I am a pretty big food person, so I have quite a lot of commentary on all the difference aspects of food in Seoul. Especially as we were located right near a women’s university there was a large amount of restaurants, cafes, and bakeries. There’s very few chances to try local Korean food, even through my whole trip it feels as if I’ve only scratched the surface of the food offered in Seoul. I attempted to try new and interesting things through out my experience, because I believe that learning and trying new things of a different culture, is what makes a trip fulfilling. This post is much more of the tourism aspect of my blog and not as much about the sustainability side.

Kimchi

I had a lot of different kimchi during my time in Korea, there’s one telling factor for the quality of the kimchi, the shorter cut the kimchi is, the worse it is. Kimchi does not stop at just Napa cabbage there are many different types of kimchi, more than 200 according to Dr. Hur, sole which I like even more than Napa Kimchi.

This is sesame leaf Kimchi and I think it might be my favorite food item I had in Korea. it has a very strong herbal taste and the spicy sweetness that the leaf was fermented in accentuated the flavor.

Soup, Stews, and Mains

The soups/stews are my favorite part about Korean food. Kimchi Jjigae is one of my favorite of the bunch. Jjiage is a spicy stew usually with soft tofu and vegetables. one of my favorite ways to eat is by dipping the rice in the broth, this method allows the rice to soak up the flavor.

Spicy beef and radish leaf stew is a brand new stew that I have never tried that even came with clotted beef blood. The stew was very good especially the radish greens. The beef blood was very interesting, it had very little taste but the texture, and also thought of it, was a little disturbing. At the start of my lunch I didn’t break it up enough and it was pretty unpleasant. The trick is to break it up a lot until it sort of mixes in with everything else.

Korean fried chicken is very famous, however it can be a little hit or miss. The best way to differentiate a good fried chicken restaurant is if it looks like middle aged salary men would eat there. Despite what people think of Korean fried chicken in actuality it is a bit different. Korean fried chicken has very little breading and it uses pretty much all parts of the chickens body. Personally I like how little breading there is and while the chicken can be very bony it’s fun in of itself to know on the bones to get the meat off.

Drinks and Cafes

I had a lot of fun at convince stores trying out weird and interesting drinks. Some of my favorite drinks are green plum tea, a pine drink, sweet fermented rice drink, and the tea in general. Intact I brought home a tea cake and I am really enjoying it so far.

In Korea they really enjoy their grape drinks, while I enjoyed them the first few times the chemical grape flavor gets overbearing quickly. There are many other interesting drinks which are less chemically and intense.

Cafes are pretty good here, I’ve heard they have good coffee but I don’t know as I don’t drink coffee. The drinks are pretty good, especially a ginger drink that Beckett got was exceptional. The food they have is also decent but it tends to be more expensive and also very sweet. Good for special outings.

Eating out is consistently good and very cheap so it’s much more appealing in the U.S. not to mention the proximity. In was very happy to try out all of the new things in Korea. Along with all of the other very cool experiences as well. I have to mention though that the street food in Korea is very often not very good and a tourist trap. Stick to the restaurants and it should be good.