Chic Seoul - Samcheong Dam & Garousu Gil

For all those times when I wasn’t hovering around a street cart, stuffing my face silly with sticky rice cakes, I was out exploring these Get Your Frock On neighbourhoods.

Parting is such sweet sorrow.

























This wedding ring is kinda sweet till you've watched or read Dan Brown's Angels & Demons... then it becomes GHASTLY, NOOO!

Gramercy Kitchen, Seoul

On our last day, my sister and I covered the Apujeong / Sinsa-dong / Garousu-gil area. We did brunch at Gramercy Kitchen, which was recommended to us by my sister’s favourite traveling mate - The Luxe Guide.



Launched by The Westin Chosun, it was a stylish restaurant decked out in modern sleek décor, soothed out with white orchids. I thought the place was more suited for corporate lunches or fine dining as it was too clinical and cold for brunch – but perfect for corporate accounts.

Case in point: The heavy curtains blocked out all traces of sunlight and you must be thinking, “Yay for you, no?” Well no, I like sunlight. I like looking at it. I just don’t want to be under it.

Heliophobia aside, we had eggs, pancakes and toast – all spruced up with a pinch of Luxe.



2009 would be remembered as the year I thought I fell in love with eggs benedict. I like the idea of disturbing the yolk, pricking it till it gushes over the ham and English muffin … the taste of runny yolk doesn’t bode well with me. Obviously as soon as I’m done poking, I have to scrap the runny yolk aside so that it doesn't soak through the ham and muffin.

Anyhow, yolk or yuck, I like Gramercy's rendition of the classic eggs benedict with smoked ham and hollandaise sauce. Even the gently grilled mushrooms and tomatoes on the side were memorable.



The stack of buttermilk pancakes was delicious too. A couple of crisp bacons slices criss-crossed on the pancakes, marking its territory: XOXO, Pancakes.

I rarely having anything savoury with my pancakes, which kinda makes me think, why not? It would even be my suggestion for a Ben & Jerry’s flavour – A Haute Breakfast, pancake ice cream with maple syrup and bacon bits. You read it here first.



Probably the only dish I didn’t go bananas over was the French toast.

One would have thought French toast would be one of the easiest things to make and one of the hardest to screw up. So, what went wrong? Probably the wrong bread on the wrong plate at the wrong time. The kitchen used some indiscernible bread that was incapable of soaking up the eggy milkwash. Stale and heavy, even the icing sugar and maple syrup failed to pick things up. How sad.

I would have liked Gramercy Kitchen more if it were in Singapore, where I wouldn’t be lured by those friggin’ delicious sticky rice cakes.

Gramercy Kitchen
Shinsadong MJ Building

Seoul's Street Food Part 2

This is by no means a comprehensive coverage of their street food, just some other stuff we tried out and oddities we came across.





Tornado Potato, potato twirls deep-fried and sprinkled with spicy powder.











French-fry coated hot dog - very very wrong. Que Super Junior's Sorry Sorry.







Ode to Goo Jun Pyo.

Seoul's Street Food Part 1

Sometimes I feel like such a drama queen. But rest assured I’m really not like that in real life. Promise.

But if I wrote a own musical about my Seoul trip, it would be called ‘A Street Cart Named Desire’.



For 3 nights in a row, my sister and I had street food for dinner. Did we plan to do so? I don’t think we did but then again, we didn’t plan anything for dinner and we were quite happy to chance upon street cart after street cart.


Seafood Pancake


Tteokbokki Takeaway

These street carts typically come armed with an odeng stove, cauldron for double-deep-frying tempura and tteokbokki-only section. Ingenious, I say.





What naturally caught my attention was the array of deep-fried unrecognizables (oh cares?! It’s deep-fried), mainly made out of fishcakey-shrimpy stuff. Whatever you point to gets thrown into the cauldron of scathing oil like naughty children in Brothers’ Grimm fairy tales.

But wait, it gets better.



The fried lovelies get doused with spicy tteokbokki, stir-fried rice cakes that have been simmered and bubbling for god-knows-how-long.

I love this. Totally heart it. So much so that on our last day, I was almost tempted to miss our flight because I haven’t had my fix of rice cakes.

I know we have a Korean street food stall in Takashimaya basement but this is different! You can’t replica the experience of standing by the road, maneuvering those spinely toothpicks across rice cakes and tempura, tucking in with the fervor of hungry-hungry-hippos and not giving a damn to who’s looking.

So sad I had to leave you behind.

Haemul Ddeokjjim 0410, Seoul

It didn’t take me long to figure out where were going for lunch in Myeongdong.



