My previous report from Seoul was of dinner at Nampo Myeonok. That meal was centered on naengmyeon. My report today is of a lunch at another of Seoul’s venerable restaurants. This meal was also centered on noodles and noodle soups, none of which were naengmyeon. We were at Myeongdong Kyoja, a restaurant, famous for their food and also for only having four dishes on the menu between April and October (and only three between November and March). We were there in July. There were four dishes on the menu and there were four of us there to eat, and so we got one of everything; it was the right thing to do. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Korean Food
Nampo Myeonok (Seoul, July 2025)
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
Back to Gwangjang Market, Again…(Seoul, July 2025)
I’ve been threatening to start posting reports of our meals in Seoul for more than a week now. Here, finally, is the first one. I will remind you that after our week in Tokyo (meal reports from which were posted chronologically), we went to Kyoto for a few days and from there to Seoul (and from there to Delhi). I’m jumping past the Kyoto meal reports just to mix things up a bit. I’m going to post a few Seoul reports mixed in with a Delhi report or two and then I’ll go back and do the Kyoto reports. And these Seoul reports are not going to be in chronological order either. This first report, for instance, is of lunch eaten on our third day in Seoul. We had an appointment in the afternoon in Sindang-dong and got off the subway a few stops earlier to eat at one of my favourite places in Seoul: Gwangjang Market. I’ve reported at great length on meals at the market before (see here, here, here and here) and will almost certainly do so again. Yes, it’s a bit of a Seoul cliche at this point but I do love the energy of the place, and across my visits had not had a single bad meal there. I am happy to report that that streak was not broken on this visit either. Continue reading
Mo Ran Gak II (Los Angeles, June ’24)
Here finally is the long-promised/threatened final restaurant report from our trip to California in June. This was the last meal we ate out on the trip, a Korean dinner at a place I’ve reported on before: Mo Ran Gak in Garden Grove. I should explain here something that probably bugs people who know the geography of southern California well: I use the place name “Los Angeles” quite loosely in my meal reports from southern California. Garden Grove is not in Los Angeles. Nor for that matter are the cities in the South Bay (Torrance, Gardena, Long Beach etc.) or in the San Gabriel Valley (Monterey Park, Alhambra, Rosemead etc.) that I’ve previously written meal reports from. Indeed, Garden Grove is not even in LA County; it’s in Orange County (as is Costa Mesa). I just lazily bundle them all together as “Los Angeles” because in my head Greater LA is a larger agglomeration than it is in reality. Please forgive me (I do a similar kind of thing with Delhi, but that’s another story). Continue reading
Back at Gwangjang Market (Seoul, Feb/March 2024)
Here, finally, almost exactly five months to the day since we left after our five stay in February and March, is my last report from Seoul. It features a return to what had been my favourite place to visit when I was in Seoul on my own in March 2023: Gwangjang Market. On that occasion I was in the city for a week and Gwangjang Market was a brisk, appetite-stimulating walk from my hotel. I ended up eating dinner there four nights in a row (see here for a general look at the market, and here and here for my meal reports). This time I was back for more than a month but only visited Gwangjang Market three times. This is not because something went wrong with the market in the intervening period but because on this trip, with the family and 22 students in tow, I ventured much further afield, including to several other traditional markets (Cheongnyangni, Namdaemun, Mangwon, Noryangjin Seafood Market). But Gwangjang Market was still the first and last of these that we visited. Here is a look at those visits. Continue reading
Kwonsooksoo (Seoul, March 2024)
Here finally is my last report on our high-end dining adventures in Seoul in February and March. It’s not my last Seoul report from the trip—I have one more report on some far more informal eating to come—but it’s my last high-end report. And it’s of the last of those high-end meals. You may recall that our first was lunch at Mingles in late February. In early March we had lunch with a friend at Soul Dining. In mid-March, just a few days before we left Seoul, the missus and I had lunch at Kwonsooksoo. We’d come close to cancelling the reservation—the end of the program I was leading had left me rather drained and I wasn’t sure I was up for another long meal. In the end we decided to stick with our plan and I’m very glad we did: this was one of our very best meals, not just in Seoul but anywhere so far this year. Here are some details. Continue reading
Soul Dining (Seoul, March 2024)
