Flavor Boulevard

Hawaii is paradise if you are:
1. into constant heat and 90% humidity. In Hawaii, the world outside your air-conditioned box (e.g., your house, car, or office) is a sauna.
2. in the shave ice, juice, lemonade, or ice cream business.

The owner of Coconut Cafe is in *full* control of her life, her shop, and her customers. Her main sale is undoubtedly shaved ice, although her menu also has other dessert drinks (such as bubble teas), sandwiches and burgers. Coconut Cafe has no fixed hours of operation. She opens and closes when she wants to, and even if you walk into the door when she has already decided to close, she will tell you firmly so and there is no changing it. We know this fact, because we experienced it not just once, but 4 times.

The first day, we got there at 9:30 pm, after dinner, doors were shut tight, understandably, although we were somewhat surprised by how early stores and restaurants close in Hawaii compared to Berkeley. There was no sign anywhere saying what hours they’re open.

The second day, we got there around 5 pm. The lady said we could get shaved ice to-go because she’s closing, which is fine with us. A couple walked in a few minutes after us and they had to leave empty-handed. We thought about how lucky we were.

That luck didn’t last, however. The next two days we returned, around the same time, first to a closed shop, then to an about-to-close shop, and the lady said it’d be open around noon the next day. Noon the next day, we returned, a guy promptly greeted us with a simple cross of the arms, “we’re close,” without so much of a sorry. We left, dejected and irritated. Is a cup of shaved ice really worth our pride? Is a shaved-ice shop opening at noon, according to the owner’s words no less, really so much to ask for?

We were out of patience and ready to not ever go back, but luckily (and somewhat inexplicably), we went back. The owner lady apologized with as much sincerity as she could express, explained why she couldn’t open at noon as promised (I still can’t fully understand her explanation until this day, but I suppose that’s on me), and even waited for our return late that day. She stayed opened until 6:30 pm, just for us. As soon as we got our shaved ice, she closed for the day.

The fruity syrups, condensed milk and ice cream certainly make her shaved ice desirable. The heat helps, too. But I think her business model is successful for two main reasons:
1. The completely, unfailingly unpredictable hours (you know, keep us customers on our toes)
2. The owner is nice. She doesn’t treat her customers with indifference.

So, as one of the kids exclaimed right after taking his first spoon,
“This is the best shaved ice I’ve ever had. Thank you!”

Address: Coconut Cafe
2441 Kuhio Ave
Honolulu, HI 96815
(cash only)

I am obsessed with these doughnuts (or is it spelled donuts?).

I have a mild obsession with doughnuts…as in, once in a while, I will crave them but it’s usually pretty rare. However, after having a bite of this doughnut during a conference at Korea University this summer, I instantly became obsessed and have been craving them ever since. These doughnuts are “mochi doughnuts” and have the same chewy consistency as mochi but a little doughier. It’s like eating super fluffy, chewy, light-as-air dough. The texture kills me. And the chocolate frosting…yum!

I did try a coffee flavored doughnut but it wasn’t as tasty and there is another flavor that is labeled as “olive,” which I have yet to try.

These doughnuts resemble the popular Mister Donut doughnuts and because of their commercials with the little lion that eats its own mane, I call them “moinchy donuts.”

This Dunkin’ Donuts is located in the Pyeongtaek train station, so while waiting to take the train back to Seoul, I usually end up eating one because I just can’t resist the “moinchy” texture.

When I saw GaijinPot published 2 pieces on summer food and summer festival food in Japan, I wanted to write a piece on the same topic, but I got skewered like a dango stick in work. Now that summer is on its way out, here’s an account of what we can (and should) eat in summer in Tokyo – for next year, that is 😉 .

THE SAVORY:

1. Eel: this is THE summer food. We Asians believe that eels help cooling the body. Do I feel bad helping to decrease the dwindling number of eels? Yes. Do I get scarred for life by the horrific eel massacre scene in “Jiro: Dreams of Sushi”? Yes. I can proudly say that I had not eaten any eel this summer except this one unaju because my friend’s boss recommended my friend to recommend me of this Oodawa shop near Kashiwa station.
(Gotta say though, most Japanese dishes are naturally 548 times better in Japan than in the States, BUT unaju is not one of them.)

2. Grilled ayu on a stick: basically you should eat anything on a stick. This “sweet fish” is grilled on coal, coated with enough salt to pickle your stomach, and full of tiny bones. You eat it for the spirit of festivals, mostly.

