How to find great Seoul food in South Korea’s capital city

KIMS BRIDGE
Aug 23, 2017
13 min read

How to find great Seoul food in South Korea’s capital city.

By CAROLINE WONG | Orange County Register, COAST MAGAZINE, Aug.10, 2017

The best way to eat great food in a new city is first to pick the right city. Rome springs to mind. I rambled around those streets for a week and never had a bad meal.

But dining well in Seoul, South Korea? That takes a bit of purpose. This I discovered when I joined my husband Brian on a business trip to Seoul. A facial plastic surgeon, Brian is invited to speak at international conferences two or three times annually. And if I parse out my company vacation time just right, I can join him.

Our dinner dining was first-class affairs requiring business attire; but by day it was all street food and sneakers. Over my three days there, I learned to explore unmarked back alleys and enlist a few locals as guides in pursuit of gourmet delights.

While each was different, these five spots shared the spirit of innovation that defines modern Seoul’s diverse urban dining scene.

1. Bukchon Village Brunch

On our first day in Seoul we woke at 8 a.m. It was Friday, our only time to sightsee before Brian commenced with lectures. We made the most of a rare day together and took in a few tourist sites. First stop was Gyeongbokgung Palace. Originally built in 1395 and nearly destroyed during the Japanese occupation of the early 1900s, the South Korean government is well into a 40-year renovation project to return the decorative halls to the height of their Joseon splendor. Allow for two hours to explore the imposing pavilions.

A Korean friend explained that the trend is for young ladies to rent traditional Korean clothing called hanbok and pose for selfies in front of Gyeongbokgung’s colorful buildings. On the day we visited, girls were out en masse, enjoying the billowing, colorful skirts and attention from the tourists.

After taking in Gyeongbokgung’s changing of the guard, it was time for lunch, but where to go? Before smart phones, when my husband was in medical school, he traveled using Lonely Planet guides, getting lost in the most interesting neighborhoods around the globe. Wandering around is still a great way to find food, so after a few hours on the palace grounds, we headed east to Bukchon Hanok Village to roam the quiet streets of traditional Korean houses called hanok and find brunch.

An easy walk from Gyeongbokgung Palace, navigating the streets in Bukchon Village is less tractable. My advice: start with the historic neighborhood on the top of the hill then wander south down any pedestrian-friendly street. Turn off the GPS, ignore the street signs and let the vibrant colors, sounds and smells guide the journey.

Exploring the alleys filled with plentiful stores, art galleries and cafes, we happened on Tea House Whitebirch Story (Yulgok-ro 1gil 74-15, Samcheong-dong.) In a serene setting away from the crowds, Whitebirch featuring waffles with fresh fruit and whipped cream drizzled with chocolate, plus coffees and teas.

Tasty lunch aside, Whitebirch proved to be more of a white rabbit. No amount of online searches could verify the address and scanning the virtual streets of Bukchon on google maps proved fruitless.

Slightly – slightly – easier to find is tiny dessert shop Cafébora (75-3, Yulgok-ro 3-gil, Jongno-gu) serving refreshing green tea ice flakes and purple sweet potato ice cream. Look for the purple ice cream sign off main thoroughfare Yulgok-ro 3-gil. Or simply toss the map aside, choose a street and follow your own culinary rabbit hole.

2. Dinner in Gangnam-gu

Brian’s course obligations started with a dinner for the visiting faculty Friday evening in Gangnam-gu, hosted by course director and Asian rhinoplasty expert Dr. Yong Ju Jang. “Gangnam” literally means “south of the river.” This is modern Seoul boasting expensive real estate, upmarket shopping and, yes, that Asian rapper who nearly broke YouTube.

But I didn’t fly 6,000 miles to go to Burberry–South Coast Plaza is five miles from my house. The trip to Gangnam was all about the food.

Our destination was Korean fusion bistro Joo.ok (18-3 Cheongdam-dong, Gangnam-gu,) an inspired, Michelin-reviewed, foray into modern Korean cooking.

Chef Changho Shin’s artfully plated multi-course dinner belied his recent tenure at NOBU, Miami. And while his work in western-style restaurants in Korea influenced his choices, each dish was authentically Korean in a fresh, surprising way.

