Seoult and Pepper

Local Markets Seoul-style.

December 21, 2011

In a city where the big-box stores are plentiful and constantly unbearably crowded, it’s a surprise to find so many pleasant local markets. Seasonal produce is abundant and available cheaply at these street-side stalls. Recently it’s been mountains of napa cabbages and a short and stout variety of daikon, to be made into kimchi before the frigid winter hits. Mandarins, persimmons, apples, bananas and the occasional pomegranate round out the fruit selection until the strawberries appear shortly.

I’ve visited a few of these markets now and as well as fruit and vegetables, meat, fish and prepared foods are also widely available. Freshly made banchan, Korean doughnuts filled with red bean, ttoek, doenjang (fermented bean paste), tofu and dried chillies are everywhere. Boxes overflow with garlic, ginger, ginseng and more varieties of grain than you could know even if you spoke Korean. Dumpling wrappers, arrays of noodles and rice fulfil the starch requirement.  Stacks of leafy greens, pre-washed and ready to wrap grilled meats are carefully arranged. The seafood stalls wares range from still swimming, through displayed on ice, to dried or fermented. Vendors chat, peel garlic and ginseng or watch TV, and rarely speak English. A bit of Korean would go a long way here, but I’ve jumbled my way through sales with only miming.

I live nearby sprawling local markets like this one, Daerim Market in Eunpyeong-gu, and also small independent market-like shops, displaying a smaller variety of fruit and vegetables spilling out onto the street. And, as you can see from the photos, it’s open well into the evening. I am lucky to have fresh ingredients so readily available so I don’t have to buy similar produce, just older and handled more, pre-bagged, extravagantly priced and in air conditioned comfort at big-box stores like EMart.

Posted in Seoul, Seoult and Pepper, South Korea | 3 Comments
Seoult and Pepper

Bread in Seoul

December 13, 2011


Sourdough loaf from Paul & Paulina

In a country with a Tous les Jours in every gaggle of shops, and a Paris Baguette on every corner it’s no secret that bread and pastries are generally adored in Korea. These ubiquitous franchises serve up a version of bread, beautiful shiny perfection, mass produced, and often slightly stale. So, I set out so find some interesting bread, heavy and real, with flavour and holes, and pastries made with real butter. Here is what I found:

Publique
Sangsu

Hidden down the backalleys of Sangsu, this warren-like bakery is best visited early to ensure options are still in stock. An open kitchen produces trays of perfect meringues, canelé, pastries and tarts, generously offered for tasting. The bread variety is limited and expensive but done extremely well. Brioche, ciabatta, baguette flavored breads and country-style sourdough, my favourite, are available.


Chocolate croissant from publique. ~3,000won

Americano-style pre-made coffee is available, and they’ll slice up your purchases so you can eat at one of the tables outside, with a kitchen view, or in the small front dining room. Publique is my favourite bakery in Seoul, if only they made good coffee (and had wi-fi) I’d be spending my afternoons here eating almond croissants or brownies and taking home packages of sliced sourdough.

Canelé: 1,500 won each, croissants: 2,500 – 3,500 each, sliced sourdough: (~4,500 won for 100g, 4 or 5 slices).

Open until late. Closed Sundays.
Publique on google maps

Paul and Paulina
Hongdae

Paul & Paulina serve up a flaky croissant so buttery I imagine it would drag me back to Paris had I ever visited, and a salty pretzel that would put me in the same situation in Berlin. Both are often available, fresh and warm, on their overly generous free tasting plates, much more affordable than the 3,000won+ that pastries here command. The display case is packed with intense sticker shock, only understandable when you consider the quality and price of butter here – both high.

A legion of white clad bakers crowd the open kitchen, all with their hands in some kind of dough. Production continues throughout the short opening hours, with your purchases often still warm from the oven. There is no coffee or seating available in this small shopfront, and although the service is pleasant, I can’t help getting a ‘soup nazi’ feeling here, mostly from the line of people waiting for to finish your transaction. The products available are all deftly executed, but the offering, or maybe it’s the ambience, feels run-of-the-mill. There are no novel creations here. That said, the cranberry studded scone managed to just take me back in time with memories of childhood tea parties, a piece of nostalgia unexpected in this foreign land.

