Sashimi Till I Drop (Literally)@Caribu, Seoul

http://foodventuras2.blogspot.com/2013/08/sashimi-till-i-drop-literallycaribu.html

Coffee break@Coffee Smith, Seoul, Korea

http://foodventuras2.blogspot.com/2013/08/coffee-breakcoffeesmith-seoul.html

Best cheesecake I've ever had@New York Cheesecake Factory, Seoul, Korea

http://foodventuras2.blogspot.com/2013/08/best-cheesecake-ive-ever-hadnew-york.html

First Korean meal@Rest stop, along the way to Yeoju, Korea

Ever year, Pyung Kang Cheil church organizes retreats, inviting church members from all over the world to meet and have a great fellowship with Father. This year's retreat is held at Yeoju, during the warmest period in South Korea. The weather is very similar to Malaysia. Once we arrived at the airport, we departed to Yeoju right away.

We had lunch at a rest stop and there were so many people there, both locals and tourists. School children were having their summer break from school, and thus, family holiday time too. Feels like siesta in Barcelona. My first meal was the pork cutlet with rice, drizzled with cheese and BBQ sauce. What's interesting here is the ordering system runs with some online ticketing software or something, all these hungry souls will queue up at this ONE counter to order just about anything you want. It was hectic, crazy, and chaotic.

Firstly, it is all written in Korean, so we simply pointed and hoped we had our orders right. Then our orders are keyed into the system, and we were given a ticket with some Korean words and numbers written on it. We did not have time to ask much further, as hungry Koreans from behind were already pushing their way through.

Even waiting for the food was slightly confusing. Each counter serving different food may be putting up the same order number on the platform, so I did go the wrong counter initially.

But finally, my food came! Well, the food was so-so but we were hungry, anything goes! Quite expensive actually. This meal cost Korean Won 7900, so about RM 20 plus.

Summer food! It looked delicious, but it wasn't as delicious as I thought it was when I took my first bite. The dough was too thick and the sausage, was quite... economical. Sausage, sliced in half, thinner than ever. Cost was Korean Won 2000, about RM 6-7. Phew.....

Tapao Worknights@WOW Chicken, Hartamas

Some nights became work nights. We are often misjudged by others thinking we lack work to do, but in fact, I spent many nights working. The comfort I get from taking my resting time to serve jail, is from the dine-ins!

WOW Chicken, is located in Desa Sri Hartamas. They have delivery service also. We ordered a pack of fried chicken for our working night!

 Siu Kai Yek! Ngo Zhi Sai Zhong Yi Sek!

Fried chicken ala Korean style. Do not be dismayed by the colour, in fact the chicken was very, very juicy. Truly enjoyable to chew, munch, bite. Half a chicken, RM 30plus. A little steep, considering the fact that you could eat a lot more for RM 30 with the finger-licking goodness KFC. However, the fried chicken in WOW really tastes different. Crunchy and juicy. Yumss...

 Wine, goes well with taking away the pressure from work.

A cheap Sauv Blanc, this time from Aussie. A slight deviation away from my NZ Sauv Blanc escapades. Peachy, and a little heavy on the palate. Luckily we had fried chicken to go with the wine. Nonetheless, only RM 30 over.. sometimes the tastebud's got to take the hit during economic downturn.

 

My dear friend bought me a pack of stroopwaffles at her pitstop at Amsterdam, coming from Prague. Wheeeeeee! One of my happiest work days. Next stroopwaffles eating session, June! Can't wait to eat you again, my darling stroopwaffle.

Ngarm, ngarm, ngarm, ngarm.

 

Junkfood@Incheon International Airport, Seoul

Time to bid Korea goodbye. It was a fruitful 10 day journey. Spiritually blessed.. and physically too! Phew. We arrived at the airport few hours earlier than needed, thus had plenty of time to kill.

One last bite on a local ice cream cone. Walls Cornetto still rawked. What I really liked about the airport was that most of the goods sold here were not priced higher than normal. Unlike our nice-to-look-at but inconvenient KLIA, FnB items here cost a good 20-30% higher than normal. Rubbish! Those shopaholics who insist that they have not bought enough, can still do a final round of shopping in Incheon, without having to feel like they are ripped off. In KLIA, you will feel otherwise.

Eating in a local MCD has always been something habitual for me. Especially, trying out items that are not sold in Malaysia. This was a double beef patty with a slice of pork bacon burger, drizzled over with BBQ sauce. If my big toes would bend 90 degrees from other toes, like my thumb and fingers, I'd do 4 thumbs-toes up!

