Korea wedding trip day 6: once more into the pig

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It's our last day in Seoul, and we have a couple of stops to hit before flying off. Coffee is usually the first order of the day for Foursheets, and I honestly felt a little lazy this morning. Since there's a branch of A Twosome Place right in the lobby of voco Seoul Myeongdong, I figured we should just get our coffee and breakfast right here.

I got myself some kind of a bacon and cheese bagel, which was OK. I don't expect amazing bagels when I'm in Asia...

...but this coffee... This was REALLY SHIT. Totally bland and tasteless. This was most definitely the blandest coffee I can remember ever having. Together with our experiences over the last few days, it makes us wonder... do Koreans actually know to make coffee? I don't remember the coffees I had in Seoul last year being anywhere nearly as bad, and I know that this is a chain and all... but still!

Korea wedding trip day 5: my kind of Sunday roast

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I knew that on this trip, Foursheets' first return to Seoul since 2017, I would have to take her to Born and Bred. We were lucky enough to have been introduced to Sang on that trip when he was still personally cooking at the old private counter inside Majang-dong, and we've been fans ever since.

Shortly before the pandemic struck, Sang opened his Kingsmen-inspired new multi-story building. I wasn't able to join a group trip in late 2019, but did get to come with The Man in White T-shirt last year. This was the first opportunity for Foursheets to come see it for herself, and I roped in Kutsuyama for our Sunday dinner.

Chef Min had moved to the original counter back inside the market, as the place has been rebranded Born and Bred Original. The place is closed for a private event tonight, but he was very kind to spending some time here tonight to make us feel welcome. Sang had told me last night that the big building still serves up his menu, but the new menu at the "Original" is all Chef Min... and he admitted that Chef Min's menu may be better than his own. I guess we'll need to come back to Seoul for that!

As we were the last people to be seated, we were at the far end of the semi-circular counter. The chef started by presenting the two best cuts of beef to us as he began to cook them over the charcoal grill.

Korea wedding trip day 5: Pyeongyang in Dongdaemun

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After spending the first few nights in our spacious room at Hotel Sunbee Insadong, we decided to check into voco Seoul Myeongdong to be closer to heart of the city. The room was definitely smaller, but now we have a view of Namsan and N Seoul Tower.

After days of traveling everywhere by taxi, we switched to public transport today since there is a bus stop right in front of our hotel entrance. It wasn't long before we got off at the designated stop, with a short walk to our lunch spot.

Pyeongyang Myeonok (평양면옥) is an institution in Seoul, with a history that apparently goes back three generations. The original location is too far south and even the second location in Uijeongbu (의정부) is a little out of the way, so we visited the one in Jangchung-dong (장충동) for the convenience. We didn't get here as early as I wanted to, so we ended up waiting in line for just about 10 minutes.

Korea wedding trip day 4: missed it, again

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We missed the wedding.

Yes, THAT wedding. The one we flew into Korea for. The one we planned this trip around. The whole point of this trip. We missed the ceremony.

We didn't realize traffic would be so bad on Saturday afternoon, and it took us an hour to get from lunch in Gangnam back to our hotel. After quickly changing into something more formal, we called a taxi to take us to the wedding venue. That's when the downpour started, and it really was coming down hard. It took the driver 50 minutes to get to our hotel to pick us up. We got into the car just around the time that the ceremonies began in the rain.

We were more than a half hour late in arriving at King Sejong Memorial Hall (세종대왕기념관), and the ceremony had just finished minutes earlier. The bride and groom were starting to take group photos with the guests, and I guess at least we made it for that! This was pretty much what happened to another wedding in 2001... when I flew across the Pacific Ocean, met up with the bride and groom before the wedding, only to arrive in time for pictures post-ceremony. Oh well.

Korea wedding trip day 4: back in the Garden

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We decided to sleep in this morning. After a few stressful days of working from my hotel room while on vacation, we finally got to relax a little last night... and needed to catch up on a little sleep. So... we arrived at Starfield Coex Mall about an hour later than I had originally planned. And also too late for Foursheets to sit down for a cup of decent coffee, wherever that may be.