Paul and Paulina
12 – 7 daily, except Sundays and first Monday of every month.
Campagne, 8,000 W (4,000 for half)
Paul and Paulina on Google Maps

Le Alaska
Garosu-gil, Apgujeong

Step inside this stylised bakery and into a different, flour dusted, world. Le Alaska place is bread central, you’ll forget for a second that you’re in Korea (people drinking coffee through thin straws will bring you back to reality soon enough). Shelves of pastries, the usual pain au chocolate and croissants, as well as novel creations, glazed nut filled baskets and chocolate covered delights. Buns filled with chocolate custard and red bean, green tea and red bean bread, baguettes, sourdough loaves both plain and flavoured are all on display and priced from 2,500 won up.

A large dining area has views into a glass walled kitchen, where people sit and drink expensive drinks (6,500 won for a cappuccino ~$5.60AU). We step outside with our purchases and devour the many layered, impossibly light croissant in the street. I almost went right back inside and bought another.

Even though this was the only bakery in which I was reprimanded for taking photos, Le Alaska would be my bakery of choice if I lived locally. Traditional and interesting breads and pastries sit side by side, all carefully made and maybe priced on the higher side of affordable, but well worth it.

Garosu-gil store
Daily 9 a.m.-10 p.m.
Sunday 10am-9pm. (Don’t believe the website about opening hours, the shop signs tell a different story).
Le Alaska
Le Alaska on Google Maps

October Artisan Boulangerie
Hapjeong

All the usual suspects are available at this brightly lit Hapjeong bakery. Step in, to the left is a large table laden with artisan sourdough bread, shaped into rounds, loaves, baguettes, flavoured with walnuts, dried fruit, grains and spices, pastries and mushroom, herb or olive topped focaccia. Seating is to the right, coffee and other drinks are available. I find the sourdough loaves here to be overly dense and feel a bit too ‘homemade’ for my liking, like when your brother’s girlfriend’s hobby is making bread. The ciabatta and other non-sourdough rolls are much better, as are the pastries.

The staff at October are incredibly helpful, if you speak Korean. On one late Saturday night vist (yes, this is what I do for fun) we were steered away from the one lone baguette as it was a bit old and were generously given advice about all matter bread, and many freebies (they’re closed on Sundays). October also has olive oil, balsamic vinegar and butter for sale. Anchor butter from New Zealand! Real butter is hard to come by here, but 12,000won is a little steep for 454g. If you’re in Korea and in the market for this butter, you’re better off to buy it from ehome bakery for 6,500won.

Open until late. Closed Sundays.
Pastries: 2,500 – 4,000 won. Bread: 1,000 – ~6,000 won.
October Artisan Boulangerie on google maps

Richmont
Hongdae

Situated on a busy Hongdae corner, this European bakery stocks baguettes, canelé, pastries, rye bread, Korean-style doughnuts and an array of unfamiliar creations. Elaborate cakes and tarts, beautifully decorated are on display behind glass in this large outmoded shop. One brightly-lit side is devoted to glass topped tables, pushed close together, decorated with fake flowers and paper napkins, feeling institutional. The bread and pastries here lack a certain something but are passable, better than what is generally available but not as good as the other options on the list. Richmont is a middling bakery best visited when the other local options are closed or out of stock.

Richmont Bakery
Richmont on google maps.


Bread decoration at Le Alaska, Garosu-gil.

While I bagged bakery franchises earlier, I have to admit they’re not all bad. At the flagship Shinsegae, one of Korea’s top three department stores, in Myeongdong there is an enviable underground food emporium. Difficult to find items like wine and cheese, limes and mint, imported oils and vinegars are all available here. A bakery here, there are two but it’s obvious which one has the good bread (hint, it’s the one that doesn’t have fake sausages wrapped in pastry on display), sells sourdough and a baguette so good that it gave me my first hope that good bread does in fact exist in Korea.

High quality handmade bread and pastries are available in Seoul and this certain style of bakery seems to be gaining popularity. It’s understandably expensive and forward planning is often required as the best bakeries have short opening hours and are in distant locations. This search for great bread in Korea won’t end as this post is published, bakery recommendations are appreciated.

I’m also researching a post on Korean-style bread, look out for it.

Google map of all the bakeries in this post.