“Modern Korean dining such as Mingles (ranked among Asia’s best restaurants), Jungsik and Kwon sook soo are more popular than French or Italian recently in Korea,” explained Jooyong Kim, a spokesperson for Joo.ok.

In other words, imitation is out; innovation is in.

Chef Shin’s menu also featured farm-to-table items, a new concept for Korean dining best embodied in a single wild prawn from the west sea, which was quartered and cooked four different ways from tail to head.

The first piece was tossed with dried egg yolk powder and garnished with Russian osetra caviar. The second was topped with garlic shoot pickle and herring fish roe. The third – my favorite — was wrapped with pickled wild aster leaf and topped with apple and white kimchi salsa and Korean tangerine. Finally, the head was beer battered and deep fried and served with black sesame sauce and green chili sauce.

“The most important thing in Joo.ok is finding and serving the best ingredients for customers when it is in the best season,” said Kim. I’ll simply call that prawn four little bites of heaven, which was followed by the most remarkably lean duck entrée I have ever eaten.

Joo.ok is located in a back alley of posh shopping district Cheongdam-dong, which is part of Gangnam-gu. It’s easy to miss, but well worth seeking out, even if that means circling the block and overshooting it a few times before finding the unassuming doorway.

3. A Lotte Desserts

One of the advantages of tagging along on Brian’s meetings is that we usually have friends in the host city. Which means I get built-in tour guides willing to show me how locals really live.

My guide on Saturday was Joon You, a biotech entrepreneur who specializes in medical device development and splits his time between Seoul and Irvine.

A nice guy with a sweet tooth, You decided desserts were in order. “If you’re out traveling and you have limited time it’s hard to sample all the great food, but it’s a lot easier to sample all the desserts,” You rationalized.

A few hours eating dessert? Sure, sign me up.

We headed to the Lotte Department Store in Jamsil (240 Olympic-ro, Jamsil 3(sam)-dong, Songpa-gu.) Lotte is synonymous with multiple hotels and shopping centers in Seoul. Our destination was the “bakery zone,” part of a large, European-style food hall on the lower level, below the hotel and department store. Make sure to pick the Lotte Hotel and Department Store in Jasmil by Lotte World, a children’s theme park featuring a castle with blue spires that will ring familiar to Orange County families.

Our first stop was Gyodong, a small shop selling traditional Korean delicacies packaged in fancy gift boxes or purchased a la carte.

Gui Eun Lee, Gyodong’s sales manager, provided samples of fried pastries and sticky rice confections.

The barley-based sweetness was mild; less sweet compared to western desserts. Among the colorful offerings was Gosibowl, a fermented Korean snack of ripen soft sticky rice, free-dried fruit and grain. With choices like black sesame, cactus and kumquat, don’t expect the flavor to match the color, just dive in and sample.

There were pastry shops aplenty at Lotte as well. Departing from tradition, young Korean bakers trained in France and Germany have opened a succession of small bakeries that have given rise to independent bread shops and the ubiquitous Paris Baguette chain.

“The whole idea of having bread for breakfast is a western concept,” You explained, “Traditional people would actually have soup or rice as a meal in the morning.”

Lotte’s bakery zone included faithful recreations of buttery French croissants along with unconventional treats like soft, spongy rectangular cakes filled with green tea custard.

“These new chefs are looking to Korea for inspiration and also international influences. It’s a little bit of both. The younger chefs see what’s trending in Paris now and then they come back to Seoul and try to develop a fusion,” You mused.

From fine dining to flaky pastries, Korean chefs are experimenting, unencumbered by formality. The results are neither western or Pan Asian, but something entirely new: a kinetic food scene that is uniquely Seoul.

Leaving the food hall, we headed upstairs and outside to Sulbing Korean Dessert Café, a casual dessert spot with multiple locations through Seoul (en.sulbing.com/online.)

Sulbing’s signature dish is “snowflakes” sherbets topped with fresh fruit or traditional Asian flavors like black sesame or sweet red beans.

At 11,500 KRW, Sulbing’s desserts are meant to share. You and I split a snowflakes sherbet topped with perfectly ripe mangoes and strawberries with sweetened condensed milk on the side.