The first order of business, though, was for Foursheets to see Starfield Library. More than 90% of people passing through here at any given time are tourists just looking to snap some photos and videos, and that is also true for us. While strolling around the library, we ran into an elderly couple who traveled from Taiwan with their bichon frisé. Pretty amazing that they brought their dog on their travels with them, and we couldn't help but think of how much we miss our asshole Kuma while playing with the doggo...

Korea wedding trip day 3: spicy pork

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It's the night before the wedding, and Mikacina has very kindly invited those of us flying in to dinner. Sancheong Charcoal Garden (산청숯불가든) is a small chain of restaurants specializing in black pork grilled over charcoal, and it's not too far away from our hotel. I looked forward to catching up with friends - and of course the bride-to-be - before tomorrow's festivities.

The first thing one notices is the central pits where the charcoal would be. Every once in a while there would be someone carrying a try of hot charcoal passing by...

Korea wedding trip day 3: a day with jang

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Thanks to a combination of need more sleep and working in my hotel room this morning, we didn't get out for breakfast until fairly late. For someone who doesn't care much for eggs, I was surprised that Foursheets wanted to see what the Korean breakfast sandwiches are all about. Well, there's an Isaac Toast near our hotel, so we grabbed a couple of them and headed back to our room.

Foursheets had the grilled bulgogi (그릴드 불갈비), but couldn't escape eggs in her sandwich.

Korea wedding trip day 2: not quite heaven

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For those of us who don't frequent Korea, Dan Kim first came on my radar screen when Toc Toc was named "One to Watch" by Asia's 50 Best Restaurants. Mikacina's been singing his praises for a few years, so when it came time to look at places to try out on this trip, I decided 7th Door would be one of them, especially when we thought we would be staying in Gangnam. When we later decided to book our hotel on the north side of the river, I knew I needed to budget enough time to get to the restaurant. Well, we ended up being a few minutes late, which wasn't too bad.

We were the last to be seated, at the far end of the U-shaped counter. Before we had time to settle down, though, waitstaff came over and rushed to start service immediately. We were shown a collection of jars to highlight the chef's work on fermentation.

Korea wedding trip day 2: Sung Si-kyung's favorite

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After a late night of working from our hotel room, I woke up to find the city wet from light rain. The first order of business was to recover my lost wallet, so we rode the same Airport Limousine back to Incheon, somehow letting the driver know that instead of getting off at either Terminal 1 or 2, we wanted to follow him all the way to the depot.

Neither Foursheets nor I got enough sleep, so coffee was more essential this morning than usual. Unfortunately this "cold brew" I picked up from the convenience store last night didn't cut it. It was pretty tasteless... just a little better than the water that is used to rinse a cup with some leftover coffee...

After being pointed in the right direction, we arrived at the office and mentioned Jay Essu's name to reference my case. Yes, they did find my wallet, and I took out my ID card from the wallet to show that I was, indeed, its rightful owner. The staff suggested that we ride the free shuttle bus that runs between airport terminals as the best way to leave the depot. We then managed to ride the same bus route back to the city to our hotel.

Korea wedding trip day 1: lost and found, again

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We're off to Seoul for a few days - the first trip for Foursheets in 8 years - so that we can attend Mikacina's wedding. Naturally, we are taking on a few extra days so that we could sample more Korean food. The two of us have barely scratched the surface in terms of discovering "real" Korean food, so we're pretty excited about this trip.

We budgeted some time to get breakfast at the airport, since we knew we wouldn't be eating on the flight. Tasty Congee and Noodle Wantun Shop (正斗粥麵專家) has an outlet here, and we figured we should savor a bit more of Hong Kong before diving into our Korean food tour.

Stir-fried rice noodles with beef (干炒牛河) and rice noodle rolls filled with twisted cruller (香脆油條腸粉) are two of my favorite things to order, and they're famous for these dishes. The wok hei (鑊氣) on the noodles was pretty good, and the crullers weren't too shabby, either.

