Our Korean Adventure (the Overview)

 

Allison and I recently got back from a trip to Korea, and boy are we full. We picked this destination for a vacation for several reasons. The cool weather (we live in a place that’s hot all the time), the interesting culture, but the food was most certainly on our list of reasons as well. Our knowledge before leaving was fairly limited, we knew about kimchie, Korean barbecue, and we also knew there was some western restaurants as well.

 Since we live in a place that’s kind of cut off from western style restaurants, when we travel we tend to mix it up between the local foods and western restaurants. Some people comment to me when I travel that I waste my time at places like McDonald’s and Shake Shack, but we don’t have them where we live, so it’s a nice treat to eat something western for us.

The one thing we didn’t expect in Korea is coffee and cafes. To say that Koreans loved coffee is an understatement. Starbucks is absolutely everywhere, and there are even more local coffee shops on top of that. The local coffee shops often have a large bakery part as well, with both traditional French style treats and some hybrid Korean/French. These bakeries/cafes were great for us if we wanted a quick lunch or a snack on the go. It was always safe to know that if we didn’t feel like eating something in the area, a cafe would have a simple sandwich or sweet treat to munch on.

You can’t talk about Korea without talking about kimchi. It was pretty much available everywhere. Even some of the western places offer a kimchi version of their classic meals. At just about every Korean meal (including breakfast at our hotels) we had kimchi offered to us. At all of the markets both small and local to the fanciest boutiques, kimchi was for sale. I’d like to say that I went crazy eating the stuff, but I just couldn’t have possibly tried it at every turn, it was just too much.

Korean barbecue is also worth mentioning, it’s pretty much everywhere. We did find that there were different styles of restaurants, some better suited to tourists than others. In the high tourist areas there were Korean barbecue places that looked very touristy with giant posters of meat cooking in the windows, as well as people out front doing everything in their power to get you into the restaurant. There were also very fancy looking places, often decorated to look old fashioned. These places would always advertise the quality of the meat, and make sure not a single price was shown on any sign or menu. Finally there were places that barely looked like restaurants at all, they would have bright lights and be very crowded. They seemed very local, and slightly intimidating for anyone who might not speak Korean.

When talking about Korean treats and candy, it seems like the package is worth as much as the candy itself, sometimes more. At the time we went, there were at least 4 cross promotions with various K-pop bands and certain treats. It would mean your favourite K-pop start would be on the advertising and often the package of your favourite treat. There were also several cross promotions with various cartoon characters too. It made for interesting advertising, but one thing I noticed is that they rarely if ever actually made a special treat for these promotions. For the most part they were just decorating a pre-existing candy with the latest trendy person or character. The candy and sweets themselves were fine, with a lot of a cross over from Japanese flavours and trends (although I won’t say who had it first less I start a big debate).

We had a really great time in Korea, we got the cool weather we were hoping for, we saw some beautiful palaces and temples, and boy did we eat. One thing I noticed about the Korean people is that many of them did not speak English, but it never stopped them from being outgoing and super friendly. Many of our best food experiences were tied to the people around us and that made things taste just a little bit better.