After a day of gorging on sweets, I donned a simple black wrap dress to join Brian for an early dinner at Asan Medical Center. The buffet was quite good, but I ate just enough to be polite, picking at my food and hoping I wouldn’t burst my Spanx.

4. Cosmopolitan Cocktails at Charles H.

After dinner, we got a second wind. After all, it was “6 a.m. in Los Angeles,” Brian reminded me. We hailed a cab and headed to the Four Seasons Hotel Seoul for drinks at Charles H. (97 Saemunan-ro, Dangju-dong, Jongno-gu.)

Charles H. Baker, Jr. was a bon vivant who traveled the globe from the 1930s to 1950s. He hung with Hemmingway and wrote the first serious book on craft cocktails.

When the Four Seasons joined with Singapore creative team Proof & Company to flesh out the bar’s speakeasy concept, “Baker’s name kept coming up,” Vinod Narayan, Four Seasons Seoul’s director of food and beverage recalled. “He was the only person talking about cocktails and championing an international cocktail culture.”

Cutting a striking silhouette in the Jongno-gu skyline on the north side of the river, the new Four Seasons Seoul tower was easy to spot, but it took some doing to locate the hidden bar within.

We asked the front desk how to find the Charles H., then were escorted down a flight of stairs and taken to an inconspicuous, unmarked door that looked like it held wash buckets and brooms. “Have fun,” the concierge smiled.

Walking through the hidden entrance, we were transported to something totally different, feeling as if we were in the 1920s with Jay Gatsby, or perhaps at least Jay Z.

The lighting and conversation was congenial but subdued, and while the bar offered seating for communal imbibing and chatting with the exuberant head bartender Lorenzo, there were plenty of intimate tables, sofas and discrete corners for tête-à-têtes.

Shown to a table flanked with comfy Chesterfield chairs, we were greeted with champagne coupes and a complimentary starter garnished with caviar. “Wow,” Brian said, “this is cool.”

After the apertif, the Charles H. menu invited, “And now, if you’ve finished with your champagne, won’t you join us for another drink?” Brian tried the Southside Fizz made with French dry gin, lemon, mint and seltzer. It was garnished with mint leaves loosely shaped into a blossom, so each sip smelled and tasted refreshing.

To be fair, Brian and I do not consider ourselves connoisseurs of fine food or spirits, but we’ve traveled enough to appreciate good ambience. And what Disney does for children, the Four Seasons does for adults – creating that same sense of wonderment in a world that doesn’t exist any more. Except the drinks are a lot better.

The Charles H. is not a straight send-up to Jazz Age glamour. The décor subtly “involves Korean touches, like royal colors turquoise and purple,” Narayan explained. And signature drinks include nods to Korean flavors.

Narayan’s 12-year tenure with the Four Seasons has taught him to apply local sensibilities to the luxury hotel brand’s standards. “You go from culture to culture, but the expectations are always high. We purposely try to balance staffing between experienced and younger staff. The younger generation is open to trying new things, which helps us get the individual guest right.”

Narayan has a soft spot for his energetic, young local team, as well as Korean comfort food.

“I love Korean food. My wife is Korean. At home we have a standard refrigerator and a kimchi fridge. The kimchi, whew, you can smell it down the hall,” Narayan laughed.

Narayan keeps his palate fresh by exploring Seoul’s diverse dining scene with his staff. “Here in Korea, my team and I go out for dinner. It’s very social and part of the work environment.” He respects the attentive service offered in traditional northern neighborhoods and embraces the “whimsy” of modern restaurants south of the river.

For him, the common thread is innovation and excellence shared by Seoul’s top chefs. “They love food and the exposure to international cuisine. There’s this desire and passion to take it to a whole new level.”

5. Street Food in Hongdae

Sunday was our final day in Seoul and I was on my own. For company, Joon You recruited his niece, 20-year-old UC Berkley student Hee Seaon Kim, to show me around.

Kim took me to Hongdae, a neighborhood known for underground culture and kitschy K-pop shops. There are unique cafes, galleries, and, close to Hongik University, it’s a popular hangout for local kids.

The streets were semi-crowded Sunday afternoon; the place really gets popping at night when the bars open. Hongdae is a web of side streets and it’s easy to get disoriented without a guide. Like Bukchon, the best bet is to pick a main north to south thoroughfare and explore.