50 Best and then some day 7: Gaijin kaiseki

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I woke up stupidly early this morning for my flight out of Seoul, as I finally bid farewell to my tropical hotel room at Shilla Stay Samsung. The saving grace was that the bus to the airport picked up right in front of the hotel, and I had an uneventful trip as I tried to catch some Zs.

I arrived at Incheon a little too early, so I had plenty of time to get in some breakfast before checking in. After strolling around and finding many options less appearling, I finally got myself some seolleongtang (설렁탕). One last meal of having kimchi with my meal...

Asia's 50 Best Restaurants 2024

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After a few years' absence, I'm back catching up with chef friends at the awards ceremony for Asia's 50 Best Restaurants, sponsored by S.Pellegrino and Aqua Panna. This year Seoul plays host to the awards, bringing in chefs, restauranteurs, KOLs, groupies, and wannabes to the large metropolis. Most of us having been eating our way around town, but we've finally arrived at the main event.

Of course many people take pictures to commemorate the occasion, especially chefs. After a few years of trying, Hong Kong team finally got their act together to take a group picture. This year there are 6 restaurants in the top 50, plus another 6 in the back 50 - which is a slight improvement over last year.

50 Best and then some day 6: piggy feast

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At an event a few days ago, Mikacina introduced me to the owner behind Geumdwaeji Sikdang (금돼지식당), the famous "Gold Pig". The place is apparently very famous, and came highly recommended by my friends including Kutsuyama, who has been there and could vouch for how tasty the food is. Well, OF COURSE Gastronaut and I were dying to go, so strings were pulled and we got ourselves seats for lunch today - without needing to line up outside the no-reservation restaurant. I was really looking forward to lunch today.

I was not too surprised this morning when I got a message from Gastronaut, informing me of a sudden engagement on his side. He won't be joining me for lunch, but others will take his place. I'll be lunching with his chef friends.

I saw a group of people lined up outside the restaurant entrance when I arrived, but the others were already upstairs on the top floor. At my table were Chef Edward Chong of Peach Blossoms (鴻桃軒) in Singapore along with family and team. As I was the last one to arrive and the boss had already set us up with a selection of goodies, Britney arrived shortly and began her introduction to the different pork we would be having.

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50 Best and then some day 5: handsome chef, beautiful cuisine

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This was one of my most-anticipated meals for the trip. I had heard pretty positive feedback about the cuisine at Eatanic Garden, although I hadn't done too much homework to know what to expect. I did hear from Mikacina that Chef Son Jong-won is very handsome, and she had wanted the opportunity to introduce him to Kutsuyama.

Well... I'm here with Kutsuyama tonight but Chef Son is nowhere to be found. Of course, I did make the mistake of booking the restaurant on the same evening as the Chefs' Feast being held for Asia's 50 Best Restaurants, and this is the time when no chef from any decent restaurant in town would be in his or her kitchen. So... Kutsuyama would have to find another opportunity to meet the handsome chef.

As I'm not here with the love of my life, I did not book Kutsuyama and I into one of the window-facing loveseats with spectacular views of the city. As I was being taken to be seated at the large, U-shaped "Chef's Table", I was greeted by that annoying yet familiar voice belong to none other than PR8.

FUCK. I have to sit through an entire dinner in close proximity to HIM?!

So, yeah... half the counter is filled by people from Hong Kong, including Juve Fan and, of course, Giona. In fact, I don't think any of the diners at the Chef's Table was local - other than my date.

As each course is served, a card is placed in front of us, with a drawing on one side, along with a blurb on the ingredient drawn that comes from a staff member.

Our welcome drink was made with birch (presumbly the bark?) as well as some "spring flowers". The flavors were, not surprisingly, very, very, very light.

50 Best and then some day 5: delicious tripe

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I really messed up my itinerary today.