3. Cucumber on a stick: can’t get any more heat-combatant than this.

4. Cold noodles: soba, somen, cold pasta with boiled anchovies. They’re MUCH better than they sound to our hot-soup-acquainted ears.

5. Okonomiyaki: not the ones in okonomiyaki shops, but the ones highschoolers make at their school festivals. We chanced upon one of them right next to Kencho-ji when we were exhausted by heat and humans in Kamakura. It was cheap and delicious.

Standing in line with all those kids in uniforms, I felt as if I were in an anime.

THE SWEET:

1. Mitsumame: I know some people would MUCH prefer kakigori, but thirst-quenching as it is, I have a morbid fear of eating shaved ice because in some distant past, my mom said kids who chew on ice would soon lose their teeth. So I seek shelter in ice cream. Mitsumame has ice cream, and mochi, and fruits, and syrup.

2. Warabi mochi: of all types of mochi, dango, and daifuku, warabi mochi is the lightest, mildest, and coolest. It just soothes your throat. Green helps too, I felt like I was eating something healthy.

3. Fruits: eat fruits if you have no more windows to throw your money out of. Remove 2 zeros from the price tags and you get the price in USD. $14 for a pound of grapes and $35 for a few peaches?! This is one of those times when I don’t like Japan.

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Guest blogged by C. from Katsushika, Tokyo.

Even if you don’t like anything at Cafe Rabelais (I didn’t), this mini-mountain of profiteroles loaded with ice cream is still as resistible as a pool in the summer, and worth every second you spend with it too.

To top, it’s HUGE. THREE orange-size puffs, for only $6.50! We thought it was going to be just one cream puff, you know, like how desserts are usually portioned… but no, the pastry chef has a heart of gold. Next time I’m at Rive Village, I’ll swing by for a profiterole recharge. 😉

Address: Cafe Rabelais
2442 Times Blvd (West University, steps away from the big shopping mall of Rice Village)
Houston, TX 77005
(713) 520-8841 (They don’t take reservation though)

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Now… a few more shots of Rabelais’ foods, but the menu varies daily and is only written on the blackboard so we might never see these dishes again:

By the way, the service is just plain negligence. But if you come only for the profiteroles, you won’t see the waitress enough to notice the service anyway. 😉

I met Judy in early November. I happened to sit down next to her at Teance, when she was just about to leave and I had just arrived. For some reason, Judy offered me a small, homemade cookie to try. The cookie was interesting, and so is Judy. We exchanged business cards.

With this post, I’m going to risk sounding like a sarong-wearing 62-year-old white-male yoga preacher [there are many of them in Berkeley, sometimes they start talking to you on the street and make everybody uncomfortable], because you know what, some philosophies are beautiful and there’s nothing wrong with appreciating them. With that said, if your patience runs low on the subjects of philosophy, spiritual growth or simply good feelings in general, skip ahead to Part II.

Part I – The Story behind the Treats

After September 11, 2001, Judy Fleischman moved from Oregon to New York, began training as a healthcare chaplain.

“I was on the go a lot,” said Judy. “I needed to bring food with me so that I wouldn’t go broke. In Oregon I got introduced to raw foods, so I started experimenting with making raw healthy snacks to keep me going… Snacks that weren’t just a sugar crash.”

After making batches of these raw, vegan treats with sprouted seeds for herself, she began sharing them with family and friends and began to feel what she called “the gift of giving”.

“Now when I think of the word ‘healthy’, it’s not just the food but the relationship with the people and the ingredients,” Judy said.

Judy’s inspiration stemmed from wagashi – petite, graceful Japanese sweets for tea ceremony that appeal to all five senses, and the philosophy of “mindful eating” in zen training, which she explains as knowing “the difference between a craving and real nourishment”.(*)

In the midst of working as a healthcare chaplain and interacting with stressed people, Judy felt that the treats she made were “wholesome”, and that she “had the urge to share and give to others”, so she started making single packagings to give them out to people at farmers’ markets. As part of the Sensing Wonder group, she was also giving out cups of iced jasmine tea at the Imagine Circle. The more she gave, the more fulfilling she felt.

