south korea Archives

In product

O’sulloc Roasted Tea Milk Spread: Review

November 20, 2018

O’sulloc Roasted Tea Milk Spread is one of the newer products from South Korea. After O’sulloc’s success with the Green Tea Milk Spread, they created the Roasted Tea Milk Spread. Since I was curious, I got my mother in law to bring me back a few jars to try. It’s hard to find in North America unless it’s at specialty grocery stores. You can alternatively find them selling online for quite a mark up around $25.

You can eat the spread with bread, cookies, bagels, or milk. It would work well in baking too as it is sweeter. Imagine putting this on ice cream and waffles. It would be pretty darn great.

It has a good depth of tea flavour, which is very enjoyable, but there is a good amount of sugar inside, so it’s definitely not for anyone’s diet.

They come in 200g jars with the delicious Roasted Tea Milk Spread hidden inside.

Website:
http://www.osulloc.com/kr/en

In Cafe

How to kill time at Incheon Airport

January 18, 2014

When M and I arrived at Incheon Airport in South Korea to head back to Vancouver, we had a lot of time on our hands after we checked in and dropped out bags off. A few hours to be exact.

There’s lots to do actually…or to be more specific, lots to buy and eat. Duty free shops filled with gifts, souvenirs, alcohol and other junk. Then there are the cool little cafes inside. The two specific ones that intrigued us was the Charlie Brown Cafe and Hello Kitty Cafe.

We already went to the Hello Kitty Cafe in HongDae and Charlie Brown Cafe in Hong Kong, but it’s always nice to stroll through. All the other cafes were quite normal like Starbucks. Why not spend some time at a café you can’t find at hone.

The first Charlie Brown café that we found was on the 3rd floor near Gate 12. It is open from 7am till 9:15pm. They have beverages, cakes, sandwiches and some toys.

You will want to get their cakes or drinks because you can’t find it anywhere else that looks like this.

Website: http://www.charliebrowncafe.net/

Hello Kitty Cafe is a cute place for a snack or just go there to take pictures on their chairs. They are open from 6:30am till 9:30pm. It’s on the 3rd floor near gate 24.

Let again just like Charlie Brown Cafe, the drinks and cakes are good signature items to get.

Website: http://www.hellokittycafe.co.kr/

Their second location is 24 hours and is near Gate 113 and serves the same stuff as the other. This is on the other side of the airport after you take the little train to the other terminal.

With the left over time, you can just sit and wait for the boarding call. The airport is quite nice.

Once time is up, just hop on the flight back home. It’ll probably be a long flight, but as long as you have a book and headphones, you’re all set.

Website: http://www.airport.kr/

In Bakery

Paris Baguette Cafe: Bakery in South Korea

November 24, 2013

Paris Baguette can be found all over South Korea. You are 100% guaranteed to bump into this place somewhere on the street as there are over 2,900 locations. They have sandwiches, cakes, buns, drinks, and pastries. While I was in Korea, I probably came here almost everyday to get some breakfast or snack. It’s just convenient and sometimes open 24 hours.

They even have a few locations in North America, specifically in California, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.

All the tables are filled with bread. There is even a little seating area too for you to enjoy your baked goods here.

Bread, bread, bread.

More bread.

Cheesy Pizza Bread was heated and sliced into 4 pieces. It was cheesy and a hint of sweetness to it.

English Muffin with ham, cheese, and egg. Tasted ok, but I wouldn’t eat it again. Needs more filling between the buns.

Sausage Wrap has sweet sauce, cheese, egg and fried onions. This was pretty good too.

Grapefruit Juice and bottled coffee.

Cream cake was for my birthday. It has layers of white cake with cream and fruit. It was good, but as you can tell, the fruit isn’t ask fresh.

Overall, I would stick with their savoury bread items. Those are my favourites. If you are a tourist like me and have no idea what to bring home, they have a few locations inside the Incheon Airport. Great for last-minute gifts because they have gift boxes of assorted treats.

It’s not the best bakery, but it sure is convenient.

Website:
http://www.paris.co.kr/

In Japanese

Big Room Sushi House 대방횟집: Sashimi Feast in Seoul

November 22, 2013

When we arrived in Seoul for the last few days of our trip in South Korea, M’s relatives took us to Big Room Sushi House (대방횟집 dae bang hwe jip). I clearly had no idea where I was going, so having them lead me to food is just great.

We got a set meal that came with SO MANY dishes. It was about 20,000 won or 30,000 won per person. It’s a pretty good price since we did get so much food.

When we sat down, there were a few sauces, quail eggs, edamame, and veggies for us to nibble on before the rest of the meal came.

Assorted sashimi

You won’t find any of the normal stuff here. There was abalone and a bunch of other fish I could not identify. Everything was fresh and tasted great.

Roasted ginko beans are great to munch on.

Raw Oysters was all eaten up by me. I like ousters in all shapes and forms.

Sea Squirt Sashimi tasted like the ocean. Not my favourite seafood by a long shot, but it was alright.

Shrimp tempura was deliciously crunchy and light.

Grilled Prawn were a tad dry and there is a hidden skewer that goes through them, so you have to make sure you don’t eat that. Take it out before you eat it.

Grilled Mackerel has little bones inside, so its quite hard to eat if you aren’t good at picking the little bones out.

Vegetable pancake was good! Very simple but satisfying.

Hot spicy soup was really good and had lots of flavour. If you aren’t into spicy food, they can make it non-spicy too.

Cucumber roll with some fish eggs are poorly put together, but tasted fine.

Kyoho Grape also know as slip skin grapes are very unique and very different than the type of grapes we have in North America. You just put the opening of the grape against your lips and then use your fingers to push the flesh out. It’s a pretty weird process and no one eats the skins.

