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Published: March 3rd 2024
For those of you who have followed us for a while are quite aware, we are foodies who enjoy tasting new cuisine both at home and especially when traveling. The U.S. has plenty to offer those in search of new taste delights, given the size and diversity of the populace, but the opportunity to travel to distant lands and encounter completely new dishes is heavenly.
Our friends Galen and Denise are living in Seoul and are fellow foodies so we knew we would be taken care of during our visit, and they did not disappoint. If you don’t care about looking at food photos or reading about a food experience, you might as well close this blog now, because it will hold limited interest for you. We will catch you on the next blog…..
Arriving quite jet-lagged, the first night in Seoul, we were treated to a restaurant that was located on the first floor of their apartment building. We have learned that many buildings like theirs include many businesses on the first and second floors, including hair salons, convenience stores, dry cleaners, florists and many other essential services. But mostly, places to try the local cuisine. On our
first night, we enjoyed meal that immediately got our taste buds dancing. A tofu seafood soup along with a steamed mackerel. Tofu you say? Yes….and the way it was prepared in a tangy soup made it simply delicious. For the first time, we can say we actually like tofu, as this tasted nothing like the tofu we’ve had in the States. This meal, like many others would come with small side dishes almost the minute you sit down. Kimchee, pickled radishes, and other veggies were nice palate teases for the upcoming main dishes. We were off…..and tasting!
Galen’s work acquaintance is an American who is married to a Korean. They have lived here and in the States. Nick is also foodie and his recommendations proved to be invaluable as we discovered multiple establishments serving some awesome dishes. One night we gathered with Nick, his wife Nayoon, Holly and Elan to experience a small place where the chef does a six course meal. The chef was a master artist. Presentation is very important, along with the balance of sauces to accompany the creation.
In Korea, they have very large radishes, the size of an eggplant. These are magnificent things
and when the chef presented this two-inch square on a plate we could not imagine the taste treat we were about to encounter. Each step of the six-course meal was an adventure variety of vegetables, fish, pork, and beef were prepared to perfection everything….and we mean everything. At the Korean Dining Bar, he cooks, serves, and washes the dishes in his small establishment which only seats 12 patrons at an “L”-shaped bar. Each dish was paired with a Korean alcoholic beverage, which included rice-based wines, pear, and even persimmon wine. It was in a word, delightful!
As an aside, food here is incredibly cheap compared to the United States. You might view a menu at a fairly nice place and the cost of a dish is 12,000 Korean won. Sounds a little pricey, but in fact it’s about 9 U.S. dollars. We’re told that many Koreans in Seoul eat out a lot as it is affordable and, can be less expensive than cooking at home. Restaurants are in no short supply, either!
Now, not all the meals we consumed were what you might describe as “gourmet,” but they were very tasty. During an outing one day, we went
to a large local market, which has any number of stalls with meats, fruit, and other sundries. Denise took us to a cozy place where we sat on stools to devour Korean pancakes. Now these are not the traditional pancakes that Westerners know, but more like a hash brown potato with various ingredients, like shrimp and other tasty morsels. They were about six inches in diameter and quite filling.
Chicken and beer is quite popular and we had the opportunity to taste this delight a couple of times. The chicken is fried without being coated and served with potato wedges and of course, beer! A very simple combination, but incredibly tasty. The Korean’s are masterful chefs and have turned a simple meal into a must-have meal.
Another night, Elan, who is a fellow teacher at Galen’s school, came over to their apartment and treated us to expresso martinis and a dish she grew up with in her home state of Michigan. It’s essentially Spam (you heard that right), mixed with cheese on bread and heated to melt the cheese. It was pretty good! She explained that growing up on occasion when there wasn’t much else to cook in
the house, her mom would make these.
A quick word on Spam in Korea: they really seem to like it here and it’s easy to find in the grocery stores. Although the history of how Spam got its name is still up for debate. For those not familiar, Spam is essentially pork shoulder, ham, salt, water with some potato starch to bind it and some sodium nitrate to preserve it in those lovely tins. It’s loaded with fat, but the fact that you could easily ship and store it was a plus. It became somewhat of a staple during WWII and many Pacific islands introduced it to their diets. Hawaii consumes the most per capita in the U.S. So…in closing, it’s not junk that is sent on a computer, but rather a valuable food staple from 70 plus years ago and still going strong.
Got off track there a minute, but back to our story…..One beautiful warm winter’s day, we went to the Fortress Wall of Seoul in Suwon for a bit of a hike and a look around. Lunch that day was at a Japanese restaurant once again on a recommendation that featured some lovely dishes. Spiced
noodle soup for Merry Jo and a pork entrée with fabulous side dishes for the rest of us provided great nourishment after some hiking along the fortress’ walls. It seems like great food is everywhere around us at this point and we found ourselves really only getting started.
A visit to the Noryangjin Fish Market proved to be one of the finest gastronomic experiences we’ve had in quite a while. This large fish market is one of the cleanest and well-organized fish markets you will ever see. The seafood choices are numerous and look incredibly fresh. Nick speaks fluent Korean, as well as his wife, so having them with our group was quite advantageous, given all the great choices. Both of us were keen to see what would be chosen. After some discussion and negotiation, purchases were made and then the fun really begins. After your purchase is made, you ascend to the upper floor to a restaurant where your fresh choices are prepared and served to you, along with the ubiquitous side dishes and of course, beverages. There were oysters, scallops and four kinds of sashimi-fresh fish cut beautifully and ready to wrap in leaf lettuce along with
some spiced accompaniments that were sinfully good. What a feast! On every table in Korea is an assorted variety of kimchee—we didn’t realize there were many kinds and flavors of kimchee.