Loving Live Treats “sprouted from this personal transformation and interaction with the community” to become what Judy hopes to be a mean to sustain her livelihood. Economically, we all need to make a living; spiritually, Judy appreciates and finds it enriching to be able to share what she makes with others – a way of life that she wants to pursue and believes that many others do. That’s why the cookies are wrapped in packages of three – one can surprisingly satiate your hunger (I was amazed myself, considering each is only 0.6 oz [about 17 grams]!), and there are two more to share with friends.

Or share with strangers. Over a month ago, Judy randomly shared it with me, a complete stranger. Somehow, we create new friendships that way, however temporary. Loving Live Treats from start to finish revolves around friendship, whether it was momentarily like the interaction with people at the Imagine Circle, or long-term like with Rodney Alan Greenblat, the artist who designed the label. Perhaps partly because it revolves around friendship, that Judy is happy when she makes them. That happiness shows in the treats, from the playful, childlike label inwards.

Part II – The Treats

Sprouted sunflower and golden flax seeds, coconut, agave nectar, Himalayan salt, low-temperature dehydrated and compressed into circular cubes (if you know a better word for this shape – not “cylinder”!, please tell me ^_^). There are three different flavors: lemon-vanilla-nutmeg, spirulina-vanilla, and cacao-cardamom. My personal favorites are the Coco Cardamom and the Spirulina (sorry, Nutmeg!), but they’re all precious actually, and the differences are about as pronounced as those between Chinese oolongs and Taiwanese oolongs. That’s the point – nothing too sweet, nothing too strong, just little seeds cozily nudged together. Satisfying on their own and a delicate but reassuring accompaniment to tea.

They’re the opposite of a chocolate chip cookie, which gives you instant satisfaction and an even bigger craving five seconds later. Recently, I watched this Japanese movie “I Wish” by director Hirokazu Koreeda (the Japanese title is Kiseki (奇跡)**), there’s a small detail that I can’t forget: the boys’ grandfather made karukan (a sweet rice-flour sponge cake), at first the older brother thought it wasn’t sweet enough, but Grandfather wouldn’t change his way. Near the end of the movie, the older brother gave a piece to his younger brother. The younger boy also found it “mellow”, i.e., a little bland. Afterwards, when the grandfather asked the older brother what his younger brother thought of the karukan, he smiled and replied “he’s still young”.

When I have an ice cream craving, and I have it ALL the time, admittedly I don’t always reach for an LLT Lemonilla Nutmeg. Like the younger brother in Kiseki, I’m still wet behind the ears when it comes to appreciating the finer things. But when I do reach for an LLT, I get surprised every time – it gratifies in the most pleasant way possible.

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Loving Live Treats by Judy Fleischman: can be ordered for home delivery from GratefulGreens.com, found at the monthly Bay Area Homemade Market, and soon to be served at Teance and Asha Tea House (Berkeley).

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FOODNOTES:

(*) According to the philosophy of mindful eating, there are six types of hunger – eye hunger, mouth hunger, nose hunger, stomach hunger, cellular hunger mind hunger and heart hunger. My guess is to satisfy a craving means you satisfy only one type of hunger, whereas real nourishment satisfies all six.

(**) For now, you can watch Kiseki here. You know how after watching some movie, someone would ask “did you like it?”, and all you can honestly say is “hmmm…”? Well, Kiseki is that kind of movie. It’s not loaded with laughters or gunshots or flying dragons or tear-jerking moments, but let it sit for a few days and the sweetness slowly steeps throughout your veins. Like the grandfather’s mellow karukan.

Technically four shots total, not one, but it’s not a meal, and it’s just a quick shout-out to what Kristen called “the best dessert she’s had” (“in a while”, I think?).

We first went to Revival a year and a half ago. Just like that time, we re-confirm this time that Revival excels at food jellies/sorbet/basically anything fruit and sweet.

The best dessert in Kristen’s opinion – Baked Alaska. (My heart died the day I knew Ippuku stopped serving black sesame ice cream, and I refuse to get attached to any other dessert.) The baked alaska is a layered ice cream and sponge cake (or whatever you can layer) in a meringue shell. In Revival’s case, from top down, it’s huckleberry sorbet, lemon-thyme ice cream and almond shortbread. If this is not Refreshing, nothing is. (Well, Ippuku’s black sesame ice cream was.)

