We’re back at work after spending a weekend in Korea, eating food, walking around (to make space for more food), and generally changing up our routine a bit.
The weather in Seoul was just about perfect for us – sunny both days, a little hotter on Sunday, but no rain like we were experiencing back in Japan’s rainy season. The temperature was comfortable and really got us in the mood for cold beer.
Unfortunately, Seoul didn’t seem to be the kind of town where beer is flowing easily. Often we’d walk to restaurants and try to order beer and small snacks, but many restaurants simply didn’t carry beer, or else they said we had to order a full meal if we wanted to drink beer. It kind of put a dent in our strategy of eating only a small amount at many places instead of a big amount at just of few.
Despite that small issue, we had a great time eating our way through town. We stayed in the Myeon-Dong area, which was a first for me. Long ago I stayed in Korea for a long weekend on my own, and walked around town. Kuniko also had been there before a few times with friends, and it became apparent after a while that the Korea that I knew was different from the Korea she knew. Probably I found my way around Korea using the Lonely Planet guide, and so the places that I went to almost 10 years ago were more on the grungy side – cheap and local places, sprinkled with the major sightseeing attractions. In Myeon-Dong I felt like a tourist for certain, with lots of shops specifically targeting tourists, especially Japanese. There were plenty of restaurants there, and most people spoke both English and Japanese, so it made ordering food very smooth.
We started our eating with two bowls of noodles and gyoza at Myeong-Dong Gyoza, a Korean take on Chinese food. It was a popular restaurant with several shops in the area, and the menu had only four items so ordering was simple. The gyoza were pretty good (steamed, like I prefer) but the real star was the cold Korean noodles bathed in a spicy jan sauce with strips of zucchini interwoven in the noodles.
After walking around the area for a while we were hoping for a couple of cold beers, so we stopped at a pub advertising beer and chicken. We saw signs and ads for fried chicken just about everywhere we went – it is a big deal in Seoul. We pulled up a seat on a balcony overlooking the busy street, and ordered up some beers. The staff insisted that we’d need to order some chicken, so I ordered what I thought was a small plate of fried chicken. The result was a just about a KFC bucket worth of chicken, topped with a sweet sauce and slivers of green onions. Very delicious, but we were still full from the noodles to make much of a dent.
After all the food we decided to check into our hotel, and found it easily enough just to the south of the shopping district and at the base of the park surrounding Seoul Tower. Kuniko did a great job picking out the hotel – far enough from the noise of the shopping area but close enough to get there easily. Our room was really big, too. The curtains were a little transparent, though – we had to be careful wearing clothes while we were walking around late at night!
For dinner we decided that we’d go check out Gwangjang Market in a different part of town. For fun we decided to walk there rather than take the subway, and that proved to be a good choice since we could make some more stomach space as we went. On the way to the market we could start to feel some of the non-touristy Seoul… the streets and shops a little dirtier, the pedestrians a little older and more weathered. We walked along a street that was just lighting shops – blocks and blocks of shops selling basically the same lights and light fixtures. The sidewalk was very uneven here and some of the alleyways looked a little spooky. This is what I remembered from my previous trip to Seoul.
When we arrived at the market we went inside, and it was much bigger than I expected. It seemed like several city blocks had been covered with a roof and lined with shops. The shops were divided by goods, so that one area was all clothes, another was all medicine, and so on. Even the food areas were divided like this. One street was all meats and sausages (with boiled hog heads for decoration), another dedicated to Kimpa, still others to chijimi and other fried goods. Each food stall had a seating area in front of it, so that you could step over the stool, sit down, and the staff would provide you with plenty of food. Our first stop was for some Kimpa (Korean rolled sushi) and beer, and while we sat watching the lady roll up the sushi behind us hundreds of people pushed past looking for their dinner. The atmosphere was lively and active, and I really enjoyed the feeling of eating right there on the street. As long as you don’t mind a bump or an elbow now and then it was very comfortable.
After the sushi we walked up and down the stalls, passing up the chijimi being fried in a lake of oil, until we settled on a place selling kimchi dumplings. These turned out to be the big surprise of the trip. Not only filled with kimchi, the larger than average dumplings were also laced with some kind of cheese with the consistency of ricotta. I really liked the flavor combination, but it was a really big plate of dumplings. The portion size in Seoul was uniformly large – maybe an American influence?
While eating dumplings we were able to witness a dispute between the operator of our stand and an adjacent stand over some customers. My best guess is that our operator stole some customers from the other stand, and so they had it out in big voices in the middle of the market. From body language and facial expressions I guessed that the operator of our stand was in the wrong, and the customer that had just sat down at our stand got up and went to the other one. Exciting!