Posted in Garosu-gil, Hapjeong, Hongdae, Korean, Sangsu, Seoul, Seoult and Pepper, South Korea | 2 Comments
Seoult and Pepper

Saengseon-gui, Grilled Fish Street, Dongdaemun

December 8, 2011

To an outsider with no access to a Korean home, food here consists entirely of the street food and restaurants you can find. Most menus are in Korean, inaccessible to most foreign visitors and new arrivals, making exploring what is available all the more difficult. So, to the unexperienced, Korean food appears limited to the most common restaurant types: BBQ variations 삼겹살 (samgyeopsal, pork belly), 갈비 (galbi, marinated pork or beef ribs) or 오리 (Ori, duck); fried chicken; bibimbap; street side 떡볶이 (ttoekbokki, rice cakes in spicy sauce) and deep fried fare; and the occasional 국수 (guksu, noodles) or 만두 (mandu, dumplings) house. But most of the above isn’t even really considered a meal here, they’re simply snacks or ‘drinking food’. Something to eat while you hang out with friends and soju and beer.

A proper Korean ‘meal’ is a many dished affair. Rice, soup, some meat and a variety of banchan all appear essential, to my non-expert eye, for a dinner to be considered a meal. It can be a fancy plate tetris affair, essential to fit the multitude of dishes on the table, or a modest but no less enjoyable experience.

The latter is what I encountered recently when my nose led me down a dank back alley in the middle of Seoul. Dongdaemun is a mixed-up neighbourhood, famous as a bargain shopping destination, but also home to, and named for, the ancient “Great East Gate”, and contains a conspicuous Russian area, worth a visit if for novelty value, and borscht, only. This back alley, close to Dongdaemun market, is lined with eateries, one side is all grilled fish, the other serves a whole chicken soup dish called Dakhanmari. But forget about birds, that smoky char-grill smell is coming from the seafood side.

Each grilled fish eatery here is fronted with an outdoor charcoal grill, pick one that looks well tended. There is likely to be no English menu but ordering is easy. Just indicate the variety of fish you want and how many servings, then go inside the smokey room and sit down, or, be adventurous and take your pick by pointing at the Korean menu inside. The place I visited was busy, and not a place for lingering. Smoke from the grill wafts inside, and the decor is all laminated tables, paper napkins, hard chairs and bright lights. But the service is friendly and swift and the food, exceptional. A spread of banchan, four or five, steaming rice, 된장 (doengjang, fermented soybean paste, similar to miso) soup, and a plate full of grilled fish. Now THIS is a meal.

The servings of 삼치 (samchi, Japanese Spanish Mackerel) and 꽁치 (kongchi, Mackerel Pike) are generous. The salty fish is infused with smokiness from the charcoal grill and are tender and fatty. Salty smoky fish, spicy sour kimchi, sesame oiled beansprouts, firey perilla kimchi, somehow these strong flavours evaporate the usually mediocre neutrality of the rice, making it taste like nutty super rice. It is near impossible to eat this food quickly, the time and effort it takes to separate fish flesh from bone with thin Korean chopsticks forces you to savour each mouthful. If there was ever an example of beauty in simplicity, this is it. I left the restaurant on a high, maybe I’d inhaled too much smoke but I felt as though I’d just had a fish epiphany. It was as though this was the first time I had ever tasted charcoal grilled fish, like a virgin heroin high.

And then, as we paid I was shocked, I thought I heard the price wrong, my Korean being worse than bad. But no, this meal, almost my first proper legitimate Korean meal, this meal which caused my fish-iphany, cost only 12,000won. To put this in perspective, we later went to a cafe and two cups of tea cost more than the meal. I felt bad for paying so little for something so great, and I also worried about the origins of the fish, but the sheer deliciousness of the meal overwhelms all downsides.

My advice come dinner time: ignore the drinking food and at least once, follow your nose down a dank smoky alley and eat a proper meal, eat some grilled fish.

Saengseon-gui (생선 구이), Grilled Fish Alley, Dongdaemun.

Order:
Samchi (삼치; Japanese Spanish Mackerel)
Kongchi (꽁치; Mackerel Pike)

Cost: about 6,000won per serving of fish.
Total for two: 12,000won (~$10AU)

More photos of Dongdaemun on flickr

Posted in Dongdaemun, Korean, Seoul, Seoult and Pepper | 2 Comments

Tteok Ice Cream

December 2, 2011

The ice cream freezer in my local supermarket is a source of constant joy. An ever changing line-up of iced desserts unfamiliar and filled with promise. Red bean fish, corn flavoured popsicles and ice cream sandwich slabs, bookended with cake or waffle, chocolate, red bean or cereal as condiments. My favourites are a sweet milk ice block, pristine white and beautiful in its simplicity, and a chocolate coated and strawberry centred confection known as a ‘pig bar’ but more for nostalgic reasons than deliciousness.

