Jeonju Cuisine @ Jungang Hoegwan, Seoul

We had an early afternoon flight out of Seoul, and we barely managed to squeeze in brunch at Jeonju Jungang Hoegwan, in Myeongdong near our hotel. To say that we had a little trouble finding this place would be an understatement, but we did find it, enjoyed our delicious meal, and caught our flight back home to Tokyo. This restaurant specialises in dishes from Jeonju, a region that is well known for having the best Korean food in Korea, and it's great to sample Jeonju-style food without having to travel the 2-3 hours it takes to get to Jeonju from Seoul.

Banchan (complimentary side dishes). I've said it before, I'll say it again: I love the idea of refillable free food, especially with such a big variety that comes with a Korean meal, and you don't have to pay to eat vegetables (I don't know about you, but I always feel ripped off whenever I order a vegetable dish or a salad)!! Four small dishes for breakfast/lunch time, and I'm sure there are at least double this for dinner.

Kimchi, seaweed, vegetable namul and a spicy red dish for banchan:

Jeonju-style bibimbap uses different vegetables and spices to the usual ingredients, and it was the main thing we wanted to try. We ordered a Pork Dolsot Bibimbap which came out in a hot stone pot containing at least six types of vegetables, marinated grilled pork and a raw egg on top of steamed rice. It was pretty good as far as bibimbap goes, and it did look quite different to the 'common' one we had the day before.

Jeonju pork bibimbap:

Our second dish was one of our favourite must-have dishes at Korean restaurants: Haemul Pajeon (seafood pancake, more widely known as chijimi in Japan). This one was tasty with plenty of seafood, and more omelette-like than the pancake-like ones that we can get in Japan.

Seafood omelette-pancake:

It was a nice meal to end our trip in Seoul. We ate a lot of food and saw a lot of things in only three days, but we wished we had a little more time to experience the delicious looking royal court cuisine.

Korean Street Eats (and others) in Seoul

Even though I've been pretty fortunate to have experienced a few excellent fine dining experiences, I know that some of the best food are found on the street in countries that have a colourful and vibrant street life (such as Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Thailand just to name a few). During our recent trip to Seoul, we discovered that Korea has a pretty strong street food culture, with plenty of street food vendors set up along busy streets and amongst clothes, bags and shoes stalls in open-air market areas. Even on the crowded upscale shopping streets of Myeongdong, there was no shortage of street vendors selling a variety of hot and cold snacks and meals of both sweet and savoury (although mostly sweet) kinds. Here are shots of some of the street food (and others) we encountered in Seoul.

One of the first street food I encountered while exploring Myeongdong on my own was boiled silkworm pupa (known as Beondegi). No, I didn't try any because the lady vendor gave me a weird look when I enquired about it, like she was suggesting that it wasn't something I want to try. I hadn't heard about eating silkworms before, and with my lack of Korean language ability, and not seeing anyone around eating this stuff, I didn't want to be the foolish foreigner who'd been duped into eating something that not even the locals ate. I probably would have been game to try it if I wasn't on my own. I did eat one of the toasted garaetteok (rice cake) that the vendor was keeping warm on the grill next to the vat of boiled silkworm pupa, but that was very plain and nothing to write about.

Vendor selling toasted garaetteok and boiled silkworm pupa:

Nearer our hotel, I walked past this roaster vendor who had various items that he would roast for you to take on-the-go. He had chestnuts, dried stringy squid, octopus and a few other items for your picking, and I found myself chatting to him in Japanese as I enquired about his food (he had signs up in Japanese, so I presumed that he had Japanese ability). I got a cup of sliced octopus, and here is a shot of him roasting my order. After I paid and received my freshly roasted octopus, he said thank you in Mandarin - he must have figured from my less-than-perfect Japanese that I wasn't a Japanese tourist. The octopus slices were deliciously sweet and had a fantastic smoky charred taste.

Friendly roaster vendor, and the yummy more-ish freshly toasted octopus slices:

After enjoying a bulgogi dinner with a friend and her husband, we went back to our hotel room with a packet of some fried snack given to us by my friend to try. This snack was very light and airy and covered with large flecks of soft-like-icing sugar crystals. It is not as sweet as it looks, and in fact doesn't really have much taste to it. I don't know what it's called, but it's popular because I saw it everywhere [edited to add: thanks to a Korean reader, I've been informed the snack is called yuga]. We also bought a sweet that is identical to the Chinese dragon's beard candy, but several vendors selling these claim that they are a traditional Korean sweet. Rob and I love dragon's beard candy, and this was perhaps the sweetest thing we had during our trip (not hard to achieve because Korean sweets are not very sweet at all).