You’ll never believe it but I have a restaurant report from Seoul today. I’ve been promising the imminent conclusion of my reports from our five-week trip to the city in February and March for a couple of months, and here I am in mid-July with two more reports still to come after this one. This lunch at Soul Dining was eaten in early March. This was the second of three high-end/Michelin-starred restaurants we ate at on the trip. I’ve previously reported on the first of those meals—at Mingles. At the end of that report—back in April—I’d said I’d have the other two done in the coming weeks. Of course, I meant months. Anyway, here finally is a look at what was an exquisite lunch at Soul Dining. We had lunch there on a weekday in the company of a friend who was in Seoul for a week as part of my program. Continue reading
Ahgassi Gopchang II (Los Angeles, June 2024)
One of our favourite places to eat barbecue in Los Angeles is Ahgassi Gopchang in Koreatown. I’ve previously reported on our first meal there in January 2019. If it weren’t for the fact that my mother-in-law moved later that year to Seal Beach, Ahgassi Gopchang would have become our regular barbecue spot. They’re famous for the gopchang (intestines) in their name, yes, but all their meats are very good. But thanks to that move, we can now only get there (or to other Koreatown places) when we’re in the general vicinity for something else. On this trip, for example, we visited a couple of exhibitions at LACMA—including the small but very interesting, “Dining with the Sultan“, on feasting in Islamic society—and Koreatown was an easy pick for lunch after. And so we were back at Ahgassi Gopchang. Continue reading
Wonjo Agujjim II (Seoul, March 2024)
I know I said I’d finally post my report today on our meal at Tenant in Minneapolis at the start of the month. But I really do need to wrap up my reports from Seoul: it’s been three months now since we left the city. Luckily, I have only four more reports to go. Two this week, two next week and I’ll be done before the month ends. Of the four remaining reports two are of places I ate at for the first time on this trip and two are of places I ate at on my solo visit to Seoul in March 2023. Both of the latter were places I particularly enjoyed and knew I was going to go back to for sure with the family in tow. One, of course, was Gwanjang Market (which we indeed went to multiple times); the other was Wonjo Agujjim. I’ll close out my Seoul reports with a Gwanjang Market wrap-up. Here first is a look at a larger meal at Wonjo Agujjim than I was able to manage on my own in 2023. Continue reading
Jagalchi Market (Busan, March 2024)
And now let’s finally get back to South Korea. You may recall we spent five weeks there in February and March of this year. Most of that time was spent in Seoul but we did go down to Busan for a few days at the end of February/beginning of March. I’ve previously put up a compendium post on a number of meals eaten on that short trip. Here now is a report on the last. It’s not just a meal report though. The last thing we did in Busan before heading to the train station to return to Seoul was visit the famous Jagalchi fish market. If you’ve been following my trip reports for a while, you will not be surprised to hear that this was one of my favourite outings in Busan. Yes, I do love fish markets. We spent some time wandering through the market and then a subset of my students joined us for lunch at the market. Here are the details. Continue reading
Three Meals in Busan (Korea, Feb-March 2024)
Okay, it’s been more than two weeks since my last report from Korea. That was of a very pleasant morning spent at Mangwon Market in Seoul. Today’s report takes us out of Seoul for the second time (the first was of a meal near the DMZ), all the way to Busan. We took a fast train down to Busan at the end of February and spent a couple of nights there. It was a pretty hit-and-run trip and we didn’t really get a good feel for the city but enough to know that we’d like to come back again (and we almost certainly will in the spring of 2026). All our meals in the city were affairs of convenience and so rather than posting about each of them separately, I’m putting up a combo post that covers our first three meals out (breakfast was eaten at our somewhat functional hotel). The only solo report will be of our last meal in the city, which was eaten at the Jagalchi fish market. That’ll go up next week, probably, with a prolonged look at the market as well. Continue reading
Woo Lae Oak (Seoul, February 2024)
Somehow we only ate one barbecue meal in Seoul. But it was a good one. Woo Lae Oak has been around since 1946 and is one of the most celebrated restaurants in the city. It’s not the cheapest barbecue place—they use only Korean beef—but it’s also far from the most expensive. What they’re perhaps most famous for isn’t even grilled beef. The origins of the family that owns the restaurant are in North Korea and they are especially known for their Pyongyang-style naengmyeon and some people go there exclusively to eat their naengmyeon. We were there principally for the meat. Of course, it’s a mistake to end any Korean barbecue meal without chilled naengmyeon and so we ate across both sides of their menu, so to speak. Here’s a quick look at the meal. Continue reading
