My family and I enjoyed sampling local Korean cuisine during our stay in Seoul, South Korea. My brother’s girlfriend (also named Jennifer) provided us with a variety of restaurant. All her suggestions were delicious and cheaper than what we expected (based on K-town food prices in Los Angeles).

View other posts in this series:

• Secret Trip Preview
• Destination #1 – Clues
  • Lufthansa A380 First Class
  • Activities in Vienna, Austria
  • Food in Vienna, Austria
  • Park Hyatt Vienna
• Destination #2 – Clues
  • Transit – Vienna, Austria to Florence, Italy
  • Activities in Florence, Italy
  • Day Trip to Pisa
  • Hotel de la Villa (Florence)
• Destination #3 – Clues
  • Transit – Florence, Italy to Milan, Italy
  • Activities in Milan, Italy
  • Restaurant VUN
  • Park Hyatt Milan
• Destination #4 – Clues
  • Transit – Milan, Italy to Zermatt, Switzerland
  • Activities in Zermatt, Switzerland
  • Gornergrat
  • Hotel Matterhorn Focus
• Destination #5 – Clues
  • Glacier Express
  • Activities in Zurich, Switzerland
  • Park Hyatt Zurich
• Destination #6 – Clues
  • Singapore Airlines A380 Suites Class
  • Conrad Maldives Complimentary Food
  • Conrad Maldives Dining
  • Conrad Maldives Water Villa
• Destination #7 – Clues
  • Transit – Maldives to Singapore
  • Activities in Singapore
  • Dining in Singapore
  • Grand Hyatt Singapore
• Destination #8 / 9 – Clues
  • Thai Airways Lounge and First Class
  • Activities in Hong Kong
  • Dining in Hong Kong
  • Hong Kong Disneyland
  • Ocean Park Hong Kong
  • Day Trip to Macau
  • Hyatt Regency Tsim Sha Tsui
  • Grand Hyatt Hong Kong
• Destination #10 – Clues
  • Cathay Pacific Business Class
  • Activities in Seoul, South Korea
  • Dining in Seoul, South Korea (this post)
  • Park Hyatt Seoul
• Asiana A380 First Class

We visited Tosokchon, a popular restaurant for samgyetang (chicken broth with ginseng). We ordered five Ginseng Korean Black Chicken Soup with Wild Ginseng Adventitious Roots / Sansam Baeyanggeun Ogolgye Samgyetang (KRW 28,000 each) and one Ginseng Chicken Soup with Wild Ginseng Adventitious Roots / Sansam Baeyanggeun Samgyetang (KRW 21,000 each) to share amongst the seven of us. The chicken was stuffed with glutinous rice and ginseng. We were provided with a small jar of ginseng root strands to sprinkle into the soup. The meal was rich and flavorful, and reenergized us in between our long walks through palaces under the hot sun.

We travelled a few subway stops away from our hotel to Seocho Myeonok for fall off the bone beef short ribs and cold noodles. We ordered a large braised short ribs (KRW 55,000), cold buckwheat noodles with raw fish (KRW 8,000), spicy buckwheat noodles (KRW 8,000), and cold buckwheat noodles (KRW 8,000) for the table. We originally wanted to order hot noodles, but the waitress suggested that we have cold noodles instead with our braised short rib dish. We added on another cold buckwheat noodles, and ordered after meal fried rice using the sauce from the braised short ribs dish (KRW 2,000 each). Soju (KRW 4,000) and beer (KRW 4,000) nicely complimented our dinner. We noticed that water was served in jugs similar to those we see from Korean BBQ back in Los Angeles.

Between breakfast and lunch, we took the subway to the Apgujeong area to try Remicone ice cream. The store was decorated like an ice cream truck incorporated into the corner of the building with cute signage and stuff animals in the seating area. Rather than creating our own ice cream desserts using the three step process (cup or cone, ice cream flavor, toppings), we decided to order predesigned desserts from the special menu. We tried the Thunder Bomb (soft serve vanilla ice cream with poprocks topped with cotton candy), Hawaiian Beach (soft serve vanilla ice cream with blueberry syrup), Macamelron (soft serve hazelnut ice cream topped with macarons).

We met up with Jeong (my brother Tommy’s friend from law school) Yetgoltoseong in Gangnam. Jeong recently moved to Seoul and is fluent in Korean, which made the ordering and restaurant service much easier. We ordered Pan-fried Kimchi Pancake (KRW 10,000), Smoked Duck Barbecue + Beef Ribs Barbecue (KRW 46,000), Grilled Pork Belly + Pork Neck + Skirt Meat Combo (KRW 47,000), Beef Ribs for Two (KRW 13,000). The restaurant offered a variety of flavored soju. We ordered the blueberry, pomegranate, yuzu, and peach flavors (KRW 4,000 each).

We could not leave Korea without having Korean Fried Chicken (also known as KFC), and went to Hanchu for dinner our last night in Seoul. The restaurant had plenty of seating for large parties, and appeared to be a combination of two originally separate stores (based on décor).

We ordered fried chicken and fried stuffed peppers. Because I did not have the opportunity to eat soon du bu during our trip, we also ordered a soft tofu soup, which was really spicy. The chicken and the tofu were spicy, but we managed with the cold beer and water throughout dinner. At the end of dinner, we realized that the macaroni shaped chips did not fill you up, but effectively combated the spicy feeling in our mouths.