Besides all the eating I had planned for this trip, I really wanted to do some sightseeing around Seoul. Having explored a couple of palaces within city limits on my previous trips, I figured I should look for something outside but not too far away. Namhansanseong (남한산성) Palace is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that's just outside the city, and it's only a short trip from my hotel in Gangnam. Since I hadn't booked anything for lunch today, I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to go for a visit.

Well... while the park is open year-round, the palace within the grounds is closed on Mondays. So... I guess no sightseeing for me.

Instead, I met up with RAW Yeah for coffee this morning. He was incredibly kind to have picked up something from Foursheets in Hong Kong to pass to me, and we ended up hanging out for a little bit at Peer Coffee inside Starfield COEX Mall. As a lover of Ethiopian Yirgecheffe coffee, this pour-over from Haru Suke was right up my alley.

50 Best and then some day 4: I'll Remember You

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After our very big lunch, the Man in White T-shirt decided to accompany me on my hunt for cute clothing for our CCDogcow. I had seen a few recommendations for Café Bite Me, and their online shop had a lot of cool stuff, but unfortunately the physical location was mostly a pet cafe with some pet supplies. Most of the nice clothing had to be purchased online. That was disappointing.

My day got a little worse when I returned to my room at Shilla Stay Samsung to discover that the temperature was 30°C inside. Apparently the hotel does not turn on the cooling function in winter, so instead of lowering the thermostat to a more reasonable temperature, my only choice was to keep the heating on or turn it off... WTF.

Well, this made me somewhat look forward to getting out of my room for dinner, some 3 hours after the end of my big lunch. I thought there was an event I didn't know about at Vinho (빈호), a wine bar which had recently gotten themselves a little macaron. As it turns out, the Man in White T-shirt wanted to check out the place and simply asked me to join him.

With a name like Vinho, I thought there was some Portuguese connection to this wine bar. The reality is that co-proprietors Jeon Seong-bin and Kim Jin-ho wanted to name the place after themselves, so "Bin" and "Ho" together made for vinho. I guess that works, too...

The setup here - with a long, C-shaped counter around the open kitchen - reminded us a little of the old Florilège... which was where Jin-ho spent some time. There's a 2-hour period at the start of the evening where a tasting menu is served, but then it becomes a casual, bar-like service where ordering is à la carte. As the two of us arrived somewhat early, we would be trying out the whole tasting menu.

Clam - the clam came with mini cucumbers, oriental melon (참외), and pickled miyeok (미역) - the latter of which provided both umami and acidity. The creamy sauce was made with peanuts and had a slightly grainy texture, and this was meant to evoke the classic dish of kongguksu (콩국수).

50 Best and then some day 4: the temple of Hanwooooo

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I'm spending the whole day with the Man in White T-shirt.

He wanted to grab a coffee before we headed off to lunch together. After cleaning up, I headed his way via the subway. This was when I encountered serious problems for the first time in 3 days - both in terms of inter-line transfer as well as the train not reaching my desired destination. After switching to taxi, I managed to arrive at Nudake for the second time in 3 days... albeit much later than I had wanted to be.

Since I was incredibly late and we were running out of time, I just got myself an iced long black and kinda gulped it down.

Lunch today was at Born and Bred in Majang-dong (마장동). Almost 7 years after I first experienced the magic of the best Hanwoo around, I finally had the opportunity to come back. Except I'm not dining at the original "speakeasy" upstairs from the butcher shop. This is the newer, multi-story restaurant that owner Jung Sang-won (정상원) originally described as inspired by the movie Kingsmen before the restaurant opened.

Once everyone had arrived, we moved to the private counter in the basement. I had missed a group outing here in late 2019 not long after the place first opened, but at the time I was already so busy flying around the world for work that coming in just for a weekend - in the middle of an already hectic schedule - just didn't make much sense. What followed was 3 years of effective border closures for Hong Kong, and here we are.

