Eating in Seoul

Food, food and more food!!!

As I promised, here is Part Two of our trip to Seoul, and

it's all about FOOD!

1.

This is one of the first Korean food we ate. We were at Guro-dong, Guro-gu, Seoul, looking for the car rental company. It was lunch time so we had lunch at a random restaurant here.

We had fried and boiled dumplings, with vegetables and meat fillings. I couldn't remember the price though.

We also had two bowls of noodles, one was quiet interesting for us because we didn't expect to find sliced rice cakes in the soup instead of the long and thin shaped noodles that we were familiar with!

I did not take any pictures of the noodles but you could refer to the menu in the picture below. We ordered a bowl of noodles (second row, first from the left) and a set of noodles + meat patty (last row, second from left).

2. 

This is our lunch at the National Museum of Korea at Yongsan-gu. 

My son ordered shrimp fried rice (no picture available) and hubby ordered carbonara. Yes, they don't really like Korean food. 

I ordered a Bulgogi set (KRW22,000) that comes with the default side dishes, a bowl of salad and meat patty. It was a huge set for one so I shared it with my daughter who enjoyed the meat patty very, very much. 

3. 

Let's have something not Korean, for a break! 

We had these delicious burgers at a random restaurant opposite the Gyeongbokgung Palace. 

Three burger set + one coffee cost us around KRW30,000. 

4. 

This is grilled eel set at KRW38,000 and it is enough for the four of us! (The steamed egg isn't part of the set.) We had this for dinner, after a very tiring day, checking out the Changdeokgung Palace. It is a random restaurant located along a street near the palace. 

The fish was not as tender as the Japanese unagi. The steamed egg has a rich margarin/buttery taste. Hmm... both not to our liking but still, we finished the food because we were so hungry!!

5. 

Japanese food is the next most common food served by restaurants here in Seoul after Korean food (of course!). This is a set of Chicken Katsu with rice and udon noodles. Pickles were also served as part of the set. The chicken is so huge! Again, I had to share with my daughter to finish the food. 

This is at a random restaurant opposite the Gyeongbokgung Palace. 

6. 

We had this for lunch, on a lazy day when we decided not to visit any attractions. We drove around the place where we stayed (Gangseo-gu) and found this restaurant which had a small car park. I think it is a house turned into a restaurant because the layout is very much like a house except that all the rooms in the house were filled with dining tables and chairs. 

My daughter loved this ginseng chicken soup (the chicken is stuffed with glutinous rice and mung beans, refer to the pictures below) so much that she requested to go back to this restaurant for lunch the following day. 

7. 

Our second Japanese meal. This was at Coex Mall. The Chicken Katsu set comes with sushi and udon noodles. 

8.

Before we checked out the malls and street food at Mydeong Street, we tucked into some heavier food...just so our bodies would be fuelled, and warm enough to walk in the cold! It was -7ºC!

We found a restaurant (a stone's throw away from the main Mydeong Street), just behind a parking lot. Good for us because then we could park our car there and take a short walk to the malls.

We had:

Vegetable Gimbap at KRW3,000

Hot Stone Pot Bibimbap at KRW8,000

and

Korean Seafood and Green Onion Pancake at KRW20,000

9. 

This is chicken bulgogi, cooked in a pan at the customer's table. If I remembered it correctly, we ordered two servings and our bill was around KRW28,000. 

They also had a version that comes with cheese but we were only allowed to choose one type because there was only one pan per table and we weren't that adventurous so we chose the original version.

This was the only meal where everyone enjoyed the food. 

10. 

This was another interesting dish we had at the restaurant near the place we stayed, where we had the Korean ginseng chicken soup. 

This dish is called Suyuk (steamed pork) and is served with kuchai and a special sauce. 

11. 

How could I tell people that I went to Seoul without eating their famous BBQ? 

Here, we found a small, local restaurant just across the street where we stayed. 

The thing I loved about eating Korean food is that we get all sorts of side dishes and I loved these little surprises. You don't get to choose the type of side dishes being served to you. 

Actually, I don't know if the other foods were supposed to come with the beef BBQ set that we ordered but we were served a table full of food, so much that some of the food had to be placed on another table. Salads, sweet corn with cheese on a hotplate, steamed eggs,  a variety of picked vegetables and soup. 

12. I don't know why but it wasn't easy to find grilled mackerel. When I finally found one at a random restaurant at Mydeong, I ordered without thinking twice. I think I didn't read the menu properly, because it turned out to be deep fried mackerel instead of grilled one! It wasn't up to my expectation. It was too dry and too salty for me. 

13. This was our last dinner in Seoul. It was at a BBQ restaurant but we didn't order BBQ because hubby and daughter preferred the ginseng chicken soup (again?!?!). I ordered beef bulgogi. Again? Yes. Because I love this dish so much and I want to have as much as I can before I leave. 

So, this is the Korean steamed egg... with puffy top

and one of my favourite Korean dish, the beef bulgogi.

and lastly, here's a good look at some of the popular side dishes.

So long for now...

I'll save the street food for another post! 😋