Another taste treat is Korean BBQ. We discovered quite quickly that this does not remotely resemble the Korean BBQ you find in the States…it’s much better. When the food comes out to your table for preparation, make room! They fill the table quickly with all the ingredients to put on the heated surface to cook. The gentleman watching over us worked with our group to ensure that we were doing it right and changed out the heating surface numerous times so that there was little char on the cooked beef and vegetables.
Eating in South Korea is a sensory experience.
Music One night out saw us headed for a jazz bar. As we arrived somewhat early, we had some time to kill and spotted a place called “Suzy-Q’s.” This was an LP bar. That’s correct, a place to have a beverage or two and listen to records played on an impressive sound system. On each table are slips of paper and you get to fill
out the group and song you would like to hear and the DJ finds and plays it for you. We had a lot of fun listening to some older rock and roll and funk. We estimate there were 3,000 to 5,000 albums available to listen to at this place. They had every record we requested…. We were not able to stump him.
After leaving Suzy-Q’s, we headed to Club Evans for some jazz. The ensemble was made up of 20 something year-olds laying out some pretty good tunes. This wasn’t traditional jazz, but rather closer to progressive jazz as there were no horns or woodwinds in the mix. They were all accomplished players. Of note is that in between songs, the keyboard player seemed to spend more than a few moments talking to the audience. Because she spoke in Korean, we had no idea what was being said, but this is the norm in Korea to take time in between songs and tell the audience about the music and perhaps the creative spark behind the composition.
Seoul Spas Now, we didn’t just eat the whole time, but also experienced another pleasurable experience as well. It seems that
it’s not uncommon for a neighborhood to have a “spa.” This is a place where the locals can go and sit in pools and saunas as well as having body scrubs and massages at incredibly low prices. We’ve heard about the spas from multiple friends and were eager to give it a go. Denise had been to a foo-foo spa downtown and had been to her local baths in her neighborhood, we opted for the local spa.
We walked up to the desk and paid our 10,000 won for entrance ($7.50) for the use of the pools. We were assigned a locker at the entrance for our shoes. As we entered, we came to a small snack bar and gift shop, but we headed to the other locker room where we deposited all our clothes. We were given a small orange towel for whipping our face as needed. We were on the women’s side and Dave was on the men’s side learning on his own- although Denise gave him a heads up on what was to come. It was time to take a deep breath and embrace public nudity. Denise promised me about two minutes in it would seem
normal and she was right.
There was a large room with six large soaking pools, four of varying degrees of heat and two cold baths. On the outer rim of the room were three dry saunas with varying degrees of heat. The most important part were the women in the back corner We approached and made arrangement for services. Denise was having a body scrub and hair wash, and I was also having a massage. Mine cost 65,000 won which was about 50 US dollars.
We were given a number and sent off to sit on little, short squatty stools that were difficult to get down to at my advanced years. Once in place we began scrubbing and washing ourselves with the scrubbers we were given. There were four or five rows of five bathing stations. We were trying to decide how long we were supposed to scrub. Some of the locals scrubbed for fifteen minutes or more so they probably thought our five-to-six-minute scrub inadequate. Once clean enough to enter to soaking pools we did just that. We started with the lowest heat and worked our way up, spending about ten minutes in each pool, although we
The gang at the Korean Dining Bar
Nick, Nayoon, Holly, Elan, Galen, MJ, Dave and Denisedecided the hottest one was not for us. We relaxed and laughed as we eagerly awaited our turn for the scrub. Denise warned me about all the dead skin they would get off our bodies.
We were waved over to the hot pink plastic covered massage tables in the back. There were seven or eight of them lined up. We were instructed to lay face down on an orange towel spread across the plastic table which was believed to keep us from sliding off. They tossed a soothingly warm bucket of water across my body and the magic began. These women are strong and they scrubbed, scrubbed and scrubbed arms, legs, backs and all the nooks and crannies. Over the next 35 or 40 minutes, it was scrub, rinse with warm water and repeat. At one point, I was carefully positioned on my side and was not moving fast enough, and she started tapping on my leg. I laughed and rolled over into position. I admit, I looked down to see how far I was off the ground should I slip off the table. Certainly, far enough for a broken hip. I calculated the lady at the next table
was probably close enough that the two of them could catch me. She did a marvelous job washing my hair and moved on the full body massage. I was wrapped head to toe in damp, warm towels and massaged. She stood on the table and used her feet for part of the massage. Once the warm towel portion was complete, she covered me in oil and continued to rub. An hour and fifteen minutes later it all ended, and we were instructed to go back to the little stools and bathe again. From there we went into the heated bubble pools, and I ended with the dry sauna. What a delight. I’ve never been so clean. Although Dave was not able to get a massage, he agreed. It was almost like putting your clothes back on was getting you dirty somehow.
All told, great experiences for the taste buds, ears and body….this is the life!
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gangopa
tab gangopadhyay
Things that I learn!
Indeed...didn't know 'SPAM' could be a food. Yes, I am not a foodie (as you know from social media about my experience elsewhere), but I know that you and David are. I read your blog with curiosity that how many different items you tasted while you two were there in Seoul!! Hats off! I couldn't do that even 10% of that and would have survived with Burgers only during my entire stay, I suppose. Shame on me! Oh, well.... And yes, please enjoy your trip. I continue to follow your footsteps (except the food....and imagine a smiley emoji).