The flesh of the grape is like jelly, but there are some seeds inside. You just easily spit them out and start on the next grape.

Overall, a pretty good place for a feast. It’s close to the station and has some cool shops near by. I would definitely call ahead to make a reservation so they have everything prepared before you arrive.

We Rate Big Room Sushi House:

Address:
349-3
Sindaebang 2(i)-dong
Dongjak-gu, Seoul, South Korea

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In Fast Food

Pizza Hut: Rich Gold Pizza and Crown Pizza in Korea

October 31, 2013

I thought I knew pizza … but when I came to South Korea the pizza wasn’t the same. M and I made it a mission to have pizza at Pizza Hut. Their pizzas are quite different and you won’t be able to find it in North America. Imagine sweet potato and minimal tomato sauce on your pizza. To me that’s nuts.

Pohang has a new Pizza Hut and we found one in their Downtown core.

They have 4 styles of pizza:

Rich Gold
Crown Pocket
Cheese Crunch
The Special

The salad bar used to be good, but this particular location sucked a lot. Two people must share a plate for the price you pay. The salad isn’t fresh and a bit wilted. The fruit looked stale and old, but you can try rambutan and passion fruit that you can’t easily find in North America.

On the bright side, you can get pasta, rice cake and mussels at the bar too.

This is what I grabbed. Everything tasted ok, but I wouldn’t get the salad bar again. Nothing tasted fresh.

Pizza Hut’s Rich Gold Pizza (Medium – 27,900 won) has a sweet potato mousse circling the crust. It’s essentially two carbs in every bite.

We got the supreme toppings but minus the meat since we were eating with some vegetarians. It tasted pretty good surprisingly. It still doesn’t compare to normal pizza because they use little to no tomato sauce. It’s mostly just cheese and sweet potato.

Bulgogi Crown Pocket (Medium – 28,900 won) has bits of beef on top with peppers, bbq sauce, ranch, and mushrooms.It’s pretty expensive since the pizza wasn’t that big. The bulgogi was a bit sparse and you could barely notice any meat.

Nestled in the crust is sweet potato purée and cream cheese. I thought it was a gross combination.

Bacon Steak Crown Pocket (Medium – 28,900 won) has a sweet sauce drizzled over the peppers, cheese and green beans. It was ok, but I didn’t like the sweet and savoury combination.

I wasn’t a fan of these Korean-style pizzas. It’s a cool sounding combination but not nice on the palate. The price was very expensive! It was about $28 for a medium pizza. Also, the service was quite poor

Have you tried these before?

Website: www.pizzahut.co.kr

In BBQ

Delivery Chicken in South Korea: BHC and BBQ

October 25, 2013

Sometimes in Korea, you want food to come to you instead of you going out for food. Or perhaps cooking is too hard. For a lot of university students, ordering in is quite common and you can almost get every single type of food to be delivered.

We were craving different types of chicken, so we ordered from BHC and BBQ Chicken for some of their specialty chicken. They have locations all over Korea, so you’re bound to run into one.

As we knew the original fried chicken would be amazing, we ordered other items off their menu to get a taste of what else is popular in Korea.

BBQ

From BBQ Chicken, we ordered grilled chicken and it came with sauce, a can of pepsi, and pickled radish cubes.

Korean traditional Charbroiled Chicken is quite juicy and is marinated ahead of time and comes straight off the grill to seal in those juicy flavours. It was pretty good, but you can’t really beat an experience eating inside the restaurant.

Website: http://www.bbqbarbecue.co.kr/

BHC Chicken

Another popular place is BHC which stands for Big Hit Chicken. They usually advertise heavily with the use of celebrities. M wanted boneless chicken so we ordered from here.

Boneless Chicken with shredded leek is another popular item. It reminded me of chicken nuggets with green onions. It was ok, but nothing very special.

Website: http://www.bhc.co.kr/

There were all good alternatives for chicken but I think the one that still steals my heart is original fried chicken. Can’t beat that stuff. I must continue the hunt for the best chicken.

In Fast Food

Lotteria: Wild Shrimp Burger in Korea

October 23, 2013

Once we landed in Seoul, Korea we needed to take 2 trains and a taxi to get to Pohang, Korea. It was a long commute and took about 3 hours. Once we got to Singyeongju Station near Gyeongju, M and I needed to take a dinner break and found a Lotteria in the station.

If you’ve never heard of Lotteria before, it’s like the Korean McDonalds where it serves fast food like burgers and chicken. It’s literally everywhere in Korea, you’ll find one if you just walk around the streets in any town.

I had no idea what I wanted to get, so it took me a while to stare at the menu.

There was one item that intrigued me – Wild Shrimp Burger. I’ve never seen a shrimp burger, so it was time to check it out a chow down.

Wild Shrimp Burger Combo ($6,200 WON or $6.20 CDN) came with a pop and fries. They have Pepsi and most people in Korea prefer Pepsi over Coca-Cola. This whole meal is just over 900 calories, if you’re into counting. The burger itself is about 500 calories. You definitely shouldn’t come here if you’re trying to lose weight.

Since I’m on vacation, so I can eat ALL the food.

The fries were ok, but it still can’t beat McDonalds. It’s probably because these fries aren’t heavily salted.

Wild Shrimp Burger is made of a sesame bun, shrimp patty, thousand island dressing, tartar sauce, lettuce, pickles, and paprika. It had a unique taste and it kinda reminded me of a fish fillet burger from McDonalds.

The exterior of the shrimp patty was nice and crispy. The inside of the patty has small bits of shrimp, but you really can’t notice it too much. The burger sounded amazing, but when i ate it, it was a bit of a let down.

Website: http://www.lotteria.com/