The taste of the fries differed also. I strongly suspect it was due to the pork frying in the oil. They had a moderate hint of lard taste. SINFUL.

After a filling MCD meal, we still had 3 hours to kill before having to check-in the boarding area. We found a spa at B1, and decided to take an expensive and long shower for Rm45, and it was totally worth it! It takes a while getting used to not being embarrassed of being naked around others.

I grabbed all the free samples given from Skinfood purchases. DYI facial while soaking naked in the hot tub, with lady strangers. I'd thought that I would be a little too shy for comfort but after soaking for a while, I forgotten how quickly I started to enjoy myself chilling out by the hot waters, cold waters, sauna, and then hot waters again.

Repeated this: 10 times.

It felt really good just lying down, resting and not thinking of anything. They even provided us loose clothes to change into. You can laze in the common living room area with cozy couches and TV for a short nap, read a book, have a drink. We came out, feeling like a clean sheet of linen. Happy and clean.

The only slack part about the airport was that, most places are closed after 9 pm. We started feeling hungry again after the spa experience, but most shops were closed. The only shop that was packed with patrons was a bar. All drinking to sleep when they board the plane. We bought a bottle of soju, and ate the chips that we bought to tapao back home. This pack of chips cost only abour RM2-3, humble, crunchy, salty. Pretty enjoyable. They started selling these in Korean marts at Hartamas now, for RM6-7. Phew.

Well.. one pack ain't enough for few tummies. We opened another pack, and this one was my favourite. Spicy, crunchy, delicious and for some reason, the picture of the sunflower made me feel that the chips was slightly healthier than normal chips. Thumbs up!

They also sell these in the Korean marts in Hartamas now. Yeah, for double the price too.

Goodbye PyungKang-Cheil, goodbye Sr Pastor Abraham Park, goodbye Seoul, goodbye great foodie. We will be back, hopefully May/October this year!

Dinner like a local before the shytty 3D quality Pirates of the Carribean 4

We heard stories of thrilling movie watching adventures from friends who went to the 4D cinema in Seoul. The ticket cost RM 50, but the thought of watching an action movie with motion master seats sounded like a really awesome experience.

On our final few days left in Seoul, we decided to pay RM 50 for a 2 hour motion master ride.

Sadly, the only cinema that we came across as in Myung Dong, which did not have the 4D choice. We went online to check on cinema websites. Helpless act too, as it was all written in Korean. We went to another cinema branch few stops away from Myung Dong.

Hope suddenly appeared brighter for us when the cinema appeared to look big and prestigious. Despite our

struggles (unable to read a single word on the board, teenage ticket sellers by the counter who could not speak an ounce of English, walking for hours)... no 4D movie.

We settled for Pirates of the Carribean 4 3D. We could not even get the guys by the counter to answer us if the movie was dubbed in Korean or not. We just crossed our fingers that Johnny Depp would not speak Anyong in the movie. 

While waiting for the movie to start, we rushed over across to road and had our dinner. A quickie 1 hour bite before Captain Jack Sparrow went on board the Black Pearl.

 

My apologies on missing out all the restaurants' names, including this one. We were glad that our waitress was a Chinese lady, and she explained a little on some of the food when we ordered. Even threw in a free bowl of eggy-ish soup, somewhat reminded me of the starchless version of "Wa Tan Hor" gravy.

The place was decorated like as if we were staying in a wooden house in the midst of a jungle. Plants were everwyhere, and the place was packed with happy locals (Happy as in .. happy high, from bottles of Soju). Each table had at least 4 bottles of Soju lying around. What impressed me even more are the local ladies and their abilities to hold on their alcohol well. I know a bottle of soju is enough to turn me into a cooked lobster, and tipsy. I can't imagine 4 bottles on my own! Maybe if I stayed here several months more... .I might just pull through 2 bottles over.

The choices of appetizers served were slightly different from the usual stuffs. They gave more bean choices here. I wonder if different areas in Korea serve different appetizers. Hmmm..

The minced beef fried rice. Very interesting flavour! Quite delicious alright, but I wondered where did all the meat go. The pictures above was before the nicely piled rice get tossed all over looking for meat.

Beef curry. Awh so good! The meat was so tender. The meat would just fall off when you scrapped it off the bone.
The quantity was a bit too much for us. With regrets, there was quite a bit of leftover food. We could not stuff them in anymore. BURPS.

Good meal, good meal!

But the movie.... the movie, was disappointing. To think that in a country that produces Samsung products, and wherever you go, you see good quality TV screens displayed in public areas that the cinema quality would be top notch. THINK again.

