Another post from my Korea Trip!
This time, it’s about food :D.
The day I arrived at Korea, it was November 11th (11-11), and it was Pepero Day! So the travel agent gave us, the tour members, a pack of Pepero Stick!
It’s cookie stick, dipped in hazelnut chocolate, and sprinkled with almond (or is it cashew?..I’m not an expert at food, actually..haha). Sweet!
And let me introduce you to Korean cuisine (and snacks)..
Korean Grilled Chicken
just looking at the photo makes me drooling..
That’s Korean style grilled chicken, or Korean chicken BBQ. It tasted so juicy! I don’t know what kind of sauce they use to marinate the chicken, but it tasted so damn good. After the meat grilled perfectly, you cut it with large meat scissors, and eat it with rice. Another way of eat it: wrap the meat and a spoonful of rice in a piece of lettuce. Yum!
Pork Stew
Um. I forgot what is the exact name of this cuisine..is it pork stew or pork bulgogi (Thank God I’m not a food blogger..so excuse me for this ;))?
The pork chops tastes sweet, so is the soup. Do anyone who read this know what the name yet? I like how they cooked the meat and the potato, soo..tender π
What the restaurant looks like:
what they watched: Doraemon in Korean π
In Korean, there are many family based restaurant, for example, the father cook, the mother handle the cash, the son wash the dishes, and the daughter as the waitress. That’s it, no more employees. So I guess not many part timers at the Korean restaurant, unlike in, well, Indonesia for example.
Lotte Chocolate
Almost every snack I saw at Korean mini marts are from Lotte. It’s like the dominance of Hyundai and KIA in Korean automotive, and it’s like almost every household in Korea have Samsung or LG appliances. I’m amazed at how they love their own domestic products.
Back at chocolate! I forgot to take picture of the chocolate inside those boxes, but the picture at the box is picturing what’s inside almost perfectly, so don’t worry! How about the taste? They are delicious, but not particular delicious..if you know what I mean. (Ugh. I’m so bad at describing food..haha)
Mushroom Soup
Warming your heart with this healthy soup! There are about 4 different kinds of mushrooms inside, together with other vegetables, and tofu. The soup doesn’t taste too mushroom-y though, it’s a bit bland actually. Healthier food usually taste bland, doesn’t it? But it’s really good for your body, due to lots of vegies there.
Black Sesame Candy
When we leaved the mushroom soup restaurant, there’s a nice old man giving us each this candy. He’s a snack seller outside the restaurant, so this candy is a sample of his goods. Tastes good (and it’s a freebie!:D).
with cute packaging π
Fish Fillet with Tartar Sauce
I never got a chance to know what this menu called, but I’m sure it’s fish and the sauce on top of it was tartar sauce because my bf once made me one :).
If you wonder what’s the western restaurant look like in Korea:
Despite the western menu and ambience, they still provide kimchi and other Korean side dish. It’s like everytime you eat at Korean restaurant, you’ll always find kimchi! Kimchi is like..kerupuk (Indonesian fried cracker) or sambal (chili sauce) in Indonesia :D.
Look at their cute napkin (and thekimchi beside it):
Salmon Chirashizushi
It’s not Korean food, it’s Japanese. But I’m curious about the taste, is it better than sushi in Indonesia?. And beside, this chirashizushi looks tempting.
I bought it at the food court in Doota!, a shopping mall in Seoul. I tested the cashier by ordering the food with Japanese (I heard many Japanese come to Korea for shopping), but unfortunately he doesn’t understand Japanese, and in the end, we use “Tarzan language”, pointing at the menu, and so on..haha.
After finishing the order and paying it, he gave me this thing:
Buzz! Buzz!
At first I thought it’s our number table, and there will be a waiter bringing our order to the table where I sit and place the thing on. But after a while, it keeps buzzing and buzzing, and I realized that we supposed to come back to the stand to pick up our order ourselves.
In Indonesian food court, there’s always waiters or waitresses to serve you, such as bringing your order, and cleaning the table after you’ve finished eating. In Korea, you must remember to do it yourself :).
So how’s the sushi taste? It’s great! Lots of salmon and other ingredients, miso soup, and come in huge portion, for only KRW 13.500 (around IDR 108.000). Quite a steal!
Gim French Fries
“Gim” is seaweed sheets, in Japanese it’s called “nori”, often used in sushi, or gimbab in Korea.
It’s actually nothing important to be mentioned to represent Korean food, and it’s in hotel breakfast buffet, but still, I like it a lot :D. Come with cherry tomato, salad, smoked salmon, and sausages:
Korean Instant Noodles
After the tour ended for the day, my big bro and me used to buy instant noodles to be eaten at the hotel (it’s unhealthy, but well, in the name of food tasting..;)). Different days, different noodles. These are ones of the best:
Spaghetti Ramen and Cheese Bokki! There’s no photo of the cooked noodles, as it was so yummy I forgot to take it..but they do resemble the picture in the wrapper..
I like how they design the packaging, so if you want to pour the water you use to cook the noodle, just poke the marked lid with your chopstick (They don’t include the chopsticks or fork inside, you’re supposed to provide one yourself).
Ginseng Chicken with Rice and Noodle
Our travel agent declared that this is the most expensive meal through the entire tour. I think what makes it so expensive is the ginseng. So what is it look like?
That’s a bowl of soup, with whole chicken (young chicken, not the adult one) filled with a piece of ginseng, and eaten with noodle and rice. How to eat: slice the chicken, put the noodle (or/and rice) inside the chicken, and eat it!
Take a closer look:
The soup is, a bit bland according to Indonesian taste, but I think it’s healthy because not much salt or artificial seasoning (which are unhealthy) in it, just the broth from the chicken. And the pot is super hot! I think it’s supposed to be like that to tenderize the meat, which is super tender.
Korean Seafood
Well, not entirely seafood. The whole package include crabs, fried fish, some boiled pork meat, seaweed soup (yummy! I like this very much.), gim, other seaweed cuisine (which I don’t know what it’s called), and other side dishes like kimchi etc.
I can’t eat seafood, because I’m allergic to most of seafood, and I don’t fancy swollen lips or rashes on my skin. No hard feeling though, as I can eat all that seaweed! *seaweed fan*
Food Buffet in Jeju Island
I don’t know if there’s another food buffet like this in Korea (but I’m quite sure there are..), but the one that I visited was in Jeju Island. They provide multinational dishes, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and Western mostly. From sushi, udon, pizza, fried rice,Β apricot juice, salad with lemon sauce, madeleine, just name it :D.
A bit of Italian, a bit of Japanese:
Delicious pastries:
All in all, Korean food is healthy and yummy. Indonesian people who are raised with spicy and rich of taste food would find it bland and unappealing, though (that’s why the travel agent suggest us to bring our own sambal, tomato sauce, or abon). But for people like me who like non-spicy and quite a bland food would fancy the food!
Or if you like kimchi and don’t like the bland food, you’ll be fine since you can find kimchi easily in every restaurant in Korea. I, myself don’t like kimchi that much until I had eaten it for 10 days in a row, and finally understand why Korean people can’t seem to eat without it.
There is one cute fact about kimchi. Korean usually say this during taking photos, pronounced as “ΛkΙͺmtΚi/“, to attain that smiling look with emerging teeth :D.
So, do you like Korean food? Or just the kimchi? π
Tags: Food, Korea, vacation
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