FoodMeetsLifestyle.com

2 days in Seoul were of course only just enough for a short glimpse of the huge city, but absolutely worth the trip! We didn’t really know much about Seoul beforehand, except that many Japanese had told us they like the place a lot as a weekend destination (hence a reliable indicator that it must be good for food and/or shopping). The food was certainly fantastic, but in addition to that we were surprised to find such a warm and friendly atmosphere in the 11-million-metropolis.

Our first impression was very welcoming, indeed. Eager to find out about all the street food we had heard of, we pretty much skipped hotel breakfast on Saturday (actually we slept so long we kind of missed it anyway…) and went straight to Namdaemun market, just a few steps away from our hotel, to check out new flavours. As we curiously peeked at the food stalls, a friendly lady who was just chatting to a shopkeeper started explaining us about the kind of pancakes the man was about to fry on a hot plate, made of rice dough and filled with a dried sweet bean powder. So our first bite of Korean food was not only extremely yummy (and a very worthy breakfast, indeed), but we even knew what we were eating.

As we went on through the market people generally seemed to be in a refreshingly good spirit, and other customers would often talk to us, telling us about the different treats, or even giving us a bit to try of what they had just bought. We continued our culinary discovery with Korean rice cakes, based on rice dough ("mochi" in Japanese) produced by fiercely beating steamed rice with a big hammer, until it results in a homogeneous, sticky batter. The Korean rice cakes appeared to be similar to and yet different from the Japanese varieties, as most of them (at least the ones I tried) were somewhat firmer in texture and differently flavoured than their Japanese counterparts, less sweet and sometimes even slightly salted.

We later continued with little bites here and there in the lively area of Insadong, famous for its rice cakes (you can see how the dough is made there), its teahouses and restaurants, and plenty of galleries and shops selling art and craftwork between traditional and arty-farty.

But the culinary highlight of the day was, no doubt, the Korean barbecue we had for dinner. The heap of coarsely torn meat strips looked somewhat fatty, but once fried on the little barbecue on the table, they were super-tender and extremely tasty, particularly with the sesame, oil and salt mixture which was served as a dip. As a side dish, of course, there was the ubiquitous "kimchi", a fermented vegetable dish spiced with dried chili and garlic.

Quite interesting, too, the tools used for eating: metal chopsticks and a pair of scissors, used to cut the meat whenever the strips are too long. The thin and slippery metal chopsticks did not at all keep us from quickly finishing the delicious meat that evening. But lunch on Sunday was quite a different matter: we stumbled into a young and trendy "jjimdak" restaurant, a delicious stew of chicken, different vegetables – and – endlessly long glass noodles. After our first clumsy attempts to eat the slippery noodles with our metal sticks the waitress kindly brought us wooden ones, which we happily accepted. And whereas I thought that using a pair of scissors to cut noodles was a privilege uniquely reserved for Pippi Langstrumpf (as a child I was a big fan of the popular childrens' book character and always wished I were allowed to adapt to her eating habits), this is the commonly used (and certainly most practical) method to handle the ever-so-long glass noodles.

The dish was absolutely worth the effort - spicy but not too much, slightly sweetish, and with quite a strong flavour of garlic. I was generally quite taken with Korean food, at least with what we've had the chance to try during our short trip. More meat based than the Japanese cuisine it was very nice for a change, and the spices used were very much to my taste, too (I like it spicy, I admit). You should be a friend of garlic, though (which Simon and I both are).

As I am writing I realize that anyone reading this post must be thinking that we did nothing but eating throughout our weekend in Seoul. No, we didn't. We also had delicious ginger and "five-flavour" tea at a teahouse in Insadong, we had some fruity cocktails in a live Jazz club we happened to come across after dinner, and we ended up at "JJ's", reportedly Seoul’s most fashionable bar, where, despite the over-priced drinks, we enjoyed the stunning view of the city and the pool-party-like flair on the terrace (actually reminded me of certain places in Spain).

Now seriously, we did a little bit of non-food-related sightseeing, too, and went to see the most important palace (an almost-finished replica, as it was destroyed during the Japanese colonial rule), which is certainly worth a visit. But as usual, Simon and I took a rather light dose of monuments, spending the rest of the time just experiencing the city.