The 3D was so dark, dim and the screen was tiny. As it was the movie was boring to me, the poor quality made it even worse. And yeah, the ticket cost me RM 40. RM 10 more I would get to sit a motion master seat, argh! By far the worse 3D movie experience that I ever had. Even worse than some I had in One Utama and Tropicana City mall.

Eric Kayser Artisan Boulangerie@EK Plaza, Seoul

Stumbled upon this petite, yet posh looking bakery situated along the underground walkway between one MRT stop to the other. There were only 2 to 3 tables placed inside the bakery. Patrons were mainly females. Like a 'desperate housewives' pit stop for gossips before going back to their hubbies/ boyfriends. We had to wait for quite while for a table because these chatty ladies just wouldn't stop their sizzling hot gossipy chats. 

The pastries looked delicious. Actually, more beautiful than delicious. The waitress by the counter told me that Eric Kayser's signature pastry was the chocolate eclairs. One eclair cost nearly RM 5!

Within two gulps, these smooth, soft, creamy eclairs disappeared. Very good eclairs I must say. Deliciouso!

Total damage. Coffee cost 2000 won..nearly RM 8! Coffee, on the other hand was nothing to shout about. Without conversion, and if I was earning Korean won, I would say cost of food here is considered cheap. Heck, for a cuppa coffee and eclairs in a nice cafe in KL, would cost me nearly RM 20! And local Koreans would only need to pay 4300 won.

Random interesting food@Seoul, Korea

 Strawberries come in abundance for a real cheap price here. I love it! How could a huge basin of strawberries only cost RM 15? These were easily the length of a finger. 5 of us ate almost half a basin and were full from these red juiciness. The remaining strawberries, we gave an old man who was sitting by the stairs heading to the underground MRT. You could see so many of them sitting nearby MRT stops where high traffic of peoplle walking in and out, trying to earn a tiny penny.

Some shine shoes, some sell vegetables, some sell socks. I really wondered how could their children allow this to happen to very people that brought them up from the time that crawling was only what they knew.

We gave our strawberries to an old man selling socks, and the joy on his face was a real joy for us to see. When we moved away, we looked back and saw him happily sharing his strawberries with another old lady who sat across from where he was.

 A blue fin tuna! Nicely sliced and slaughtered, displayed for all these hungry humans to gawk, salivate and slice even more. Found at the large mall (what was the name of the mall again?) by Namdaemun market. We were lost for a really long while, walking blindly in the rain.

A rather unpleasant walk, phew.

Korean dumplings! Not very good. Over here, you can purchase a frozen pack of 15 dumplings for RM12 - RM 15. RM 1 plus per dumpling... Not cheap too. Phew.

Dinner just outside PyungKang Cheil Church@Oryu-Dong

I made several mistakes this trip.I did not note down the names of the restaurants that I'd dine in.

I could only remember was the location of the area. This restaurant was situated just a street away from the church. We dined in together with some Singapore Zion church members after the service.

One of the better fried spicy pork dishes among the many that I've tried before. Super, duper spicy! An excellent choice for a really cold, chilly and windy night.

The seafood soup was also quite delicious. Hot soupy meals are always great when eaten in a cold weather. The chef was pretty generous with the ingredients. The picture clearly showed the squids and crabs popping out.

This Korean style chicken curry dish was average. If only the potatoes boiled a little while longer, releasing the stickiness of the starch, making the gravy thick and juicy, the dish might have been awesome. I still preferred our local "KahLiKeh". Local chicken curry rawks!

A fallen worldly dinner@I have no idea where this was, but it was along our way to the midnight shopping district

After the 3 day Yeoju retreat, we returned to Seoul. This was our first night out, and shopping, shopping, shopping was the night's agenda.
After receiving so much spiritual blessings, we returned to the ugly, frightful, sinful, fallen world. I'll explain why.

 We were heading towards the midnight shopping district. It was quite cold that night. Along the way, we came upon a stall, with puffs of steam coming out from pots and pans. Locals dining here were half tipsy, happily chatting away their day's endeavors. Some of us are fans of shell thingies (not for me), therefore we decided to have a quick bite at the roadside.

Peculiar looking shell thingies (varying breeds of clams) were placed on our table. My friends quickly toothpicked out the juicy bits inside the shells.

*barf*

 We also bought some fried chicken from a nearby vendor. Too oily, and sinfully fatty. Not good.