Also during this trip to the market I was able to solve one of the mysteries that had haunted me since my last trip to Korea more than ten years ago. At that time, I had bought a big bundle of cookies to bring back to Japan, and when I got home to Japan and opened them up I remembered them being really, really delicious. At that time I had seen the cookies everywhere, so I figured they were famous, but having eaten all the evidence it was pretty hard to figure out what they where and if it was possible to get more. Luckily I found them again at this market, and we were able to buy some single cookies to try them out. They were just what I remembered, although really unhealthy. Kind of like deep fried donuts in cookie form. It turns out these are traditional Korean cookies and we can even buy them in Japan online, so the problem is resolved. The trouble is, they are so oily that I probably should limit my intake to a couple of cookies every ten years.
After the market we had filled our stomachs again, so it was off to a completely different market across town – stretching our legs and trying to make some space for more delicious food. On the streets we were able to buy an egg snack that I really liked – an egg baked into a slightly sweet biscuit and grilled – yum! It was cooked until the egg was just firmed up enough to eat without getting yolk everywhere. I liked it a lot, actually. Our final stop for the evening was a shop serving cold bibimba noodles. The shop was filled with mirrors, and it made for some interesting pictures. The noodles weren’t so spicy – we were hoping for more heat – but it was refreshing after walking all over town.
On our way back to the hotel room for the night we stopped at a convenience store and had fun exploring all the interesting goodies they had for sale. We bought some beers, banana milk, a can a makkori (16% alcohol!) and some juice and water for breakfast the next day. We enjoyed the beer and makkori while resting up in our hotel room and they were a perfect accompaniment for the antacid that I preemptively took before bed.
Hard to believe we started the day at home in Okubo!
We slept in a bit on the second day, and then got organized and went out to buy some aspirin for a slight headache I had. I’m not sure if it was the new hotel pillow, or just exceeding my maximum calorie count, but the aspirin knocked it out and I was ready to get back into the eating groove.
We checked out of our hotel, and then went off to get a coffee at one of the many coffee houses around Seoul. Besides a wealth of chicken restaurants, we saw so many coffee shops lining almost every street. We went to a Starbucks knock-off called Tom & Tom’s coffee, and enjoyed a slow start to our morning.
Our first dining experience for Sunday was a BBQ place. We could order small sizes of everything (but the beers were big) and we started with bulgogi pork. They served us the pork on the hot grill in front of us, and out of habit I started to cook it. The server told us not to touch anything, so we went back to just drinking beers. Every so often the server would come and stir around the meat and sauce until she was satisfied with the progress. When it was finally ready we put the meat on a lettuce leaf, with some sauces and vegetables, and the stuffed it in our mouths. Excellent! They did some kind of treatment to the meat so that it firmed up nicely and didn’t fall apart. I was really impressed.
For dessert we walked to a dessert cafe, and ordered a shaved ice covered completely in kinako (roasted soybean powder) that was a nice refreshing change. By now it was really starting to warm up outside, and so we stuck around the air conditioned cafe for a while to cool down.
Eventually we made our way back to Seoul station, stopping along at some food stands along the way to eat items from our “to eat” list. We looked long and hard for a place to get some cold beer around Seoul station, but we came up empty. The best we could figure was that it was a national holiday of some sort, as one of the biggest supermarkets was also closed for the day (on a Sunday!), so maybe it was just bad timing.
We ended up having lunch (our second of the day, if you’ve been paying attention) at a restaurant inside Seoul station that had been recommended online – Bulgogi Brothers. We just came from eating bulgogi somewhere else, so we had some seafood (clam?) bibimba, served cold, spicy and delicious with two big beers. Every time we ordered something it always came with lots of kimchi, vegetables, salad and soup on the side, so we just ordered one thing at most places and split everything that came. It worked out well, although sometimes the staff would make a face like we were costing them a sale or something. Sorry guys, but that’s just how we roll…
Since we were at the station we decided to go ahead and travel to Incheon airport early, and kill time there. We caught the express train and slept pretty much the entire way – thanks to the power of a full stomach and beer. In Incheon airport we explored quite a bit. Usually we are transferring through the airport so we don’t get to see what is on the other side of security, and we were pleasantly surprised to find a lot of eating options. The airport is huge – so we had lots of steps to get from one side to the other, but that just made us hungry again.
Our last meal in Korea was at the airport – pretty standard Korean pork belly with soup and kimchi, and I had what ended up being a Turkish fried wrap that was OK although a little greasy. Fortunately we were able to find some other small snacks along the way – a green bean milk, a delicious honey milk tea, and various snacks and souvenirs to share with our neighbors when we get back.
While waiting for our plane to board we went to a cafe to buy some coffee, and the scene was just on the edge of chaos. We got in our order OK, but all around people pushed and shoved trying to buy bread and snacks. The cashier looked really stressed as she tried to manage the crowds, and she was so busy keeping them in line she forgot to make our coffees. We were watching everything from the sidelines, and finally another staff member noticed the tickets in the machine and started making the coffees. It was easy to see every emotion on the poor cashier’s face – I think she was having a really rough day. The coffee was good, though!
In the end our plane was about ten minutes late in boarding, but they made up the time in the air, and we were able to get back home by midnight. It really was a great culinary adventure, and a good way to break up our weekend routine. Next trip, Eastern Europe!waiti
