Seoul Eats

One reason why we love Seoul?

The food!

Rose and I found time to travel to Seoul for a girls-only trip, where we proceeded to shop until we dropped at Dongdaemun.

All the late-night shopping left us famished, so we joined the queue at one of the tiny street stalls to buy some gimbap (Korean rolled sushi).

Gimbap (6 for 3000 won), steamed rice rolled with a variety of fillings from kimchi to pickled radish, are a popular snack in Korea. We opted to have ours rolled with prawn roe, chilli anchovies, kimchi, spicy radish and tuna mayo.

The gimbap from this stall, a smaller bite-sized version of other gimbap sold elsewhere, were delicious. The robust flavours of the fillings combined wonderfully with steamed rice and toasted seaweed.

(I promptly got myself addicted to gimbap and proceeded to have them for every meal during our remaining time in Seoul!)

Here we have Rose’s personal favourite, kongnamulbap (Korean beansprout rice), which comes with radish and cabbage kimchi, soup and a spicy chive sauce. Toss in some Korean seaweed and the result is a hearty and tasty meal that is surprisingly affordable (3500 won).

On our second day in Seoul, we ventured to the venerable Lotte Department Store in Myeongdong to take in the food basement.

The mind-boggling array of colourful kimchi and other pickled foods:

Being a huge crab fan, I came with the singular aim of buying gaejang, raw crabs pickled in a sweet soy sauce brine (20,000 won per crab) and the saleslady even threw in a complimentary serving of chijimi (Korean seafood pancake)!

One other thing that made Rose and I very happy potatoes was the fact our hotel was situated right across a street with plenty of food options. Koreans in Seoul love winding down after a day’s work to beer and crispy fried chicken, so that was precisely what we did too, although our fatigue had more to do with shopping and generally having too much of a good time .

Us fried chicken fans ordered a whole chicken for 15,000 won for a late-night DVD in our hotel room, making it the perfect end to a perfect trip.

~ rina