If you tire of admiring the traditional architecture and cobblestone streets, you can always make your way to one of the busier streets back towards the major streets. You'll find these areas a lot more populated and bustling, and also filled with an additional bounty of shops, restaurants, cafes, bars, and snack-stands ready to fill the gaping void in your gastrointestinal tract. When my belly demons started piping up from their slumber, I opted to grab a cup of goguma matang or Korean sweet potatoes that have been deep fried then glazed with a sweet and sticky sauce that makes them glisten like candy. I have to say; TOTALLY delicious! SO good! I had to make them when I came back from Korea and forced them upon Antho, who had to admit that even with my amateur recreation were pretty craveable. They're SO MUCH BETTER when freshly made on the spot and the thick, syrupy glaze is borderline hardening. It's something so deceptively simple that is undeniably comforting and homey....something I think the Korean cuisine does exceedingly well.
There's no shortage of delicious things to try while wandering the streets of Seoul, to be sure.
There's also a lot of charm and innovation to catch here. If you can make your way through the throngs of tourists ambling through the bigger streets, you might find yourself stumbling upon the Chicken Museum... well, let's be clear; this is the Ginseng Chicken Soup museum or Samgyetang museum. Samgyetang, if you've never had it, is a quintessential summer food during the doggiest of dog days during the unrelenting heat waves of peak-summer. Summer in Seoul is hot, swampy, humid and oppressive. Eating a hot, steamy bowl of the light but flavorful and rejuvenating soup can help power you through it. Typically made with a whole chicken (ideally a younger, smaller, bird) stuffed with medicinal herbs and sweet, sticky rice, samgyetang is absolutely delicious, and a must try when you're in Korea. You can absolutely check out the museum here and try their version, or more specifially you could head towards Tosokchon, which is one of the most prolific names in Samgyetang, and not far from here. Personally, I ate samgyetang for the first time at a tiny restaurant just across the street from the apartment I lived in out in Hwajeong, where the ahjummas running the joint were bemused by my presence and the food was cheap, delicious, and absolutely felt like homemade. But to each their own, my friends.
Many more photos below!
Until next time!
💖
XOXO,
NAU
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