A popular Korean snack called yuga; and the dragon's beard candy:

At Seoul Subway station, while making a transfer for Suwon, we passed by a small snack shop selling packets of brilliantly coloured soft and fluffy rice cakes. These nicely packaged cakes were selling for only 1000won, and we just had to get one to try. We'd seen them before in Tokyo's Korea-town, but we weren't sure what they were and were always too full from a meal to want to try. They were so much cheaper in Korea, and we were peckish at the time, so it was the perfect time to get one to try. There were quite a variety of Ddeok sold at this particular shop, but we didn't know what the flavours were nor did we know how to ask, so we just picked one almost randomly. It was soft and spongey, only very slightly sweet, and I enjoyed it because it was light and easy to eat. We also got some Banana-flavoured Milk, because we heard that it was something you had to try in Korea. It tastes like banana-flavoured milk! Nothing terribly special, really, but apparently it's a household staple in Korea. I did a bit of googling, and found some interesting information about Korean banana milk.

Steamed ddeok (rice cake); and banana milk:

One of Rob's favourite Korean food is a sweet filled fried pancake known as hoddeok. Ever since we first discovered this delicious treat, Rob had to get it everytime we are in Tokyo's K-town. There was a vendor in Namdaemun market selling hoddeok with 5 different fillings: sweet red beans, pumpkin, apple, strawberries and sweet potato. The pumpkin flavour was delicious, but Rob wasn't satisfied and got a second one from another stall. These are so good, especially when fresh off the hot plate.

Delicious sweet pancakes, served in a paper cup to have on-the-go:

I'm finally getting to the end of our trip to Seoul, but stay tuned for one more post, about our last meal before we flew back home to Tokyo.

"Palace Dining" @ Hwasung Byolgwan, Suwon (Korea)

I didn't have high expectations for the only proper restaurant in the vicinity of the Hwaseong Hanggeung Palace (that we could see), which also claimed to serve royal Korean cuisine. I mean, surely a restaurant like this that has dining monopoly over majority of the visitors who visits Hwaseong Hanggeung must serve overpriced dishes to hungry diners like us, lured in by the fantasy to dine like a king. Well, fortunately for us, the food at Hwasung Byeolgwan was actually pretty good. Soon after arriving at Hwaseong Palace (not the fortress as originally intended), we decided to tackle the area after filling our empty bellies, and headed towards the only (Korean) restaurant in sight for an early lunch. The restaurant is located next to a big bell, a prominent feature on the other side of the main road running alongside the huge expansive space in front of the entrance to Hwaseong Hanggeung (where the Royal Guard ceremony took place later). It's a gorgeously decorated restaurant and the waitstaff wearing the traditional Korean outfits was a nice touch. The menu offering looked good, and dishes were apparently adapted from the historical records of the food served at the banquet held by King Jeongjo for his mother's 60th birthday. The prices looked reasonable, at least for the so-called royal palace cuisine.

We were served a seasoned noodles dish and a salad to munch on while waiting for our food to arrive. I really adore the idea of banchan (side dishes), and reckon that all restaurants everywhere should employ this idea of serving complimentary dishes. (Some restaurants already have the right idea by serving complimentary bread, but having a variety of small dishes definitely beats plain bread and butter.) Being lunch time, there were only two banchan, but I'm sure it's standard practice everywhere in Korea to serve eight or more banchan for dinner time like the ones we ate during our first meal in Seoul.

Although it was already our third day in Seoul, we'd yet to eat bibimbap, one of the most representative dishes of the Korean cuisine. Hwasung Byeolgwan was offering a simple Dolsot Bibimbap of beef mince, a raw egg and vegetables served atop steamed rice inside a hot stone pot, and we got an order of it. It was quite average, an affordable one-dish meal perfect for lunch. I just love stirring through the bowl to mix all the ingredients together, and savouring the crunchy brown crust of rice stuck on the bottom of the hot pot. Normal bibimbap is pretty easy to make at home, so when I do have bibimbap outside, it's almost always the dolsot (hot stone pot) version.

For a second dish, we wanted something more substantial protein-wise. I'd heard that Suwon is famous for its beef galbi (ribs), so naturally we had to get a galbi dish. We ordered the Galbi-jjim (beef rib stew), and it was delicious! I didn't expect much because I am not a red-meat person (and would go so far to say that I actually dislike the strong flavours and smell of red meat), but I really liked this stew. The stew was rich with bovine flavours that could only come from long slow-cooking of bone and flesh, and I enjoyed pulling the tender-braised flesh off the bone-in ribs, something that I miss doing in Japan where it is almost impossible to find bone-in meat. I was pleased to find red Chinese dates in the stew which no doubt added a certain sweetness to it. It was a huge serving, but we did manage to polish it off. That lunch kept us full for a long time that day.

