Flavor Boulevard

Category: Korean

  • Eating in Seoul: Sandwiches at Cafe Beati

      While in Seoul, I stayed in Hongdae for 5 days and Myeondong for the next 5 days to experience different areas of Seoul. Since I was in a hostel at Hongdae and raw eggs and bread were provided, I never had to worry about breakfast. However, moving into a hotel in Myeondong meant that I would have to start going out for breakfast.

      I was worried because it seemed like nothing in Hongdae opened until 12:00pm (except for Cafe Berlin and a few other cafes that opened “early” at 10:00am). Luckily, just down the road and across the street from Hotel Astoria is a little cafe called Cafe Beati (카페 베아띠) that is opened at least before 8am (I am not sure when it actually opens but when I stopped in it was already open at 8:00am).

      The owner of the store was one of those people who absolutely refused to speak to me in Korean despite my not using any English. This is probably good news since this means that it’s a pretty accessible cafe for non-Korean speakers, but it definitely made me self-conscious about my Korean skills!

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    • Eating in Seoul: Spotlighting 4 Hongdae Restaurants

        Since Hongdae is where I stayed in Seoul, this is where I had most of my meals. In this post I’ll spotlight 4 restaurants that stood out to me mostly because of the dishes that I had there. These include: Korean-style onigiri (rice balls), kimchi mandu (dumplings), vegetable and meat pancake, and gamjatang (potato soup) without the gamja (potato).

        #1 Kong’s Riceball

        It was my second day in Seoul and I was still very overwhelmed with being in South Korea. I had a pretty big lunch at the museum cafe in the War Memorial of Korea and on my way back to my hostel, I wanted dinner but just a small dinner. I remembered passing by this restaurant the day before when my friend was showing me around the area and figured today will be the perfect day to try it!

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      • Eating in Seoul: The Hello Kitty Cafe

          While figuring out where exactly I was staying in Hongdae, I printed out the map on how to get to my hostel from the limousine bus stop. The map was marked with restaurants and cafes to use as landmarks while navigating through the backstreets of Hongdae. To my surprise, on this map a location was marked as “Hello Kitty Cafe.” I’m not the biggest fan of Hello Kitty, but there is something about themed cafes that really excites me, so I knew then that I had to go. (Or okay maybe I am a LOT excited about Hello Kitty…)

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          It is PINK in here. It was a little blinding, but I felt so happy once I stepped inside! The music consisted of club dance music too so that definitely contributed to the upbeat atmosphere. I couldn’t decide what to order at first since all the cakes and drinks looked super cute and yummy, but I decided to go with the prettiest treats because how often is it that I get to go to a Hello Kitty-themed cafe?

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        • Eating in Seoul: My Favorite Cafe

            As a graduate student, I find that I need to always be constantly reading and writing. However, I am not someone who can study easily in a library – it’s a little too quiet and after a while, I start to freak out. I need a little bit of noise to keep me motivated, which is why I prefer to study at cafes all the time. Seeing that I was in Seoul to present at a conference, I needed to get on top of my studying too and took a few days to relax a little bit and read.

            For the first half of my trip I stayed in Hongdae, which is a super cute neighborhood outside of Hongik University, an art and design university. There were so many cute shops and vendors open during the day and clubbing at night; I can definitely see why this is such a popular place for young people! My favorite part of Hongdae though are the cafes – each cafe is unique and has its own charms. I obviously did not get a chance to hang out at every single cafe, but I did have a favorite while I was staying in Hongdae!

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            This cafe is called Cafe Berlin! Pictured here is the counter. When I visited, the staff there did not speak English at all, but luckily I know enough Korean to order off the menu and to ask for the Wifi password! I spent an entire day here: about 8 hours just reading and writing my conference paper. I’m always surprised at how empty the cafes are here (especially since I feel like I have to fight for seating at the cafes in Berkeley), but then there’s so many cafes in this area and they’re all super large so that may be a reason why individual cafes seem empty. Cafes are also really expensive – expect to pay 5000+ won for a drink ($5 or more) – so I know that if I lived here, I wouldn’t be able to financially sustain going to a cafe every day!

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          • Eating in Seoul: Street Foods

              This past June, I spent 10 days in Seoul to do some research and to present my paper at a conference. But of course, I didn’t stop with my food exploration while abroad. I’ll be writing several posts over the next few weeks to document the food adventures that I had in Seoul!

              For this first Seoul post, I’ll cover the street foods that I ate! I regretted not trying as much street food as I could but I’ll profile the foods that I did try! Any suggestions for next time as well are welcome!

