A Bittersweet Seoul Part 2 - The Food

Oh glorious food!

This is the 5th time in Seoul for me and the first time I stayed in Seoul without having touched any Kalbi!

Anyway here are some snippets of what I ate throughout my stay this time.

First off, haemul tang (seafood soup). As you can see in the photo below, it's basically spicy soup (with chilli powder) and an abundant array of seafood - from fish to mussels to clams to octopus to squid to vegetable to mushrooms to...

And can you see that weird looking intestine like thing there? They're fish guts.

The soup itself got really 'sweet' after simmering for a while and goes well with plain short grain rice.




Next is Kraze Burger. It's a Korean burger chain with a fine array of delectable burgers served with pickles and fries.




My friend brought me out of the city into Gyeonggi-do (about an hour's drive out) and we came to this traditional looking restaurant. He says it is one of his favourite places since they serve home cooked style Korean cuisine. The place is really cold inside due to the lack of heating but I liked it nonetheless. The walls were decorated with ancient Korean words that could not be deciphered by either of us.







The dishes did have a 'homecooked' vibe to them. Seen here are some river fish grilled and then lathered with sweet chilli paste. Even the dwenjangjigge tasted different (not better or worse... just more rustic).










I did of course have 2 things I normally have when I visit Seoul. First was juk (korean porridge). The tables of the restaurant are so finely decorated underneath the glass table top.







The other dish is buddaejigge (aka army stew or potluck stew) which is a kimchi and chilli based stew with lots of spam and sausages and ramyeon. I had this twice during my trip. One place even supplied bibs as the stew would bubble and splatter all over us.




There was also a quick stop at Krispy Kreme. It was a bit sweet though. We ordered a dozen of the originals with some Arizona lemonade. On another note, I must say that Rotiboy is doing well in Seoul!










I must mention that if ever you are in South Korea during strawberry season, FOR GOODNESS SAKE, BUY SOME!!! They will easily be among the largest and sweetest dalgi (strawberries) you will ever have and it is not a boast.




The best bulgogi I've ever had. We had the same thing the following day because it was so good. The side dishes here are spicy as hell but so delicious.




An aesthetically pleasing pumpkin tea after a wonderful lunch at Nolboo (which was surprisingly good for a chain restaurant though I was too busy stuffing my face to take any photos of the food).




A really special dinner of samgyupsal with rice cake slices to accompany the pork and grilled kimchi. The place was stuffy as everyone was grilling and the smell soaked into my sweaters but I didn't care. This meal was superb especially with the naengmyon (cold noodles) perfectly complementing the spicy pork. The grill was placed slanted to ensure that the fat would just roll down into the kimchi as the pork gave out its juices.







It was one the last cold mornings I spent in Seoul when I decided to venture into the Korean pizza chain, Mr Pizza. The chain had the cute Moon Geum Young (aka Korea's national little sister) as a spokesperson. The pizza I chose had cajun chicken and prawn on it. The crust I chose was made from 'frozen' dough which resulted in a crispy crunchy texture.










Ok near the end of this post...

The last thing I got before I left Incheon Airport... a really nice box of beautiful korean rice cakes (which I felt were too pretty to be eaten).




Copyright (c) Kelvin Tan

A Bittersweet Seoul Part 1 - The Arrival

For some unwritten reasons, I decided to make a trip to my so-called 2nd home, Seoul, a couple of weeks back. It was perhaps the last bits of winter with the Northern winds from Russia blowing so the temperature was quite cold (on some days it dropped to -7 degrees Celcius). I love the cold but I certainly had rashes and flaky skin from the exceedingly dry air.

I landed in Incheon airport on the morning of the 7th of March. The road leading from the airport to Seoul was a welcome sight. It always signified a promising week of fun and relaxation in a place I am now so familiar with (and yet so alien - alien enough to still make me feel that I want to know more about life in Seoul).




This time around, I decided to leave my DSLR in the hotel and basically spent the entire holiday only lugging around the Panasonic Lumix LX-3. I had found the leather case I was looking for in Technomart on the first day I arrived and the case is so beautiful that it made me simply want to use the camera outdoors all the time. Also, after such a long time, I could feel the freedom afforded to me with the more compact form of the LX-3 and enjoy the holiday so much more instead of worrying too much with the bigger DSLR. I thought it was a compromise of image quality I could afford.




Now, most tourists think of Yongsan as the place for electronics but lately, Yongsan has had a bit of bad press and stories of rude dealers. My local friend brought me to the extremely customer friendly electronics mall of Technomart which features several floors of neverending shopping for the gadget enthusiast. I loved the experience a lot and many vendors were polite,helpful and ever willing to share information. In short, it was an extremely pleasant experience shopping there. Prior to that, we stopped by VIPS (which is owned by Samsung group and provides a stunning steak meal with a superb salad bar spread) for a mouth watering lunch.

I managed to find the Samsung Yepp YP-P3 MP3 player with HAPTIC technology which was only launched in certain places in the world. I also managed to find the Audio Technica ATH-EW9 which are wooden earphones that are so beautiful and irresistable.
You can read my mini review here.










After a few hours of tiring shopping and comparing of prices, we went for a very very good dinner of barbecued pork.




Now, I've always been having great food at Kangsane, Ampang but Korean food in Korea (I guess that goes for any other country as well) always tastes stronger, fresher and more appetizing.

Anyway, after that dinner, my friend brought our group to this REALLY REALLY memorable restaurant. The place was packed and we had to line up to get a car park. It was about an hour's drive from the center of the city. We were already full from dinner so we just wanted to have some coffee. The place was set in a forest clearing and it had large huts made from wooden logs. As expected, the huts were all full and many had to be put on the waiting list. We grabbed some seats around the circular hearths that dotted the areas in between the huts. Many people were just enjoying the warm flames with coffee or soju with roasted sweet potatoes. It was -7 degrees that night and we loved keeping each other warm with blankets around us as we rubbed our hands over the fire.







You can also see the standing heaters that customers stood around to escape the cold.




That night, I slept well in my hotel. The chosen abode for my week in Seoul was the very nice Art Nouveau City Hotel in Yeoksam-dong, Gangnam-gu. I got 50% of the normal rates for a Crystal Suite which had a kitchen and even had an upper floor (studio style) for extra guests.




Certainly, staying in Gangnam-gu gives one a skewed perception of Korea. It is the poshest district in all of Korea and houses the financial district. Everything here costs more and there are lots of pubs, cafes and clubs nearby to cater to the needs of the office workers in the area. You get to see lots and lots of beautiful women here (they're almost all slender, with long black hair, fine features and smooth pale skin).

I spotted a lovely pub/bistro that sells German Erdinger beer. It is called "Beautiful Beer". The waitresses were dressed in tight school uniform like outfits with short short skirts and I think it's safe to say that it was a nice place to be :) We went there a couple of times to enjoy the setting the good abundant beer. No photos of it though but I do hope to go there again on my next trip. We also spotted a place called "Sexy One Bikini Bar". I'll leave that to your imagination :)

End of part 1...

Copyright (c) Kelvin Tan