Summer is over and that means that most restaurants and cafes that served ‘pat bing soo’ (팥빙수) or Red Bean Ice dessert have taken it off their menus! But what’s a Seoulite to do in the dead middle of fall or winter when you want this icy treat?
Go to Hyundai Department store in Apgujeong. There is a famous cafe that has been serving pat bing soo as their main dish for years. Who knows what the name of that place is… real Seoulites tell each other to find obscure places without the use of store names, street names or phone numbers. You should too!
Just go to the top floor of the department store where there is a group of restaurants. Look for the cafe that is designed to look like it’s outdoors. The Seoulite had no idea if he was in the right spot so he started looking at people’s plates and voila! Everyone was eating pat bing soo!
This is THE place to see upper crust Korean baby mamas and baby mamas in training spending the afternoon.
And how is the pat bing soo? EXCELLENT. The ice shavings are permeated with whatever flavor you choose to get. The Seoulite got the Pomegranate flavor. The rice cakes are the best part. They are delicately handmade fresh and they just melt in your mouth.
Here’s a picture of the Hyundai department store. Line 3, Apgujeong Station.
The Seoulite is expanding his online offerings… now all kpop fans can unite… and date each other! Tired of so-gae-ting? Want to find someone new? Need to just waste some time online by flirting with fellow kpop fans? Well, well, well… go to my new website: www.kpopsingles.com.
Everything is free. You can chat, send messages, do video conferencing and even browse through the kpop zone. We’re just getting started so if anyone wants to volunteer to update the kpop pages with more recent stars, let me know. I only put up my favorites from back in the day…!
If you’re walking along Sinsa-dong behind the Ferrari dealership on your way to Dos Tacos… you may stumble upon this cafe that looks like it’s part of someone’s patio of a mid-century house in West Germany. It is indeed South Korea… but the cafe is part of a duplex if you take a close look. No matter… it’s the inside (and the cute outside) that counts. This place has ‘new favorite secret spot’ written all over it.
There are specials listed... but many don't change. If you go for lunch... get the green chicken curry. It's what the servers are always eating too. There are real bay leaves in the dish.
From certain angles, it looks like you tripped into a friend's apartment in the Czech Republic. The art here changes every monthly and it's for sale as well.
Sturdy furniture for lots of reading, writing and people watching.
In the afternoons, you may even be able to meet the artists and share a cup of tea while you see them work.
Hungry? Have a four-cheese pizza. The food here has the homey taste of a bed and breakfast.
Here is an assortment of sausages, carrots and broccoli.
Shin Seung Hun filmed music jams over at OPP. This is definitely a celebrity dive type of place. The espresso here is quite amazing.
To get there all you need to do is take along a seeing-eye dog because you will swear your sense of direction has become blind. Go to the Ferrari dealership. If you don’t know where that is… stand in front of Benihana and look across the street.
Once you find the Ferraris go into the alley and then make a left at the second alley. OPP will be on your right. Closest subway? Apgujong Station exit 3. But from there you will be coming from a completely different direction. Get a homing piegeon. Or consult this map if you can read Korean.
Where can you find the warm afternoon sunshine of a Provence afternoon or the cozy glow of a French wine cellar? At Les Baux right here in Seoul. This restaurant is located across the street from Zen Hideaway in Apgujeong, but you would think you are a world away once you step inside.
Find a bright spot by the window upstairs.
Or find a rustic table in the wine cellar downstairs.
Due to the economic crisis and the lateness of the hour the Seoulite and his friends just had drinks. But here's a sampling of the food. A tomato frittata. I'll post updates if and when I taste the glorious food.
Here is the Filet au Boeuf from another fan.
Provence is a region of southeastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. The cuisine of Provence is the result of the warm, dry Mediterranean climate; the rugged landscape, good for grazing sheep and goats. The basic ingredients are olives and olive oil; garlic; sardines, rockfish, sea urchins and octopus; lamb and goat; chickpeas; local fruits, such as grapes, peaches, apricots, strawberries, cherries, and the famous melons of Cavaillon.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, many of the most famous painters in the world converged on Provence, drawn by the climate and the clarity of the light. The special quality of the light is partly a result of the Mistral wind, which removes dust from the atmosphere, greatly increasing visibility. Artists included Paul Cézanne, Vincent Van Gogh, Auguste Renoir, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet and Pablo Picasso.
The Romans complained about the competition from and poor quality of the wines of Provence. In the First Century A.D. the Roman poet Martial, condemned the wines of Marseille as 'terrible poisons, and never sold at a good price.' Sounds like the wine in Seoul due to heavy import taxes! Vote for the EU-SK free trade agreement please!
