10 Seconds of Korean Desserts

 An amazing machine that can make all kinds of Korea desserts including walnut cakes.

Another 10 Second Kitchen

 Today we're seeing Japanese barbecue in the heart of Korea.

Korean Barbecue in 10 Seconds

 Watching the meat rotate is so hypnotic.

Junk Fud and You in South Korea

 We traveled from the far south of South Korea right to the line with North Korea, and we ate a lot of candy coated almonds along the way.

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HBAF (the “h” is silent)

On our recent trip to Korea we came across a snacking trend that was so gigantic, yet so unique at the same time. This trend is completely about almonds, in particular, flavoured almonds by a company called HBAF. According to their advertising the “h” is silent, if that makes it easier for your to read. I first noticed these almonds on day one of our trip as we had a few hours to wait at the train station in Seoul to head down south to Busan. There was a grocery store in the train station, and we thought it would be a great place to get some snacks and also see what the shopping/food is like in Korea. At the front of the store was a huge display with a giant statue of a cartoon almond greeting everyone who walked in. In this are of the store were hundreds of colourful bags of almonds, with hundreds of strange flavours to choose from. There were also dozens of people loading up on this these nutty treats.

I decided that I should probably try a few flavours. I went for a few of the stranger flavours, as I’m known to do including carrot cake, salted caramel pretzels and salted caramel latte (Allison actually picked that last one). After our shop, we got on our train and headed south to Busan. I opened my first bag of these flavoured almonds and was instantly impressed by the smell coming out of the package. It not only smelled great, but matched the flavour perfectly. Even the almond itself was perfect, fresh and very crunchy. I could see why people were so excited to pick up these nuts, and I thought to myself that I should probably go back to that store on our way home to get some more. Little did I know that there were going to many more opportunities to get some HBAF again in the future.

Our first stop was in Busan, a smaller city in the south of Korea. Within a few days of exploring I quickly realized that HBAF almonds were not going to be hard to find. Every single store had at least a small display for these tasty almonds, some had whole sections dedicated to them. At one point we were walking down a trendy shopping street in Busan and I noticed that they were in the process of building an entire store dedicated to HBAF almonds. It looked like it was going to open soon, and it looked pretty epic. I was a little sad that I wouldn’t be around to see it open, but it really gave me an idea of how popular these almonds were... or so I thought.

After our time in Busan we headed north to Seoul. Our first night we decided to walk to one of the trendy areas of town that also had a night market atmosphere. This is when I realized how popular these nuts really were. Every single shop that sold packaged food (there were a lot) had a huge display of these nuts. As far as visiting a HBAF store, I had a choice of no less than 3, each bigger than the next in this one neighbourhood. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any snack have so much publicity and available in so many places in my life. It was like spotting Mickey Mouse at Disneyland, these nuts were just everywhere.

The good thing about the HBAF almonds is they’re really good. The flavours are super creative and the way they make the flavours work is even more ingenious. You could easily try a new flavour every day for a month and not only will you not repeat, but you’ll be amazed how different each flavour is. I’d like to tell you that you shouldn’t miss HBAF if you happen to be visiting Korea, but I feel like you’d have a harder time avoiding them, they’re just everywhere. I just wonder if this trend might make its way outside Korea, I sure hope so because I’m already craving another bag.

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.

Translation Issues

I do my best to try and get the names of every single candy that I review on candycritic.org. There are times however when I'm pretty sure that I got it wrong... but it's all that I've got. This is one of those cases. I can't read any Korean at all. I don't know anyone who I might feel comfortable asking to translate it. The font on the package is a little difficult for any translation software. The name of this treat is likely not "Big In Your Mouth", but that's all I could get. If you happen to know the real name of this treat, please let me know.

You can read the full review of this mysterious treat right here.

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과자 괴물

 Korean Cookie Monster is just as awesome as English Cookie Monster.

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Candy In The Media - Do Or Donut, There Is No Try

I can watch people making donuts all day long.

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Candy In The Media - Spin Cake Spin

There are few cakes in the world that are more entertaining to watch people make than a Baumkuchen.

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Candy In the Media

This very popular video has inspired me.  I think I might try something similar, only instead of feeding strange candies to others, I'm going to eat them myself.  I had this concept a few years back, but seeing how simple it can be shot, though this video, I think I might try to start it up again.  Stay tuned.

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Friday Candy Video - Insane Korean Hand Made Candy

These guys manage to produce a string candy that has over 16000 strings, in less than a few minutes.  Best of all is the enthusiasm they have while they make it.

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