Dolsot Bibimbap, and the delicious Galbi Stew:

While I wouldn't say we ate like royalty, this was a pretty good experience. If we had more time, we would have loved to try royal court cuisine, no doubt because we'd salivated over the gorgeous food presented in the Korean drama Dae Jang Geum. Perhaps next time if we ever find ourselves back in Korea.

BBQ Beef Galore @ Bulgogi Brothers, Seoul

At the end of our second day in Seoul, we had the pleasure of having dinner with A of funkynomadeats and her husband F. They brought us to Bulgogi Brothers, a barbecue restaurant chain with a branch near our hotel in Myeongdong. They ordered a set meal which was supposed to feed 2-3 people, but there was more than enough meat to fill four adult bellies. Korea has a strong beef culture, which no doubt helps to keep the Australian beef export industry very healthy.

The various bottomless banchan (side dishes) placed on our table: unshelled peanuts, baked satsumaimo (sweet potato), pickled vegetables, normal leafy salad and potato salad, the ubiquitous kimchi, and cold tofu - we could re-order any of these for no extra charge. A 3-plate condiment dish were provided for every diner to eat with the barbecued meat - a salty soy based sauce, a spicy red sauce and salt:

We also tried a type of Korean alcoholic beverage, called Makuly. It wasn't very strong, maybe about 7% alcohol so it was quite easy to drink. We had both types of naengmyeon (cold buckwheat noodles, the mul naengmyeon (in cold beef broth) and the spicy red bibim naengmyeon. I'm a hot noodles person, but I actually liked these cold noodles. They were chewy and sticky, but very tasty. Interestingly, A said that the Koreans like to eat cold food in winter and hot food in summer, so naengmyeon is actually traditionally a winter dish. I would love to know the reasoning behind this seasonal tradition because it seems counter-intuitive (I love my hot soups, hot food and hot drinks during winter, and survive summer with plenty of cool icy drinks and treats).

The Korean rice wine, makuly; and the two types of naengmyeon:

We had three types of beef, but I don't know the names of each type/cut. The meat was all cooked by the staff on the barbecue grill on our table, and we were pretty full by the end of the meal:

It was a delicious meal, even for a non-red meat person as me. The company was also lovely, as we all chatted and got to know one another over a good meal. Thanks A and F for being such great hosts in a strange land, and for the yummy meal!

Seoul Day 2, Part II: Modern and Traditional Downtown Seoul

While hubby was enjoying his DMZ tour, the 18-month-old and I explored downtown Seoul on foot - or more correctly, the boy sat (and napped) in his stroller while I pushed it around.

Myeongdong

As I'd mentioned previously, we stayed in a hotel in Myeongdong, which is one of Seoul's upscale shopping districts. We were told by a taxi driver that most of the Japanese tourists base themselves in Myeongdong for the shopping. The Japanese love shopping, so it's no surprise that most of the Asian tourists on the downtown streets were Japanese. I recall one of my Japanese adult students mentioning to me that she went to Seoul for a 3 day trip with her mum, and all she did was shopped. I am not much of a shopper myself, but I did step into the Lotte Department Store located opposite our hotel, although I only explored the food basement section. In the morning, I wandered around the area nearby to our hotel, with no map in hand but somehow found myself in the market area of Namdaemun, a historical gate which had been the oldest wooden structure in Seoul before the 2008 arson.

Colourful lit and dancing fountain near our hotel; and a small part of the Lotte Department Store's food basement, this sub-shop sold various Korean cakes:

The big fountain in front of the Bank of Korea Museum in Myeongdong, near our hotel; and one of the many market stall-lined streets of Namdaemun market near the fountain:

Insadong

In the afternoon, I was fortunate enough to have the company of fellow foodie blogger, A of funkynomadeats. She's a Malaysian currently residing in Seoul, and this was our first time meeting in person. She brought us to Insadong, where there are many traditional teahouses, restaurants, and shops selling traditional Korean goods. It was interesting to see the similarities between the Korean culture with both the Japanese and Chinese cultures.

The Friday afternoon crowd on the streets in Insadong, a very popular tourist spot in Seoul - it was not fun at all moving through this crowd with a stroller; and a stall selling a type of taffy, which, according to A, is a super-hard candy made from nothing much other than sugar, with a nut-coated variety also available:

More Korean snacks - puffed rice, thin savoury biscuits and sweet nut clusters; and a Korean performance on the street - the group was simultaneously singing, drumming and twirling those long ribbons attached to their headgears (they must have some strong neck muscles!)