This poster, filled with screen captures of people in happy-tears, was my Polaris and it led us towards Haemul Ddeokjjim 0410. We were there at 12:10pm but the restaurant only opened at 12:30pm so we returned after a short shopping stint ***.

*** Why am I including this seemingly useless piece of information? You will see.



Haemul Ddeokjjim 0410 is a restaurant chain that specializes in spicy seafood hot pot. The spiciness ranges from Level 1 (for beginners) to Level 3 (for the hardcore), and my sister and I immediately asked for Level 3.

“(Average) Korean … Level 2” Waiter explained, with a V-sign.

Not wanting to kill our tastebuds on our third day, we went for Level 2 – it was one of the best decisions we made that afternoon.

The Haemul Ddeokjjim (해물떡찜), seafood hot pot, consists of squid, fish, cabbage and rice cakes… and it sort of becomes unrecognisable after a while because everything gets soaked silly in the spicy broth.

The spice only kicks in after I stupidly declared it manageable.

“Level 2 is ok what… Whattt the f… ” Cue vision blurring and unclogging of the nose.

But it was fantastic. With so much going on the pot, my sister and I were just dipping, chewing and blowing out air to sooth our lips.

I love (another V-sign)!



We also order their most popularsnack, Ddong tuiguim ( 똥튀김) which is unappetizingly called ‘fried turds’ because they supposedly resemble like fried turds. Amazingly, that did cross my mind when I first saw them.

But holy crap! It’s awesomely delicious. I have no idea what goes into these and it is much like a croquette … only 10 times tastier, thanks to its finer mash. Oh, the sweet-spicy chili sauce is dab-worthy but you wouldn’t want to overshadow the turd’s natural flavour with too much of it.

So the next time someone says your cooking tastes like crap, smile and say, “Kamsamida”.



Because you waited for 20 minutes, here's some plum milk juice for you.

How's that for service? The waiter handed us a carton of plum milk tea which tasted like old-school Yammi Yogurt. Mmm.



After that we had Lee Min Ho for dessert at Lotte Department Store. The overnight superstar had an autograph signing session and I was at Lotte Avenue L when my sister smsed me.

Goo Jun Pyo is at Lotte!

There were hordes of people (98% female) and after being squashed for a good 30 minutes, I caught a 3-second glimpse of him. If you think he looks good on your 40 inch plasma TV screen, wait till you see him real life. Lee. Min. Hot.

I'm not even going to try and redeem myself. Acting like a freakin' groupie in Seoul ... on a younger guy?!

If Haemul Ddeokjjim Level 2 was second best decision we made that afternoon, this other hottie was the best.

Hides face in embarrassment.

Haemul Ddeokjjim 0410
At various locations
Seoul

OMY: Thank you SK (I wish I knew who you are) for nominating me for the Singapore Blog Awards but alas, I will not be joining as I'm not confident of winning with 5 votes (from my mum + 3 mahjong kakis + yours). And if it helps, I'm friggin' flattered. YAY!

Culture Club - Insadong

After lunch, we walked around Insadong and its neighbouring areas which form the Culture Club of Seoul. The area plays host to numerous galleries, antique shops, traditional restaurants, cafes and souvenir shops - though I felt it was a little touristy.



Ssamziegil - Seoul Esty brought to life. Made up of handicraft and souvenir shops, art galleries, restaurants and push carts, where budding and budded artists come to gather to sell their self-made knickknacks.









I brought a hot-air brooch from this talented girl.



To preserve the culture quotient, they even got Starbucks to print their signboard in traditional Korean characters - the only Starbucks in the world that isn't written in English.



After Insadong, my sister and I went to Gyeongbokgung Palace. Although it was the main palace of the Joseon Dynasty, the palace lost yesteryear's luster when the Japanese destroyed it during the Japanese invasion in 1592 and again in 1910.







Determined to bolster our knowledge of Korean history, we even participated in the English guide tour.




Located near the palaces is the Bukchon Hanok Village, a cluster of quaint traditional Korean houses called hanok.



Before landing up at Wood & Brick for tea!



My sister used to come here for lunch on her business trips and she really likes the restaurant. However, the cafe / bakery options are more questionable.



The macaroons were urgy dry macaroons though they made decent meringues, while the tiramisu didn't quite make the cut as a great tiramisu though it could have been a good coffee cheesecake. How very odd!

Whatever the case, I was just glad to have somewhere I could rest my feet which have been crying out in agony since the palace tour.

Wood & Brick
5-2 Jae-dong
Jongno-gu, In Jongno