Seoul, as you may know, has a number of so-called food alleys—streets or other concentrated areas that feature a large number of casual restaurants or counters right next to each other that specialize in the same major genre of food. The thinking presumably is that it is a safer bet to open a restaurant in a micro-area that is already attracting a large number of people to it to eat a particular dish than to risk opening a restaurant specializing in it elsewhere. In a specialized alley everyone benefits from spillover traffic. This may also explain why, in many cases, most of the establishments will have identical or near-identical menus (and prices): the goal being not to stand out as much as to be a reliable source of the thing people have already come to your alley to eat. One of our favourites of these alleys is Bossam Alley in Jongno-gu, where the restaurants have pork belly simmering outside for their signature dish and people inside eating it. We had a very pleasurable lunch here in 2024 at Obok. We went back to the alley again this May: this time we ate at Choi Buja Bossam. Here’s how it went. Continue reading →

Hanilkwan, established in 1939, is one of Seoul’s oldest and most-storied restaurants. They are credited with bringing aspects of Korean royal cuisine into the mainstream and also for inventing or at least popularizing Seoul-style bulgogi—in which the thinly-sliced beef is cooked in a hot domed pan with the juices/broth pooling along the sides. Originally founded as Hwaseonok, they adopted the current name—which literally means “Korea’s Best Restaurant”—after WW2 when Japanese colonialism ended. Their original location was then destroyed during the Korean war, during which time the restaurant had relocated to Busan. After their return to Seoul they built a new location in Jongno and enjoyed a long heyday as one of the city’s premier restaurants, opening several branches. That new main location too eventually fell, to redevelopment this time, and now their main branch is located in tony Apgujeong, with a few more scattered around the city. The Gwanghwamun branch is located just a brief walk from where we were putting up and it is there that we repaired to for a nice Mother’s Day meal. Continue reading →

Here is this week’s Seoul report. It is of a meal at a restaurant we’d wanted to eat at on our longer stay in February/March 2024 but had failed to do so: Tosokchon Samgyetang. We had wanted to eat there because we are big fans of samgyetang, the stew/soup of chicken stuffed with rice, ginseng root, jujubes etc. and Tosokchon Samgyetang is a renowned purveyor of the titular dish; also, they were/are located within walking distance of the serviced apartment we put up at on these longer stays. Why then did we fail to eat there in 2024? Who knows? The important thing is that we ate there on this trip; and it did not disappoint. Herewith a quick look at the meal. Continue reading →

Alright, let’s move over from Japan to Seoul and move a little closer in time to the present. We went from Japan to Seoul last July but this is not a report from that visit, all of which have already been posted. This is a report from the five weeks we spent in Seoul this spring on the longer trip we were there to set up last summer. We ate out a fair bit during these five weeks and I have a lot of reports to post. There were a few high-end meals in there but the majority were, by and large, in the affordable end of the spectrum. I’m going to try to get them out more or less chronologically. Here therefore is an account of eating at the first restaurant we visited on this trip, though it encompasses two meals: the first, a dinner eaten a few hours after arrival and the second, a lunch eaten a few weeks later. Continue reading →

Here, finally, almost four and a half months after our brief visit to Seoul ended in July, is my last meal report from the trip. This was not our last meal in the city and there was nothing particularly special about the food but I’ve saved it for the end as it was eaten at a neighbourhood restaurant just a few minutes away from where we were putting up: Yongsan Wonjo Gamjatang. It’s the kind of restaurant, open 24 hours a day, every day of the year, that together with others of its type makes up the heart and soul of food obsessed cities like Seoul (or Tokyo or Los Angeles or New York). Restaurants like these are never going to get any recognition from international guides or tv shows or have long lines of influencers or influencer-persuaded people outside their doors; but they serve good, tasty food to a lot of people every day. As Yongsan Wonjo Gamjatang’s name indicates, the food they mostly serve is gamjatang or potato and pork neck/backbone stew, a dish that spells comfort at any time of year. We walked past it every day on our way to and from the subway lines in Seoul Station and finally made it in a couple of nights before we left. Here’s how it went. Continue reading →