Although the fried chicken was below average, the lady owner has a heart of gold. She gave us a free plate of dolboki. Unfortunately, the dolboki tasted just as bad as the fried chicken. The rice cakes were too hard, and it was difficult to swallow them. The only good part was its spicy chilli sauce, which ended up as a dipping sauce for the blanched clams.

During the course of our street food snacks, we were reminded how we are still fallen, stuck in this sinful, dying world when several funny scenes happened right before our eyes.

a) Some drunk guy slurring, limping away decided to take a "leak" at a potted plant placed just next to our table. What a put-off sight and we crossed our fingers, hoping the guy wouldn't abruptly decide to leak on us.
b) Soon after, a MPV zoomed past us and stopped several shops ahead of our table. Sexy, skimpily dressed ladies walked out the vehicle and headed towards a narrow alley. Some went into a shady, neon lited corner lot shop. In a couple of minutes time, two policemen came in a car and the ladies were seen hurriedly running off. From nowhere, a different MPV appeared and the girls ran in and the vehicle quickly zoomed off.
c) Bunches and bunches of red faced drunkards in black suits, leather bags and shiny ties were seen walking out from the narrow alleys.
d) A homeless old man collecting old boxes punching a retarded fat girl, till the girl fell to the ground and bruised her arm. Policemen came not long after and broke the fight.

All these happened in just 20-30 minutes of our meal time and we felt that God has really opened our eyes that night to remind us what a world we are in today. We decided to leave the area. While walking away, we stumbled upon the highlight for the night.

Two old men, probably the age of 70-80, weary, haggard, thin to the bones, and whatever hair left on their heads were white. Both drunk, both laughing away, hugging each other. They were going into make-out mode. One of them was trying to kiss the other.

I thought to myself. My gosh! Even for gays, I had to witness the oldest of the oldest. The highlight reminder for us all.

Shopping temporarily took our minds off the incident early. After 1 - 2 hours of shopping, we grew tired. The sudden heavy downpour made things worse. We decided to go for supper. Tani! A jug of beer... impossible for 2 of us to finish at 2 a.m. The rest of  my girlfriends continued on shopping.

More fried chicken. Koreans love BBQ fried chicken, when beer comes into the picture. The spicy sauce fried chicken woken us up. The spiciness, phew! We could not finish them either.

When the heavy rain reduced to drizzles, it was already nearly 4 a.m. Ladies were still shopping. Madness!
We packed the fried chicken leftovers and they became supper food for my friend. He deserved a good treat, having carried out a tiring job of accompanying my girlfriend shopping from 10 pm to 4. a.m.

A quiet afternoon strolland tea@two MRT stops from OryuDong

I can't recall which MRT stop it was, but it was one or two stops away from Oryu-Dong. We decided to have an aimless walk around since we only had 2 hours free time before the 6 pm evening service at the sanctuary.

Paris Baguette, is a well established franchise bakery all over Korea can be found in almost every street available. At first, I thought it was a franchise bakery originating from France (from its name), but surprisingly, it was started by 2 Korean ladies who have great passion for baking. Today, there are more than 3000 franchises throughout the world, and they are also big in the US. WOW.

The other bakery that is also pretty obvious in the eyes of a streetwalker, is the "Boulangerie". I really wonder why most bakeries here are named with a whiff of French, rather than building a local brand name.

Bakeries excite me, especially ones that are nicely decorated with pastries deliciously presented. It inspires me all the time. Sighs. When can I finally fullfill this dream?

 

I ordered Boulangerie's trademark pastry, the cream puff. The cream.... Oh...my...gosh, was so light, fluffy, sweet, and cold too. Each bite can make one close their eyes, and smile like idiots. It cost about 1500 - 2000 won (Can't recall the exact amount)

 

This was the strawberry shortcake. The pastry is a lot harder than the puff above, a little mixture of cake-like and brownie-like. The cream used was quite similar as the one above, but somehow the tougher texture of the pastry blended well with the sweet cream and the slightly sourish strawberry slices. This was 2500 - 3000 won (Erm.. I think)

After a quick bite of sweet deliciousness, we strolled along aimlessly looking at the surroundings. Up ahead, we saw this stall where this hardworking Korean lady was busy making some local pastries and also cooking waffles on the hot pan.

Out of curiosity ( we were already FULL), we bought one to try it out. It was rather hollow on the inside, and the inner lining of the pastry was coated with cinnamon and butter. I think our local Hiao Pia/ Kaya Kok rawks this over anytime! 1000 won for this.

Nearby the MRT stop, there was tiny local coffee shop, called Coffee AD. The shop is no larger than an average bedroom, therefore the owner arranged tables outside by the pathway. The breeze was so strong at this time that anything left on the tables were blown away.

