes so far as to include the ice cubes in the food itself, thereby keeping it super cool and crisp so as to continually counteract the general icky sticky warmness of your being.