The Japanese-style mochitsuki, on the streets of Seoul, although not done as quickly and efficiently (but lessens the danger of injury); and the Cheonggyecheon Stream that separates the traditional and modern parts of Seoul:

At some strange artistic display inside one of the spaces between buildings off the main street in Insadong:

Seoul Day 2, Part I: DMZ - the fine line between North and South Korea

One of the things Rob wanted to do during our Korea trip was to visit the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ). Due to the, er, somewhat hostile nature of the area, I wasn't very keen on bringing our 18 month old to the DMZ, so we decided that we would split up for just a day during our trip to Seoul. When I was researching about DMZ tours, I was struck by how strict the tour rules are, which included restrictions on what kind of clothing you can wear, not permitted to bring cameras with lenses larger than 100mm, and prohibited from pointing, making rude gestures and sudden movements. And it turns out that for part of the tour, children under 11 years old aren't allowed to participate, so it was just as well that I'd decided to stay behind in downtown Seoul with Zak. I suppose the strictness is to be expected for a restricted military zone. Rob was booked to go on a full day guided tour to the DMZ on our second day in Seoul, and he took along the newly-purchased Canon. This is a lengthy post, because Rob took quite a lot of photos, all meaningful and interesting hence it was difficult for me to cull them down to under 15 shots for this post. Rob took the time to write captions for each of the shots, so that we too may take a peek into the world's most heavily militarised border between North and South Korea. Many of the shots would, at first glance, appear meaningless without Rob's explanation, so do take the time to read.

The writing from hereon are Rob's words (captions follow each photo).

During our trip to South Korea last weekend I did a tour of the demilitarised zone along the border of South and North Korea. Unfortunately Jean and I couldn't bring Zak so I went on my own while Jean took Zak elsewhere, but it was still an incredible experience.

One of the recurring themes I noticed was that the South Koreans seem to have no animosity toward North Korea and instead talk constantly about unifying the two nations peacefully (Kim Dae-Jung's longstanding sunshine policy may have been a factor?). One of the symbolic steps toward unification that came up often on the tour was the possibility of reconnecting the train line between South and North Korea. Currently South Korea is like an island; they have to use boat or aeroplane to get anywhere since their only connection to the mainland is through North Korea. Reconnecting that line would not only open up trade and passenger routes, it would signify a large step in peaceful trade and exchange between the two nations.


During the trip I was often unable to take photographs due to the heavy military restrictions in the area. I'll try to elaborate in the captions where appropriate.

This sculpture stood outside the entrance to the 3rd infiltration tunnel. I was unable to take photographs inside the tunnel. The tunnel was short in height (I had to stoop most of the walk) and covered in black coal. The North Koreans had painted the walls with coal in order to pretend the tunnels were simply old coal mines. When that bluff failed they claimed it was the South Koreans who had dug the tunnel. Evidence to the contrary was the direction the dynamite drill holes were pointed and the fact that the tunnel sloped downhill to North Korea to assist drainage during digging. They discovered the tunnel thanks to a defected North Korean engineer who claimed to have been involved in the building of the tunnel and knew where it was located. They placed PVC pipes into the ground at regular intervals and filled them with water. When one of the pipes exploded with water and started draining all water fed into it they knew they'd found the tunnel. Over the next 3 months they managed to dig their own tunnel to intercept it and block it off.

This was at an observation deck overlooking the DMZ. It was from here I could see the North Korean propaganda village. This yellow line indicates the point after which I was no longer allowed to take photographs. So my following pictures of the village are particularly crappy since I had to take the picture from 5 metres back with the camera lifted above my head to get a good shot over the wall.


(Jean's note - it looked like it was hazy that day because the image below was not very clear, but I've tried my best to edit this shot to show a clearer image)

The forbidden village. Visibility was pretty poor this day but you can see the North Korean flag pole. This is the tallest flag pole in the world. Supposedly nobody actually lives in this village and it was built soley to give the impression of affluence to South Koreans.

This was taken in a train station near the border of North Korea. It was recently built and opened in the hope that one day it would connect through North Korea to the rest of Asia and Europe. This map shows all the locations the train would be able to reach should that happen. The station was opened with much fanfare with the presidents of both South Korea and the United States symbolically signing railway ties to commemorate the occasion.

A sign above the gate to the platform for trains headed north optimistically declaring Pyeongyang to be the destination.

The bridge of freedom. This bridge was used by celebrating Korean war POWs to cross the river to South Korea and freedom at the end of the war.