Pastis is the traditional liqueur of Provence, flavored with anise and typically containing 40–45% alcohol by volume. When absinthe was banned in France in 1915, the major absinthe producers (then Pernod Fils and Ricard, who have since merged as Pernod Ricard) reformulated their drink without the banned wormwood and with more aniseed flavor, coming from star anise, sugar and a lower alcohol content, creating pastis. It is usually drunk diluted with water, which it turns a cloudy color. It is especially popular in and around Marseille.
Les Baux
Food: Je ne sais pas. Cal domage!
Drinks: 5/5 You can find Stella Artois and not to mention wonderful capuccinos and extensive wine list.
Ambiance: 5/5
Phone: 02-3444-4226
Location: Apgujeong
Go straight from the Cine City Alley
Make a left a Milk Bar and the restaurant will be on your right
Hours: 11AM - 2AM
In Korean:
위치: 압구정 씨네시티골목에서 직진
밀크바에서 좌회전해 쭉 들어가다 오른쪽 위치
전화번호: 02-3444-4226
영업시간: AM11:00~ AM 02:00
Mmmm…. looks good, huh? Well, look but don’t touch. Tartine is a new pastry shop tucked in an alley in Itaewon. The tarts in the window look delectable and the interior gives off a cozy glow. But be warned… the service is a sour cherry tart!
Att-i-tude. The chef, who is the co-owner and always on site, seems to like barking as much as he likes baking. If there’s an empty table for four and there’s only two of you… they will make you wait until another table opens up… which shouldn’t be too long because there is a one hour time limit for your stay (it’s clearly marked on the table as 1 hour and 8 minutes to be precise). If you make protestations… the chef will come to your table… not to apologize, but to scold. In front of the entire restaurant, he’ll say it’s bad manners to put someone down in public.
Looks so good... but the pastries lack a warm soul.
Perhaps he had a bad day. Perhaps he’s not a smart businessman. Perhaps he should open up a fast food restaurant instead. Or perhaps he got a paddle whooping like this and needs another. Mess with the Seoulite’s friends and you got one coming! Except he might enjoy it too much. Ew.
Here’s the website. Try it out for yourself. Let me know what happens if you stay for 69 minutes.
Note: My friends went to relax there over the weekend and relayed their experience. I’ve always wanted to go… but now I will not. Advice to the owner from the Seoulite? Two happy customers will bring two others the next time… filling up your table for four. Or… chop the table in half so it can seat two sets of two people. And put them back together when you need a four-seater. Duh.
What’s one of the first things that impressed the Seoulite? There are more Coffee Beans here per square kilometer than in Los Angeles. Whereas he spent a decade in the Bay Area only to have two Coffee Beans open up by the time he left… in Seoul there are at least two Coffee Bean locations within walking distance.
This is his favorite seat at the local Coffee Bean… a chair right by the window.
Does it feel right to drop so much money on coffee? Well most of the time it feels right. And according to Oprah Winfrey… only do things when it ‘feels right’. You can spend less money on shoes. Or food. Here’s Oprah’s speech from Stanford’s 2008 Commencement.
Over 20 years ago, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf invented their trademark The Original Ice Blended drink, which launched the blended coffee craze and inspired dozens of imitators. The Original Ice Blended is the worlds favorite frozen coffee drink with over 40,000 Ice Blended drinks served daily and over 12 million annually worldwide. The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf - sometimes shortened to simply The Coffee Bean - is a Los Angeles, California-based coffee chain, owned and operated by International Coffee & Tea, LLC. The company was founded by Mona and Herbert Hyman. The first store opened in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Brentwood in September 1963.
Whose buns are the latest to take Seoul by storm? Roti Boy’s! And also yours as it will grow wider after your addiction to these not so ordinary pastry treats. It’s almost hard to even call them products of a bake shop because it just looks like bread - with some weird brown layer on top. Inside there is melted butter.
But oh. my. The Seoulite stopped going to Roti Boy because it is dangerous. If you don’t like Krispy Kreme and don’t understand what that craze is all about - or even if you do - try a Roti Boy bun at least once. Turns out that strange brown crust is mocha cream! That’s how it caramelizes and burns down in the oven.
It's the Roti Boy! About six months ago, Roti Boy had a limited presence in Korea. Since then it's exploded and it's everywhere a Seoulite goes.
You know you made it big time when you're part of a fixture of a department store's restaurant line up.
But what do these buns actually taste like? Hmmm…. soft, like air. But at the end of the bite there is a sugary crunch. The mocha topping also creates a fragrant aroma of coffee and chocolate. The butter inside creates a secure, comforting feeling on your tongue and then throughout your body.
You can make these at home too! But at the shop, they use significantly more mocha cream. Where does all the cream go? It's enough for a massive cupcake.
Method:
1. Mix all the ingredients together and beat until a smooth and elastic and shiny dough is formed. Rest the ready dough for 25 min.
