WARNING. FOOD PORN ALERT.
So these are some of the places I've eaten at so far here in Seoul.
Food in South Korea is acquired taste for some, as they find it either too spicy, too sour, or just too sweet.
It's true that if you're unable to take spicy food, you'll be missing out on A LOT of the delicacies here. Even the "non-spicy" options still have a certain degree of spiciness.
Koreans also LOVE to ferment stuff. Kimchi itself is fermented cabbage. Walking along the streets or in restaurants you'll occasionally get a whiff of the fermented items and the untrained nose will find it akin to "smelly socks" (Quoted from one of my friends). But do give them a try! You'll find them really appetizing after awhile.
Hooyah Chicken and Beer Restaurant (Near SNU Station)
So these are some of the places I've eaten at so far here in Seoul.
Food in South Korea is acquired taste for some, as they find it either too spicy, too sour, or just too sweet.
It's true that if you're unable to take spicy food, you'll be missing out on A LOT of the delicacies here. Even the "non-spicy" options still have a certain degree of spiciness.
Koreans also LOVE to ferment stuff. Kimchi itself is fermented cabbage. Walking along the streets or in restaurants you'll occasionally get a whiff of the fermented items and the untrained nose will find it akin to "smelly socks" (Quoted from one of my friends). But do give them a try! You'll find them really appetizing after awhile.
Hooyah Chicken and Beer Restaurant (Near SNU Station)
Ignore the fact that we were really hungry when we had this but this tastes as good as it looks.
What I like about this restaurant?
THE FOOD IS ALREADY COOKED.
I love the whole hands-on experience of BBQ-ing and cooking your own food but honestly when you're famished, you just want to devour the entire plate asap. The chicken comes in wings, breasts and thighs and are all glazed with their specialty BBQ sauce. The platter also comes with several ddeokbokkis (rice cakes) and potato wedges. We ordered a side plate of Cheese Fries as well (Not in picture.) The fries were awesome as they still had the potato skin on and tasted pretty much like those from Popeyes. Price was reasonable as well! This Platter + Cheese Fries amounted to about 6000 won each for 4 people. Sharing is the way to go here in Korea!
Unknown Chinese Skewered Meat Restaurant near SNU Station
What I like about this restaurant?
THE FOOD IS ALREADY COOKED.
I love the whole hands-on experience of BBQ-ing and cooking your own food but honestly when you're famished, you just want to devour the entire plate asap. The chicken comes in wings, breasts and thighs and are all glazed with their specialty BBQ sauce. The platter also comes with several ddeokbokkis (rice cakes) and potato wedges. We ordered a side plate of Cheese Fries as well (Not in picture.) The fries were awesome as they still had the potato skin on and tasted pretty much like those from Popeyes. Price was reasonable as well! This Platter + Cheese Fries amounted to about 6000 won each for 4 people. Sharing is the way to go here in Korea!
Unknown Chinese Skewered Meat Restaurant near SNU Station
Pretty much everything about how we got to this restaurant was unknown because we were really hungry and disappointed that so many places were closed during Chuseok. We were wandering the back alleys of SNU Station where we came across this place!
Our requirement for dinner that day was just basically - BBQ Meat.
When we got here we started using broken Korean and sign language to ask about the prices because we kinda had a budget of 10000 won each. The Korean BBQ outlets here charge by weight rather than the all-you-can-eat meat back in Singapore so things can get quite expensive if you eat a lot. A rough gauge would be 35000-40000 won for 1.2kg of meat. (I don't know how much meat that is.)
I decided to whack a bit of Chinese just to try my luck because apparently there are quite a lot of mainland Chinese living in Korea. Turns out they really do speak Chinese! This place sells mainly lamb meat for the BBQ Skewers and chicken for the other dishes.
What's cool about this place is the fact that every table has their own automated skewer cooking contraption. Charcoal is added at the base and these wonderful spinning things just turn and turn, cooking your meat evenly. The Koreans put so much thought into their food machinery.
Yoogane Dakgalbi Restaurant (Near SNU Station)
Our requirement for dinner that day was just basically - BBQ Meat.
When we got here we started using broken Korean and sign language to ask about the prices because we kinda had a budget of 10000 won each. The Korean BBQ outlets here charge by weight rather than the all-you-can-eat meat back in Singapore so things can get quite expensive if you eat a lot. A rough gauge would be 35000-40000 won for 1.2kg of meat. (I don't know how much meat that is.)
I decided to whack a bit of Chinese just to try my luck because apparently there are quite a lot of mainland Chinese living in Korea. Turns out they really do speak Chinese! This place sells mainly lamb meat for the BBQ Skewers and chicken for the other dishes.
What's cool about this place is the fact that every table has their own automated skewer cooking contraption. Charcoal is added at the base and these wonderful spinning things just turn and turn, cooking your meat evenly. The Koreans put so much thought into their food machinery.
Yoogane Dakgalbi Restaurant (Near SNU Station)
This is a magical place.