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              The first street food that I had in Seoul were these delicious chestnuts right outside of the Anguk Station (I think it was Exit #3). I love roasted chestnuts and these were flavorful and meaty – they have a texture similar to that of a baked potato and are deceptively filling.

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            • Went home to eat

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                Been one measly week since I got back to the West Coast, and my stomach is already shifting in discomfort with the regular irregular dining pattern of a student, or perhaps of just someone living alone.

                At home, on weekdays, we have dinner at 5 while watching TV. For lunch there are banh bao that Mom made, each as big as a small fist with a pork ball and a half an egg inside, refrigerated. I just need to microwave it for 1 minute. On Saturday or Sunday, I’m in charge of choosing a restaurant for lunch, preferably somewhere near Bellaire, where Mom buys a couple of banh gio, which I can also have for lunch during the week, and a pound of cha lua. For dinner, usually something small, since we are already too full from lunch. This time home, my favorite dinner has been toasted french bread with pâté and cha lua. (Mom tucked 2 cans of pâté into my backpack before the flight. Airport security didn’t like the look of them on screen so they had to do a bag check. The lady asked me, “what is this?” I said, “pâté”. “What is it?” “Pâté…” Her quizzical look… “Um… you know… like… a paste?” “When you open it, is it liquid or a chunk?” “It’s a chunk” – well, this is liver pâté, it’s not exactly a chunk, but I know what answer would give me my pâté in tact – “Ok… cuz if it’s like guacamole then we can’t let it pass…” “No no it’s not like guacamole.” I got to keep my cans. I’m still not entirely sure if pâté is like guacamole.)

                Anyway, the meals at home…

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              • Eat Real Festival – 6-sentence Recap


                  1. The kimchi I made with Kristen won First Place in the Kimchi category of the Puttin’ It Up contest. (Yes, the Korean fingers in the picture were intentional. No, that’s Sinto kimchi, not ours in the picture, but we didn’t get back our kimchi at the time this picture was taken.)


                  2. Via friend’s introduction (고마워요, 유경 언니 :-)), I ended up as a helper for Hyunjoo Albrecht at her Sinto Gourmet kimchi table on Saturday and Sunday.


                  3. Saturday was crazy, no spare second between chopsticking kimchi into sample cups for the festival visitors from 11 am to 6 pm.
                  4. Sunday was a bit more relaxing but we still sold out the big jars of kkakdugi (spicy radish kimchi) and the small jars of spicy pickled cucumber.

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                • This little piggy went to Kang Tong Pork


                  Mom posed a question and I can’t conjure up any adequate answer for her: why does Korean fried chicken only appear in holes in the wall?

                  Not just a simple hole-in-the-wall thing in a busy strip mall, it has to either stand alone in an empty lot or sit at a shady street corner with iron folding doors and a few rowdy-looking guys smoking outside. Granted that those guys look Korean and the signs are in Korean, which confirms the authenticity of the place, and these are Korean drinking establishments after all. But does it have to be so shady? I want to walk down the street and eat fried chicken late at night sometimes…

                  The fried chicken bits with green onions at Kang Tong Degi (강통 돼지, which should be pronounced |Kang Tong Twe Jee|) might be good enough to risk it though. Frankly there’s less chicken on that plate than fried batter and green onion, but since when did fried chicken become so refreshing? A squeeze of lemon makes all the difference.

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                • One Bite: Tteok bokki at Crunch


                    Thick sweet & spicy sauce. Soft chewy sticks of sticky rice. This is one heckuva tteok bokki. I can see myself going here for a tteok bokki takeout on movie weekends, and it’s only $7.

                    Address: Crunch
                    2144 Center St
                    Berkeley, CA 94704
                    (Downtown Berkeley)
                    (510) 704-1101

                    This place used to be a sushi joint. I ate there once. I’m glad it has changed into something much better.
                    Also, Crunch gave me a humongous plate of kimchi pork fried rice that was just three spoons above my limit and not enough to take home. What should I do? Cut down or increase my limit?

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                  • Ten-minute noodle and nectarine


                      It’s summer. Time for cold noodle. Refrigerated, ice-cold noodle. And all it takes is 10 minutes (that includes water-boiling time).

                      Traditionally, the Koreans sweeten mul naeng myeon (물 냉면, “water cold noodle”) with sliced Asian pear and julienned cucumber. Asian pears are not yet in season (I don’t really know when its season is, but the tiny ones at Berkeley Bowl look too sad to slice), and when I want to cook my naeng myeon, like always, I never have what the recipe calls for, even if it’s just cucumber. So I did what everyone would.

                      I ignored the recipe.

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