2. Cut the dough into 40-50g each and then let the dough portions rest again for 5 mins. Make custard filling.
Custard Filling:
100g instant custard powder (get this from specialty bake store like Phoon Huat)
250g cold milk
3. Mix cold milk and instant custard together and whisk until thick and put in the fridge to set.
4. Wrap the filling with the dough and let rest for another 1 hour. Preheat oven at 200C and proceed to make the topping.
5. Whisk sugar, butter, eggs together until well-mixed.
6. Add coffee and plain flour and stir well.
7. Using a piping bag, pipe the topping on the bun in a swirling and circular motion until the entire bun is well covered.
8. Bake until golden brown, about 15-20 mins.
Rotiboy started in 1998 in Malaysia. They are now all over Korea. Just follow your nose!
You can’t get these Beard Papa’s cream puffs *just* yet in Seoul. The first franchise of this yummy cream puff joint will open in a matter of weeks right next to Yangjae Station on Line #3. The Seoulite remembers having these in San Francisco at the SF Shopping Center. It was for real - really good. Paris Baguette and other bread shops have cream puffs - there’s even a place at Seolleung Subway station… but that’s like saying you can find risotto in Korea. Most restaurants use regular rice (just give it a year or two). Hooray for Beard Papa’s!
The Store Front Sign
'Do I look like a cream puff to you!? We're trying to finish setting up the store by nightfall!' That's how fast Koreans are. It's up in five seconds.
It costs $200-$300K to start a Beard Papa's franchise.
At about $2 (2,000 won) each, that comes out to more than 100,000 to 150,000 cream puffs just to break even. That's about 2,000 cream puffs a day for three months. 200 an hour. I think I can eat 200 of these an hour. This business is a gold mine!
This is Beard Papa. He wants you to get fat.
Click here for some reviews of the shop in San Francisco.
To get to Beard Papa’s, go to Yangjae Station off of Line 3. Go up and down the stairs to find which exit is the right one. You need the exercise if you eat this. Or if you’re thin as a rail, it’s exit #6.
The Seoulite read an article that said the more Starbucks a country has the greater the impact of the recent financial turmoil. Starbucks has 15,000 stores in 44 countries… but out of that number, the United States has over 11,000!
According to the writer, “South Korea (253 Starbucks locations), England (256 Starbucks’ in London) and Spain (48 Starbucks’ in Madrid) are all reeling from the financial meltdown. On the other hand, Italy (number of Starbucks’ in the entire country: ZERO) hasn’t had any major bank failures. The entire continent of Africa has 3 Starbucks’ and no major bank bailouts. Ditto for Central America.”
Hahah, I hope the Italian coffee chains in Korea cancels out some of the Starbucks shops. And Coffee Bean doesn’t count right? The writer does concede however, that though Russia has no Starbucks, it has imploded as well. Maybe that’s because there are too many vodka lattes circulating in their economy.
Looking at crisp fall weather from a chair in Starbucks is nice no matter what country you're in.
The vibe at Korean Starbucks is much more chill. There aren't crazies with long lists of obscure demands for what is just a cup of coffee!
That and access to coffee beans, stuffed animals, mugs, etc. Is there really any reason to go back to the states right now?
Starbucks
All over Korea. Apparently 253 locations!
They’re nicer here. Not as ruddy and rundown as in some locations in the states.
It’s kind of like McDonalds and Burger King in Korea 10 years ago. At first they were really really nice. Now they’re janky even in Seoul. So who knows what Starbucks will be 10 years from now or even if it will be around. So enjoy now!
Coffee and books go hand in hand. If you’re in Gangnam, then you can move away from the hustle and bustle of the main area and find a little bookworm heaven at the Kyobo Bookstore in the Kyobo Tower in Gangnam (Gangnam Station exit #5).
The Kyobo Tower at Night.
But don’t forget the coffee before or after your book excursion… go across the street to Take Urban.
Very large and open indoor area.
Delicious latte.
Oatmeal Cookies!
Green Tea and Fig Biscotti!
The shop is in a building with lots of holes called the 'beehive'. Seoulites are worker-bees oh yes they are. They have the longest working hours of any OECD member country.
Take Urban
Locations around Seoul
This location is in Gangnam (Gangnam Station Exit 7). Walk towards Kyobo Tower. It’s about a 5-10 minute walk. It’s diagonally across Kyobo.
The Apgujong location is near the designer’s club: 02-512-7978.
Hi, I’m Sean Lim, an American expat living in South Korea. This is my blog about becoming a Seoulite.
What is a Seoulite?
A ‘Seoulite’ (서울깍쟁이) is a citizen of Seoul, just as a ‘New Yorker’ is a citizen of New York. Of course the label ‘Seoulite’ doesn’t simply denote a place of residence [...]