Eating at Noryangjin Fish Market (Seoul, February/March 2024)
Last weekend I posted a look at my visits to Seoul’s famous Noryangjin Fish Market, complete with an excessive slideshow of images. Noryangjin is a massive fish market, yes, but it is not just a fish market. The market also contains a large number of seafood restaurants on the second floor where you can have things you bought at the market cooked up to your specifications or where you can order off a menu as at a regular restaurant. I ate at the market on both visits, accompanied on each occasion by groups of my students. Here now is a report on those two meals, one a weekend lunch in February and the other a weekend dinner in March. As you’ll see, the experiences were not identical. And you’ll be glad to know that together they add up to another excessive slideshow of images. You’re welcome. Continue reading
Mingles (Seoul, February 2024)
The vast majority of our meals out in Seoul—and all the meals I’ve so far reported on—were eaten at more or less casual restaurants and at markets. We did, however, also eat three fancier meals; at places with Michelin stars, no less. Our interest was to see what contemporary high-end Korean cooking looks like, especially in the home country, where diners are intimately familiar with the cuisine in its traditional guises. The first of these three meals was eaten at Mingles, located in Gangnam-gu and currently the holder of two Michelin stars. We ate lunch there on a weekday in late February. Here’s how it went. Continue reading
Myungdong Boribap & Kodari (Seoul, February 2024)
Back to Seoul. This report is actually of our second meal out in the city. We’d arrived the previous day and enjoyed a welcome dinner at Chon in Insadong. We were back in Insadong again the next day. Well, my family and I lived in Insadong for the full five weeks—it’s the students who were back in Insadong the next day. On our agenda was a day of tourism before the program proper began. The first half of the day was spent at the Gyeongbokgung Palace (clad in hanboks for maximum cheese quotient) and environs and the second half was spent walking to and then at Namdaemun Market. In between we had to eat a quick lunch. The itinerary had “lunch on your own” marked on it but we bailed the students out and took them for lunch with us. It had to be quick, it had to be at a place that could take 25 of us and it had to be a place that would be reasonably quick. At the intersection of all these variables was Myungdong Boribap & Kodari on Insadong St. Here’s how it went. Continue reading
Eating at Tongin Market (Seoul, February 2024)
Of all the markets we visited in Seoul in February and March, Tongin Market was the closest to where we were living. It also turned out to be the one least like the others. Gwangjang Market, Namdaemun Market, Cheongnyangni Market, Mangwon Market and the Noryangjin Fish Market are all markets first. Cheongnyangni and Mangwon markets are neighbourhood markets that include some food vendors. Namdaemun Market has famous food alleys but they’re really secondary to the real business of the market which is retail sales. Even Gwangjang Market with its prominent food alley is dominated by shopping during the day. And Norynangjin is a massive wholesale and retail seafood market with restaurants attached. Tongin Market, however, is different: it’s almost entirely about food vendors. It ended up therefore being a very different experience than all the other markets, feeling more like walking through an extended food court. We visited towards the end of February with a large group of students. This is what we found. Continue reading
Namgyung (Seoul, February 2024)
Here, courtesy jet lag, is another quick report on a casual restaurant meal in Seoul. This was eaten in February and features Korean Chinese food. As you may know, like Indian Chinese food, Korean Chinese is its own hybrid cuisine. We don’t see very much of it in the Twin Cities but it’s very popular wherever Koreans live in large numbers—which is to say that it is very popular in Seoul as well. And dishes like jjangmyeon are iconic in the larger Korean culinary repertoire. Even though the missus loves Korean Chinese, we didn’t somehow particularly seek it out in Seoul—I guess there were lots of things we wanted to try there and some more often than others. Accordingly, this report of lunch at Namgyung is not of a meal at a lauded Korean Chinese restaurant, merely one that was convenient right after a lecture the missus had organize (on North Korean cinema) at the hostel at which my students were living in Yeongdeungpo. We took a bunch of the students with us to a late lunch after the talk. Here’s what we ate. Continue reading