I asked Kim to show me what she and her friends enjoy eating.

On our first stop, we tried duck bokki, or topokki, which combines fish cakes with rice or wheat noodles, red pepper paste, garlic, sugar and onion. Easy to make and cheap to purchase, this spicy staple is the godfather of Korean snacking.

Next, I tried gyeranbbang, a fried egg in a sweet muffin pastry. At 2,500 KRW imagine an Egg McMuffin but better, with fresh ingredients hot off a street cart vendor.

On our third stop, Kim lead me into a three-story low rise and up a narrow elevator to caFACE (358-139 Seogyo-dong, Mapo-gu), a gimmicky coffee, juice and smoothie shop where, for many more won than it seemed worth, one can shoot a selfie which is laser-printed with drinkable ink onto a smoothie. I opted for a refreshing cold lime tea and rested while Kim shot, and reshot, her photo.

Last, Kim and I stopped for ice cream at Sobok (408-7 Seokyo-dong, Mapo-gu.) Here, we shared ice cream and ice balls (sticky rice cakes surrounded by ice cream and dusted with soybean powder.) I quizzed Kim on the food she missed most from California (“Cheeseburgers.”) and what she and her Korean friends gossip about over ice cream, “T.V. shows, careers and boys, always boys,” she said with a conspiratorial laugh. It was a good reminder that my well-meaning tour guide was still a teen.

Bonus: Dinner at Dr. Yong Ju Jang house

One of the best ways to experience another culture is to share a meal in someone’s home. And on our last night in Seoul, Dr. Jang and his wife invited the visiting faculty and his staff to their home for a casual dinner buffet.

There was a little bit of everything — pasta salad, sweets and excellent Korean beef barbeque. Both chopsticks and forks were available for the crowd that included surgeons from Korea, United States, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan and India.

Hosting an international medical conference is strenuous work for the host university, so no one blamed the junior faculty for letting loose with a few choice bottles of wine and single-malt whiskey.

As the laughter and chatter heightened, it was the final touch on three days of incredible cuisine and diverse dishes that challenged the palate and lifted the spirit.

It might not all be Korean. But it is authentically Seoul.

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Seoul Travel Tips

Getting there

1. If you are a frequent United flyer, trade in your GPUs and splurge for a Polaris business class ticket on United’s new Boeing 787 Dreamliner. The increased oxygen flow with cabins are pressurized to 6,000 feet, comfy Saks Fifth Avenue duvet covers and noise-reducing headphones allow for a better night’s sleep. Fly from LAX to Narita, Japan then take a short flight to Seoul. The Narita flight includes both western and Japanese dining options and you can avail yourself to a shower in one of Narita’s Star Alliance clubs, like the ANA lounge, during your layover.

Around Seoul

2. Before you leave Incheon airport, stop at the LG counter and rent a WiFi hotspot. Five days cost 37,000 KRW ($37) for unlimited data and you can connect multiple devices.

3. Private airport car service is not necessary for Seoul. The airport limousine bus system is a comfortable and easy way to get from the airport into the city and includes stops near many hotels. Purchase tickets just outside the airport at vending stations or inside the airport at transportation counters if you need personal assistance. The trip will take about one hour.

4. The subway is exceptionally crowded during rush hours and heavy street traffic around Seoul constant. Plan your outings strategically by picking a few activities to enjoy within the same geographic area and avoid traveling between 8-9 a.m. and 6-7 p.m. During non-peak hours, the subway is a great option: safe, clean and easy to navigate. For multiple days, buy a T-money card at a 7-Eleven inside the subway station and put 20,000 KRW on it; reload it if necessary.

Where to stay

5. If visiting Seoul’s palaces, museums and historic sights are on your agenda, the Four Seasons Hotel Seoul (97 Saemunan-ro, Jongno-gu) is a convenient and luxurious base of operations. Along with impeccable Four Seasons service, add an extra posh point for the complimentary house sedan that can be reserved for short trips.

If business or pleasure requires more time south of the river, consider the Park Hyatt Seoul (606, Teheran-ro, Gangnam-gu.) A well-appointed business hotel that’s close to designer shopping in Cheongdam-dong.

Ref. CAROLINE WONG | Orange County Register, COAST MAGAZINE, Aug.10, 2017