Chef Min Kyung Kwan was taking care of us today while his kitchen team works on their upcoming collaboration with Dave Pynt of Burnt Ends. He wants to showcase the best they have to offer, but is well-aware that everyone here has been - and will continue to - eating nonstop. He has chosen to serve us smaller portions of each item, so that we wouldn't feel like throwing up by the end of our meal from being stuffed...

One of our dining companions very generously brought a bottle of Krug to share with the Man in White T-shirt. The rest of us became beneficiaries of this generosity by default...

2000 Krug, ID 313058

Galbitang (갈비탕) - the morel was stuffed with different types of mushrooms, and we also had finger meat. Gotta say that stuffing was really tasty, as was, of course, the soup itself.

Yukhoe (육회) - made with chuck tender, and mixed with oi gochu (오이고추) peppers. This was really nice, with a little fermented sauce that wasn't quite spicy but very flavorful, and worked well with the caviar and the umami.

Earth Hour 2024

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My 16th Earth Hour finds me in Seoul, as I had come up a couple of days earlier before the festivities that will take place next week. After a very long lunch today I had retired to my hotel room, and when the time came I decided to walk around the big block that is COEX and see if anyone around here cared about Earth Hour.

COEX has a ton of large, bright LED screens that blast out advertising 24-7, and there's one just across from my hotel room. Like all the others on both sides around the block, the screens never darkened.

50 Best and then some day 3: collaborative stuffing

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I decided to sleep in this morning. Haokofu and I decided to take a long walk after dinner last night along Apgujeong-ro before returning to our hotels, and that was a lot of walking. So... I was still in bed when the Great One went for her breakfast soup with Vicky Cheng. I did get around to having a quick coffee with her at Coffee Jinsim Bakery (커피진심베이커리). As we were about to have a huge lunch, I decided not to get one of their cute-looking salt breads and just had myself a hazelnut cafe latte. I expected this to just have a shot of hazelnut liqueur inside, but was pleasantly surprised by the presence of crushed hazelnuts and pine nuts.

A bunch of us piled into a taxi and made our way north to Onjium (온지음). We are joining one of the events of the 50 Best Signature Series, which sees Onjium host the Chairman (大班樓) from Hong Kong and Seroja from Singapore for a "6 hands" collaboration.

Now, the reason why I came up 2 days ago was to visit restaurants before the "50 Best crowd" get into town, and try out the restaurants' own cuisine instead of all these "collaborations". So many of these 4-/6-/8-hands events are simply different chefs alternative dishes from their repertoire, and they don't feel like real collaborations. I had told PR8 point blank that I wasn't interested in any collaboration meals from his clients, and most of all, I didn't want to run into some of the people who somehow always show up at these sort of events.

But... this is different. Any of the Chairman's collaborative events is worth attending, because Danny and the team insist on it being true collaborations - where many dishes actually combine elements from all participating parties. This requires actual thought and effort in planning ahead, and indeed, the teams for today actually got together multiple times to work on the menu. So... I'm always willing to make an exception for the Chairman's events.

Today's seating plan saw the same foursome that had sat through this dinner last October placed at the same table. I saw a few familiar faces around the dining space, but it was all good.

Amuse-bouche - we began with this platter featuring nibbles from all three restaurants.

50 Best and then some day 2: stingy with the kimchi

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When I was planning my itinerary in Seoul, one of the restaurants whose name kept coming up was Kwonsooksoo (권숙수). I'm definitely focusing on Korean cuisine while I'm in town, and this seemed to be a place that quite a few friends have enjoyed dining at. So I roped in Haokofu to be my partner in crime and got ourselves a table out in the main dining hall.

Since we were here for the first time, we decided to take the Chef Tasting Menu, since it only has 2 extra courses in terms of volume.

The table setting was not something we were used to or had expected - having an wooden, elevated platform on which our dishes are placed.

Welcome drink with small appetizer (우리 술과 작은 안주를 곁들인 주안상) - from reading the menu, I thought we'd get the famous kimchi cart wheeled in front of us as a start, but I suppose it does make more sense to have our welcome drink first...