The last train which attempted to cross the previous bridge during the war. It was disabled with artillery and the train conductor had to abandon the train and flee to South Korea. He claimed it "was like leaving his baby behind". Recently the train was reclaimed in its rusted state and restored. The same train conductor was given the opportunity to drive the train again. The train's also seen as a symbol of Korea's current division in much the same way as the new train line being a symbol of unification.

This was one of many monuments in Imjingak (the bridge of freedom and train are also here). The town has come to represent the broken families due to the division of Korea and people often come to this area to pay respect to their ancestors whose graves lie across the border. This particular monument represents 7 regions near the border which many families in the region originally came from but could no longer return to due to the division. Each pillar has a bas-relief sculpture depicting things its symbolised region was or is famous for.

This was a large monument dedicated to the nations which assisted South Korea in defending itself from the Soviet / North Korean invasion. The central section is large enough to walk around in and contains plaques of gratitude and more sculptures depicting various forms of military in battle.

This is a building which lies on the border of North and South Korea in the Joint Security Area (a camp controlled jointly by both North Korean and United Nations forces). The building is used for armistice agreements and peace talks and the like. The United Nations soldier is performing a bad-arse pose for people to take photos with. This is how all the UN soldiers stood during our visit.

Looking outside the window. That kerb is the Military Demarcation line lying precisely on the border between North and South Korea.

This is the table Peace talks and the like are held at. The line down the centre of this table is the Military Demarcation line lying precisely on the border between North and South Korea. I am currently standing in North Korea while taking this photograph.

This is a photograph of the outside of two United Nations buildings lying on the demarcation line (one being the one the previous photographs were taken in). Looking over to the North Korean side. The UN guards are all on high alert in case North Korea decides it wants to kill or capture some tourists.

This is in the same camp. This bridge is named the bridge of no return. POWs from both sides of the war were given the opportunity to cross the border here. This was there last and only chance to cross; whether they crossed or stayed they wouldn't have another opportunity to cross. Hence the name.

Just off to the right of this is the stump of the tree which played the stage for the Axe murder incident in the 1970s. As I said before this camp is jointly controlled by the UN and North Korea. Currently both must stay on their side of the demarcation line. However prior to the axe murder incident both sides could move freely through the whole camp. There were watchtowers throughout the camp with one particularly isolated UN one to the south west which was surrounded by two North Korean camps and only partially visible from a UN tower to the north. Visibility was obscured by a large tree. A UN Captain Bonifas decided one day to cut this tree to improve visability. A North Korean Lieutenant Pak Chul objected and when Capt Bonifas ignored him gave the order for his soldiers to kill him and those accompanying him with axes. This camp was renamed Camp Bonifas in memory of the Captain.

Seoul Trip Day 1: Korean Dinner in Bukchon

At the end of our first day in Seoul, after walking for a couple of hours in Bukchon Village looking at hanoks (Korean traditional houses), we were ready to sit down for a rest and enjoy a good Korean dinner. We had looked unsuccessfully for a recommended restaurant for about half an hour before giving up and entering the next restaurant serving Korean food. I don't even know the name of this place, but the food was good, and the ladies who served us were motherly types who kept bringing refills of the banchan (small complimentary dishes). Not much English is spoken here (nor at most places in Seoul, as we would discover over the next couple of days), but there is an English menu so it wasn't an impossible feat to place an order. We were served several types of banchan, that we could have really just gotten one small dish and filled up just fine on that and the banchan - and this would have been perfectly acceptable, but we were in Korea to try actual Korean food, and it would be no fun to order only one dish. I was looking for dishes that contained vegetables, but I forgot that there are usually a lot of vegetables in banchan, which had included delicious deep fried anchovies, chapchae (stirfried sweet potatoes noodles), seasoned sheets of seaweed, pickled onions, daikon and of course the ubiquitous kimchi.

The myriad of banchan:

We ordered a dish called Namwon Gukbap (an ox bone and soybean paste stew with Chinese cabbage and rice) which was recommended by one of the servers, and Jeyuk Bokkeum (spicy pork and vegetable). The ox bone soup was a simple but rich beefy broth with vegetables, good to warm up with on cool spring nights. There was hardly any protein in it (as to be expected for the relatively cheap price), but this would make a good dinner for one on the budget. The pork came out on sizzling in a hot plate, and it was red colour (as most Korean dishes are) with plenty of meat. The serving size was unexpectedly huge, and obviously this is a dish meant for sharing in a group.

Ox bone soup with rice, and the sizzling spicy pork:

The food was good, but we really should have gotten only one dish because we were struggling to finish everything. I guess we know that for next time (well, you'd think we would have remembered, but as you'll see in the following posts, we forgot how generous serving sizes were).