Here is my penultimate report from our week in Seoul in July. One of the first meals we’d eaten on the trip featured barbecue. That was at Hwapo Sikdang near Namdaemun Market, and that meal was centered on pork. The boys had asked to eat a beef barbecue meal as well and that is what we did at Iksundong Mokjang on our penultimate night in Seoul. We were going to be in Jongno-gu in the early evening and looking around for a well-reviewed bbq restaurant, I happened on Ikseondong Mokjang (or Iksundong Farm in their English signage). All signs pointed to a good meal and so it turned out to be. Here is a quick look. Continue reading →

The Seoul reports roll on. Apgujeong is the name of a neighbourhood; miyeokguk (or mieyok guk) refers to seaweed soup. Apgujeong Miyeokguk is the name of a restaurant in Apgujeong that specializes in Miyeokguk. We only went to Apgujeong, a part of the tony Gangnam district, once during our longer stay in Seoul in 2024—it’s where we went to watch the second Dune movie—and didn’t eat there. But we had a post-lunch meeting there in the afternoon on the day after our arrival in July and it seemed easiest to grab a bite somehere near the meeting. We’d not actually planned to eat at Apgujeong Miyeokguk. We were looking for some fried chicken place or the other but it didn’t seem to be where the map had told us it would be. Walking around, we passed Apgujeong Miyeokguk. It looked busy and it looked good and so we went in. And it was indeed good. Here is a quick look at our meal. Continue reading →

Back to Seoul. My previous report from our visit to the city in July covered a dinner centered on grilled pork. Today I have for you a lunch centered on pork, but this time it’s not grilled. We were at a branch of Manbae Arirang, a bossam specialist. Manbae Arirang has been around since the late 1980s and are known for their near exclusive focus on bossam or boiled/simmered and sliced pork, eaten with a range of condiments and wraps. This is one of my very favourite Korean dishes/meals. Manbae Arirang apparently uses a special cut of Korean pork belly for their bossam and are known for a lighter, non-greasy take on the dish. There are a number of branches scattered around the city. We were at the Gongdeok location, getting in quick lunch before a spot of business at the nearby Fulbright office. Continue reading →

Back to Seoul. So far I have reported on meals eaten during our week-long visit in July that centered on fried chicken, noodle soup and dumplings, naengmyeon, and the pleasures of Gwangjang Market. Here now is a report on the first of two meals centered on what in the US is one of the most iconic genres of Korean food: grilled meat. Arguably, in the US Korean bbq is mostly identified with grilled beef, with pork as a sort of handmaiden. Beef is probably in the ascendancy in Korea as well but, unlike in most American cities with established Korean communities and food scenes, there are a large number of establishments that focus on pork, and specifically on Korean pork. We happened on one of them, more or less by accident, while wandering the area around Namdaemun Market in seach of dinner: Hwapo Sikdang. Continue reading →

Let’s keep the Seoul reports rolling. When last seen we were eating noodle soup and dumplings at Myeondong Kyoja. Today I have for you a fried chicken report. We ate fried chicken on a few occasions on our previous, longer stay in Seoul in Feb/March of 2024. One of those meals was at an outpost of one of the major fried chicken chicken chains, Kyochon. On this trip we ate it at an outpost of another major fried chicken chain, Nene Chicken. Kyochon was founded at the start of the 1990s and Nene Chicken was founded at the end of the decade. While perhaps not quite as well-known in the US as Kyochon and some of the other major players that have set up franchises here, Nene Chicken has a very large presence in South Korea as well as in East and South East Asia (and also Australia, New Zealand and Canada). Most importantly for our needs, they had a location a couple of minutes walk from our flat in Cheongpa-dong. Continue reading →

Back to Seoul. When last seen there, we were eating a casual lunch at Gwangjang Market. As I noted in that post, there is no better food in the world for hot weather than mul naengmyeon, the chilled noodle soup featuring buckwheat noodles and a delicate broth made with beef and dongchimi (radish water kimchi). Nampo Myeonok is famous for their Pyongyang-style mul naengmyeon, having been serving it in Seoul since 1972. This was high on our agenda for our first meal in Seoul on this trip (as I also noted in that Gwangjang Market post, my Seoul reports are going to go up out of sequence). We took the subway to Euljiro and made our way to the restaurant through lanes full of restaurants and people of all ages outside and inside them. This aspect of Seoul in the evenings is one of my favourite urban experiences in the world; the energy of the city (and its love of food and drink) is on full display. Continue reading →