Chocolate Tres Leches Cake with ginger sabayon, quince sorbet and ginger-chocolate crémeaux. Now it’s up to you to decide which on the plate is which. I have no idea. (We suspect the fruit slices are poached pear/quince, and the crispy looking things are ginger, but sabayon is a sauce)

It’s a pretty drink with a pretty-sounding name: Cotillion, like the French fluffy merry dance in the 18th century. Square One botanical vodka, Dolin Blanc vermouth, St. Germain elderflower liqueur, and creme de violette. Smell fantastically flowery but is actually quite strong – I can still see Kristen, Alice and Kendra cringing at every sip. 😀

Address: Revival Bar & Kitchen
2102 Shattuck Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94704
(510) 549-9950
Dessert for four: $8 per dessert, $10 for the Cotillion. A great chat with the friendly chefs if you’re sitting at the kitchen counter (or whatever it’s called).

UPDATE (2 days later)

The black sesame ice cream was too mealy and not cold enough, it tasted more like mooncake filling than ice cream. But the persimmon sorbet was perfect. (Again, Revival has a way with fruits 😉 )

Thanksgiving. Gatherings. I was asked, “can you make dessert?” “Sure, I can make dessert.”

Yeah right. Five seconds later, “OH EM GEE. WhatcanImake!” It’s a Western party with Western people. I had never made a Western dessert before, not even chocolate chip cookies from dough that comes out of a tub (and then you just shape it into cookies and bake them, or not – one of the weirdest things about American people is that they love eating raw cookie dough like the Vietnamese like noodle soups. I don’t get it). So of course I did the same thing I do everyday at work – and also what I tell my students to do when they ask me homework questions: I googled.

The credit should go first to Cheryl. She once told me that a pastry chef at her previous job made an awesome avocado pie. Pie is common at Thanksgiving, and avocado is not too sweet and still around (the very tail end of the season, though), I figured at least I would like it.

Some part of me was wishing I could make a savory dish instead, one that I could taste and see the final product. (With pies, you can taste the components before you assemble them together, and then it’s in the hands of Fate.) The nice thing about dessert, though, is that I can make it the day before, and if I fall flat on my face, I’d still have a day to do it again. Thinking so at least helped me regain my composure to make it work.

Everyone at the party was quizzical about the green thing. I told everyone to try it to figure out what made it green (mainly I just wanted my pie to be eaten). A few people just went through a list of green things they could think of, including artificial colorings. It was fun. 😀 (And yes, they liked it too. 😉 )

Non-Baked Avocado Pie with Nut Crust
[to fill a 9-inch pie pan]

1. Brazil nut and date crust: (inspired by this Veggie Blackboard recipe)

• 35 Brazil nuts
• a handful of dried tart cherries
• 45 pitted dates (it doesn’t have to be Medjool dates, I used Deglet dates, which is far cheaper per pound)

In a blender/food processor, grind the nuts into crumbs, blend in the dates and cherries until it becomes a sticky crumbly bunch. [You can substitute the dates with pitted prunes and cherries with raisins, dried blueberries, etc. or nothing. Basically, you need nuts and dried fruits.] Press the “dough” into the foil pie pan to shape the crust. Refrigerate while making the filling.

2. Filling: (inspired by this Kirbie’s Cravings recipe and one of the comments to that post)

• 2 large Hass avocados
• 2 lemons – to make 1/3 cup lemon juice
• 1/2 can sweetened condensed milk

Blend them together into a smooth, thick paste. The lemon juice keeps the paste from discoloring (it stays green forever!). The avocado makes it luscious and not too sweet.
Fill the crust. Cover and refrigerate until serve.

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…)

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?

After ordering, I made my way to one of the many seating areas in the cafe (all of the cafes in Hongdae seem to be ridiculously large with multiple floors). How cute is this?? The chairs were ridiculously comfortable and so cute with the pink bow! I settled into my large chair after snapping this photo and began to read some books about the Korean War…maybe it wasn’t the most appropriate reading to do in this setting, but I was in Seoul to present at a conference on my research after all! There is free wireless here – I wish I had known that so I could have brought my computer. Note: pretty much every cafe in this area has free wifi and it is FAST. I will definitely keep that in mind the next time I go back to Seoul because while my hostel internet refused to work consistently, I never had problems with wireless internet at the cafes.