Many are disappointing in their artificialness, including the popular bright and realistic looking watermelon slice. All are affordable, ranging from about 500 won through to 2,500 for a deluxe cone-style sugar explosion.
The range is constantly changing and recently my attention was drawn to ttoek (떡) ice cream.
Ttoek are Korean style rice cakes, a general term for any chewy morsel made with glutinous rice flour. Plain cylindrical ttoek are served up swimming in spicy sauce as the popular street snack ttoekbokki, while thin slices are an important ingredient in ttoekguk a celebratory soup eaten at new years. Sweet ttoek varieties are eaten at celebrations as well, like songpyeon at Chuseok, but are often available year-round.

A thin layer of 쑥 (ssuk, mugwort) flavoured ttoek, dark green, mild and chewy, envelops walnut ice cream studded with nuts. The enclosed plastic fork is a necessity for ease of eating. When left to melt, the filling removes any trace of the usual stodgy heaviness that plagues some ttoek varieties leaving only pleasant chewiness. Just one example of the kind of unexpected experience that Korea is full of, but not the only ice cream related one.

Posted in Korean | 3 Comments
Seoult and Pepper

Bukchon handmade dumplings, Hapjeong

November 2, 2011

The words jaozi, gyoza, wonton and xiaolongbao are enough to send expectant shivers down the spine of any self respecting dumpling lover. But what about Korean style dumplings, 만두 (mandu)?

The knowledge of how tempting such dough-wrapped morsels can be, somehow seeps, uninvited, onto the unknown members of the species. And, in my opinion, mandu have been a disappointment to their family. The most enjoyable dumplings have a punchy filling that doesn’t skimp on meat and seasoning and are wrapped in a suitable dough, from thin and delicate to thick and chewy. These areas, both interior and exterior, are where mandu have let me down. Mandu are commonly oversized at two or even three bites for one steamed behemoth and are often filled with a jumble of different colours of bland. Sodden glass noodles and soggy cabbage, overcooked vegetables and a smattering of meat. Or, kimchi fiery, spicy and one-dimensional. Mandu fillings are muddled and boring, without the clarity of purpose of a gingery pork and cabbage jaozi or a soupy crab xiaolongbao. Furthermore, their size induces a variety of wrapping related dilemmas, soggy on the bottom, dried out on the top, but my main gripe with the average steamed mandu is that that the wrapping is treated as inconsequential. An insipid structural requirement, rather than the star it should be.

But let’s forget for a moment the common and troublesome steamed mandu, and focus on the stellar deep fried version available at 북촌손만두 (Bukchon handmade dumplings). In my extensive research into mandu, this dumpling, 튀김만두 (twigim mandu, fried dumpling) is the winner. The same irksome filling as it’s steamed cousin is somehow made new again when enveloped by a crisp greasy shell. The dough, soft inside, gets bubbled and crunchy after being well fried in surprisingly clean oil. The filling to dough ratio is much more pleasing than in the steamed versions, making this one of the only varieties of mandu I want to eat again. And again.

Bukchon handmade dumplings is a chain, and I’ve visited the Hapjeong location more than a few times. Here, the mandu are formed and cooked out the front by a team of busy ladies, from whom you can buy for takeaway (3 fried dumplings for 3,000 won, ~$2.50AU). Or you can squeeze inside and admire the toys and drawings on the walls and sample a range of steamed dumplings and noodle soups. Unfortunately, none compare to jaozi, wontons or gyoza, so order the only thing that does: 튀김만두 (fried dumplings).

북촌손만두
Bukchon son mandu (Bukchon handmade dumplings)

튀김만두 (twigim mandu) Fried dumplings, 3 for 3,000W.
모듬만두 (modeum mandu) Mixed dumpling plate 7,000W. Big enough for two.

Open until late.

More photos on flickr

Posted in Hapjeong, Korean, Seoul, Seoult and Pepper, South Korea | 5 Comments
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