I came here with with my SNUBuddy group and I CAN'T BELIEVE there's a Yoogane outlet in Singapore but I'm not aware of it until now.
What my table had was a bit different from the typical Yoogane dish where they throw chicken, all those vegetables and Pepper Paste (Gochujang) and mix it all together with like a huge metal boundary around it.
MINE HAD A MOAT OF CHEESE.
A FRIGGIN
MOAT
OF
MOLTEN
CHEESE
It was so good! You don't have to do anything and the servers will cook the food for you, mixing up all the ingredients while you watch the cheese melt teasingly all around the hotplate. When it's done you just grab whatever chicken you can find and scoop up the cheese.
NOT ONE DROP OF SAUCE IS WASTED. Rice (Add-on order) is thrown in at the end and fried together with the remaining leftovers and serves to fill up your stomach. (If it hasn't already been.)
So good. This is a must try. I'm pretty sure Yoogane has branches all around Korea so just see if they have this cheese-y special. If I'm not wrong it was around 19800 won but good for 3-4 people.
MukShiDonna MyeongDong
I came here with with my SNUBuddy group and I CAN'T BELIEVE there's a Yoogane outlet in Singapore but I'm not aware of it until now.
What my table had was a bit different from the typical Yoogane dish where they throw chicken, all those vegetables and Pepper Paste (Gochujang) and mix it all together with like a huge metal boundary around it.
MINE HAD A MOAT OF CHEESE.
A FRIGGIN
MOAT
OF
MOLTEN
CHEESE
It was so good! You don't have to do anything and the servers will cook the food for you, mixing up all the ingredients while you watch the cheese melt teasingly all around the hotplate. When it's done you just grab whatever chicken you can find and scoop up the cheese.
NOT ONE DROP OF SAUCE IS WASTED. Rice (Add-on order) is thrown in at the end and fried together with the remaining leftovers and serves to fill up your stomach. (If it hasn't already been.)
So good. This is a must try. I'm pretty sure Yoogane has branches all around Korea so just see if they have this cheese-y special. If I'm not wrong it was around 19800 won but good for 3-4 people.
MukShiDonna MyeongDong
This was a recommendation from a friend of mine in Singapore (Hi Michelle!)
The place is a little hard to find in Myeongdong cos the 'M' for Myeongdong pretty much stands for 'Maze'. Lol.
The phone number is 02-754-0405
I was lucky to have Ellen with me who's Korean so she just had to call the place and ask for directions. I think if I were by myself I'd just be sitting by the streets eating street food.
This place offers Ddeokbokki (yes again) in like a broth of vegetables and what seems like also Gochujang (yes again.) However you can also add stuff to the broth! Like ham, ramyeon etc. Please add Ramyeon I don't know why but it kinda adds a kind of nice texture to it.
Food Idealists however, will shun that option because it's pretty much instant noodles.
The English translations for the add-on items are really funny though I think I saw one called "Cellophane" and another was "Stupid". "Can I add on Stupid Cellophane please?"
Another item on the menu is Bokkkeumbap (Fried Rice) which was reaaaally good as well. They add lots of cheese and laver (seaweed) and you just mix it around on the hot plate. The cheese melts and you're face to face with these really awesome lump of carbohydrate goodness.
They are relatively cheap as well but just be careful not to order too much, which we did. :/
Well! That's all for this food post I do hope you're not reading this at night. You'll realise many of these outlets are located near SNU Station because my school is in that vicinity and naturally I eat around there quite often. I'll soon venture out but I'm sure those outlets have branches in other parts of Seoul! A quick Google will get you there!
The place is a little hard to find in Myeongdong cos the 'M' for Myeongdong pretty much stands for 'Maze'. Lol.
The phone number is 02-754-0405
I was lucky to have Ellen with me who's Korean so she just had to call the place and ask for directions. I think if I were by myself I'd just be sitting by the streets eating street food.
This place offers Ddeokbokki (yes again) in like a broth of vegetables and what seems like also Gochujang (yes again.) However you can also add stuff to the broth! Like ham, ramyeon etc. Please add Ramyeon I don't know why but it kinda adds a kind of nice texture to it.
Food Idealists however, will shun that option because it's pretty much instant noodles.
The English translations for the add-on items are really funny though I think I saw one called "Cellophane" and another was "Stupid". "Can I add on Stupid Cellophane please?"
Another item on the menu is Bokkkeumbap (Fried Rice) which was reaaaally good as well. They add lots of cheese and laver (seaweed) and you just mix it around on the hot plate. The cheese melts and you're face to face with these really awesome lump of carbohydrate goodness.
They are relatively cheap as well but just be careful not to order too much, which we did. :/
Well! That's all for this food post I do hope you're not reading this at night. You'll realise many of these outlets are located near SNU Station because my school is in that vicinity and naturally I eat around there quite often. I'll soon venture out but I'm sure those outlets have branches in other parts of Seoul! A quick Google will get you there!