After a pretty long wait (about 30 min) because of the amount of people in the cafe, I finally got my order. I had the sweet potato latte – so cute! Unfortunately I messed up Hello Kitty’s nose while bringing my tray up to my seat, but the rest of the outline stayed pretty much intact. I liked the subtle sweet potato flavor, but otherwise the drink tasted like hot milk and was a little boring. Of course being the Hello Kitty Cafe, the drink was pricier that usual (I think 8,000 won or a little less than $8) and way overpriced for my standards, but I saw it as a one-time splurge.

I also ordered a strawberry cake (this cake comes in vanilla and chocolate as well with matching colors), but I had to order the pink cake because why not go all out while in an all-pink cafe? I really didn’t expect this cake to taste good, but I ended up really enjoying it. The inside of the cake was very fluffy and moist with layers of sponge cake and strawberry mousse (the strawberry layers inside were made with the some material as the outside of the cake). It really felt so light and like I was eating a cloud.

Apologies for this somewhat scary photograph, but the layering of the cake was just so perfect that I had to show it! The icing around the edges was so soft and fluffy – I like how the cake was also not too sweet. The whiskers and eyes are make out of chocolate, which added a nice complimentary taste to the strawberry and spongecake.

While the Hello Kitty Cafe isn’t somewhere to go to get great drinks and food, it’s a great stop to make as a tourist, and while the drink wasn’t good (which seems to be all too common from my experiences at Seoul cafes), the cake is worth a trip to this 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!

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!

I arrived right at the opening time at 10:00am and snagged a great seat – I have a view of the entire cafe! As a morning person, I had a hard time in Hongdae – most cafes and shops don’t open until 12:00pm except for the 24 hour ones, so I liked that Cafe Berlin opened bright and early (well…I guess by Seoul standards).

The decor is just so cute! I can’t get over how cute so many of the cafes are – it makes me want to design my own cafe as well!

Even the bathroom is uniquely decorated, although I’m not sure why someone would want to sit on a counter in the bathroom or what the bike is doing in the corner. I guess it just adds to the charm though!

I should start talking about the food though… There aren’t that many food options to choose from and I’m not sure why the “meal” section is the only one untranslated. For those who can’t read Korean, the options are honey toast, yuja (citrus) dressing sandwich, Croque Monsieur, and Berlin waffle. Food prices are a LOT better than drink prices (except for the waffles), which seems to be a common thing among a lot of the cafes. As someone who is used to only paying a few dollars for tea or coffee, a $7 coffee or $6 tea is a little scary!

Pictured here is the honey toast! This reminds me a little of the Taiwanese toast-type meals that I’ve had before. Drizzled generously with honey and chocolate sauce and topped with almonds, this was definitely a filling breakfast! The little bowl on top came with a handtowel. I’m not sure what possessed me to do this, but I thought it was a marshmallow and actually bit it…how embarrassing…I was lucky no one was at the cafe this early!

Later in the afternoon it started to really get hot – the air conditioner was on in the cafe, but it was on a very low setting so the heat still crept through. So I ordered a yogurt smoothie to cool down. It was definitely very interesting…I feel like yogurt products here have a very sour and tart taste that I’m not familiar with. I liked that the shake wasn’t super sweet but it was a lot thicker than I would have liked. It definitely cooled me down but it didn’t quench my thirst. It was also pricey at 7,000 won (a little less than $7), but I’m glad I tried it.

The food and drinks that I tried at Cafe Berlin were okay – nothing to really rave about, but the atmosphere was perfect for some hardcore studying. With my extremely expensive iced earl grey tea (6,000 won) and my books, I had an extremely productive day. This is a cafe that I would want to write my dissertation in, but sadly I would have to move to Hongdae to make that dream a reality! I wish there were more Berkeley cafes that were as cute as the cafes in Hongdae, but I’m definitely not complaining about the prices of coffee here! I would definitely recommend anyone to check out Cafe Berlin if they are in the Hongdae are – it’s gorgeous, spacious, and feels just artsy enough without being pretentious.

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!

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.

Here’s a close-up of the chestnut! Yum! They were a little pricey at 5,000 won (a little less than $5 USD) and I heard from my friend that it was because chestnuts are in season during winter and they’re not a very popular summer food. So I’m guessing this was a tourist trap, but a very delicious one!