 

I found the decor of the coffee shop really adorable. If only the weather and road/walkways/public transport systems back in Malaysia permit locals to walk safely and conveniently, we may be able to have more shops like these which will create a more interesting makan environment for us. I wouldn't mind popping by for a cuppa coffee from this store everyday walking to work.

I ordered an ice blended green tea shake, which was one of the best I ever drank. Super sincere with the green tea powder, not sweet, and the ice was nicely blended (very fine). YUMS! Especially drinking this while sitting outside, enjoying the strong cold breeze.

Peaceful. Amen.

fried chicken and chips and all corns poppy@Korean Restaurant nearby PKC, Oryu Dong

It was my first time ever eating a butterless, oil free, charcoal flavoured popcorn. Initially, it did taste peculiar to me, but after awhile, you get a hang of eating them. Somehow, the crunchiness of popcorn remained and without the caramel usually found in our local popcorns, you can really go on and on eating them (Free flow by the way)

 

I like how they served beer too. This was as extremely huge jug, built in two plastic layers. I suspect it helps maintain the coolness of the beer. I once drank from a pint with similar design as well (two layers of glass) in Shanghai. Not sure what difference does it make to the beer, but I guess, psychologically, i felt that my beer tasted fresher and cooler than regular pint beers.

Icey cold beer without greasy food is totally NOT COOL. Hence, we ordered a plate of fried drummets with chips and potato balls. Bear in mind, this was not dinner, but supper (just two hours after dinner) Yikes!

 

And who were we kidding? Beer + Fried greasy deliciousness = happy ending with fruits? 

This was the biggest pile of fruits served as desserts, that I had ever encountered. Usually, these come in the usual watermelon or papaya slices. 

Korea rawks!

OK. I thought this was crazy cool. Instead of putting in coins/tokens and using the joystick to navigate the clamp, aiming for cheap looking stuffed toys in the arcade, why not clamp REAL LOBSTERS?

I saw a man slotting in at least 25 coins (not sure how much would that be converting into RM). After observing him, I realised that it would be really difficult for a clamp like that to catch hold of the claw of that giant lobster because its body was just too slippery. After a terrible failure in grabbing hold of any lobster, the man got really frustrated and did a little temper showing, by banging on the machine before walking off. Funny scene!

I guess those lobsters stuck inside could be slightly happier than those found in water tanks in restaurants.

Local ice cream cone@journey back to Seoul

I did a final hike up the top of the Yeoju mountain before departing this wonderful place. Sure ain't easy climbing up, especially in long sleeve clothing. But *thumbs up* I made it! A snapshot view from the top.

An ice cream cone to cool down.. bought from a nearby local sundry shop. Vanilla and cookie flavoured ice cream.

Hmmm.. the taste was average. Walls cornetto chocolate ice cream still rawks! Talking about it.. I'm craving a Magnum now.

3 day seminar@Yeoju.

 

From Seoul, we took an hour plus by bus to this place called Yeoju. A part of the hilly Yeoju is reserved for the congregation members who want to do retreats/prayers and seminars are sometimes held here, just like the launch of the 6th book of the History of Redemption book series.

We were greeted by a gigantic banner, and there were thousands of people from all over the country as well as foreigners actually came to be spiritually blessed.

The hardworking eldresses and congregation members were so kind to prepare food for so many of us. A simple, homely and hearty meal. We were served with a potato gravy, quite spicy, almost like dhall gravy served in a mamak. 

This place provides precious clean water from the top of Yeoju mountain for drinking, bathing, washing etc. Apparently, the water has nutrients and minerals that will help preserve good skin and keep your body in good health. True enough, the water, although looks plain and normal, tastes slightly different from the water we drink. Truly refreshing, cooling and what a blessing! Some of us tapao-ed back several bottles (Kiasu-ness)

Found this huge nail plunged right into the thick, rough, surface of the wall of the cave, where people come in for meditation/prayer. When I saw this nail, I thought of JC's palms, and how humans were so cruel to nail them down His hands. Although He knew this will happen, He who is sinless, died on the cross for our sins.

Let us be able to follow His ways, and crucify our old sinful/worldly/evil/shameful self on the cross daily.

The true high priest.. can we discern it? Are we fullfilling the duties of a true Levite?

Does our faith shine brightly always, like the sun, or shines only when others are around you to lift up your faith, like the moon, whose light comes from the reflection of the sun, or flickering faith, like the twinkling stars?