This is technically not street food, but I did buy it from a vendor inside the Coex Mall. That counts, right? Anyways, I was dying of thirst and I saw this drink: “아이스 초콜릿” or “Iced Chocolate.” It sounded interesting so I wanted to try it! I was quite horrified when I saw the cashier take instant hot chocolate powder and slowly stirred it into cold water…I was having horrible visions of drinking water flavored with grainy bits of chocolate powder!!! But she did an amazing job and somehow all of that powder blended into the drink and I didn’t have to worry about residual chocolate powder in my teeth. The final result tasted exactly like Nesquik and brought me back to my childhood; plus, it was quite refreshing!

While I was sightseeing in the Gwanghawmun area (where all the palaces are), I came across a street vendor that was selling these little red bean pastries. I had eaten breakfast earlier that day, but when I came across this vendor I had already been through a palace tour (Changdoekgung) and a museum tour (The National Folk Museum), so I was super hungry!

After taking a bite, I realized that these tasted very similar to a Chinese-style red bean paste bun that I love! They also taste very similar to taiyaki – the Japanese red bean paste pastry in the shape of a fish – because of the dough that was used. For 2,000 won (a little less than $2 USD), I got about 10 pieces and before I knew it, they were all gone! For a ravenous tourist walking around in 90 degrees hot and humid weather, these are the perfect snack to tide you over until the next meal (unless you’re like me and eat all of them in one sitting in which case you’ll be too full to eat anything else).

While walking around in Ssamziegil and the surrounding area (a shopping area close to Anguk Station), I came across this vendor selling these deep-fried rice cakes. The smell was so delicious that I couldn’t resist! She had a variety of different flavors ranging from somewhat savory to sweet. From left to right: autumn squash, curry cheese, bulgogi, sweet potato, and pizza. I wanted ALL of them, but my stomach doesn’t take too kindly to fried foods, so I ended up only trying one.

While in Seoul, I’ve been indulging my cravings and love for sweet potatoes, so I chose the sweet potato flavor. The outside was super greasy so it wasn’t the most pleasant of meals but the inside was perfectly tasty! The sweetness of the potatoes goes along perfectly with the stickiness of the outside. I should have been a little bit more adventurous though and tried that pizza flavor…

Admittedly I didn’t do too much research on food before leaving for Seoul, but I have heard about this famous street food: the tornado potato! Essentially it’s deep-fried potato spiraled around a long stick and by long, I mean that this stick was about the full length of my torso. It’s very difficult to eat this and walk at the same time without looking stupid, but the potato was so tasty I didn’t really care! Before handing the stick over to me, the vendor dipped it in what looked like powdered cheese seasoning like the kind that you would put on popcorn. The powder had a slight artificial cheesy flavor like Cheetoes and was just about as addicting as eating Cheetoes! The potatoes tasted like kettle potato chips – instead of being in a bag, they were on a stick! Maybe this is a tourist novelty, but at 2,000 won these were definitely worth it! There are about 10 different carts in Myeondong offering this treat at pretty much the same prices!

Along with the trend of long street foods, this is the loooong ice cream that I’ve also read about! Think typical frozen soft serve ice cream and this is it – I had this after a long day of sight-seeing and it was perfectly refreshing for a hot and humid Seoul night. Unfortunately though, I should have just gone with a regular-sized ice cream because this ice cream while crunchy and cold at first, melts FAST. My hands ended up getting completely covered in melted ice cream and I felt like I was fighting a losing battle while trying to lick the melting ice cream as fast as possible. Delicious but a little impractical unless you’re a fast eater! I ate this while also in Myeondong, but I’ve seen prices vary from 2,000 won to 5,000 among the vendors – I got mine for 2,000 won after scouring around the area for a bit.

And now for two street foods that I took pictures of, but did not get to try. These are both in the Insadong area right around the Ssamziegil shopping complex. These poopy pastries were super popular and the mascots are adorable! They are called 똥빵…poop bread! I ended up not getting any because the line was ridiculously long so I just snapped a picture. At the top of the Ssamziegil complex is a sit-down cafe/restaurant featuring this poop bread as well!

I saw this also while walking around Insadong. The tubes are actually fried dough and they’re injected with soft-serve ice cream so you eat your ice cream while chewing on these giant tubes! I decided not to get them, but I’m think these are probably a better alternative to the long ice cream in terms of making less of a mess. So many tourists were having fun eating these though that I’m a little bummed out about not buying one now!

I realized I missed out on a ton of street foods, but there’s always next time! What are you favorite street foods in Korea or elsewhere?