Seoul: Ongo Food Tour

South Korea has been on my travel wish-list for a while and following the food blog Seouleats has been an integral part of the research. The blog writer also started Ongo Food Tours so it was with excitement and curiosity that I booked their Night Food tour during our visit to Seoul.

The meeting place was the Ongo culinary school near Anguk station (north side of the river). Unfortunately, our guide was not founder and master foodie Daniel Gray but a young local university student who spoke good English. The group was very mixed -- from business travelers enjoying a free evening to a young overseas nanny enjoying the city on her day off.

We started at a local street BBQ joint - where we enjoyed some grilled skirt steak -  a fairly tough and cheap cut of meat. We were introduced to Korean BBQ style -- enjoying banchan (side dishes), making lettuce wraps with the meat and adding ssamjang (a sauce made from mixing the 2 key sauces in Korean cuisine, doenjang and gochujang).

Mom-and-pop local BBQ joint



Getting the BBQ started

Beef Skirt and mushrooms on the grill

More fun though was the accompanying alcohol and some lessons on Korean drinking culture. Our guide taught us how to make soju bombs - start with a layer of coke soda, then top up with soju in a soju glass. Drop the whole soju glass in a larger glass of beer. It was surprising good especially when we had to "one-shot" the soju - you initially taste soju but finish with a sweet satisfying after-taste.

He also taught us some drinking games and the concept of a "black knight" or "black rose" - a male or female who will drink your round for you when you can't take anymore. With Paul being tee-total, you can guess who was his "black rose". I really enjoyed this stage of the food tour - mostly because I enjoyed the soju bombs so much and was feeling very merry.

Heading to our next food destination, we walked through dim back-alleys, hidden away from the bright lights of the main streets. It felt like we were discovering the inner soul of the city. Seoul has a very modern face - all sophisticated coffee shops; designer stores and cutting-edge plastic surgery. However, these inner alleys felt like we were exploring what truly laid beneath behind the modern façade - great food in low-key settings, made by locals for the locals.

Behind the modern skyscrapers....exploring the back alleys

Perhaps too, there are places the Seoul tourism board prefer to keep quiet about. It's not for me but here is the name of the restaurant in case you wanted to visit:

Stop no. 2 was a local tteokbokki (rice cake) joint. The place was packed with locals enjoying dinner with their families. We were the only foreigners - a good sign. We had two tteokbokki ramen stews - one spicy and one non-spicy called the royal tteokbokki which I have not had before. The royal tteokbokki was what this restaurant is known for. It was a nice savory dish with fish cakes, some vegetables and beef.

No English menu!

Royal Tteokbokki Stew

Spicy Tteokbokki

Not feeling too full yet, we headed to our third destination - a pojangmacha.

Pojangmachas are small tented food stalls, the backbone of street food in Korea. Some stalls have seating areas, serve alcohol with their food and keep out the cold in the winter with clear plastic tarp. In Korean dramas, the juicy confessions often happen over soju and snacks at a pojangmacha. Due to my love of Korean dramas, I will admit that I chose the Night Tour specifically to experience this slice of K-culture.

Choosing our seats

The pojangmacha we visited was fairly large but had the requisite humble decorations - check out the toilet paper roll hanging above! The food was excellent - we had a rolled egg omelette with ketchup and grilled mackerel and played some drinking games with local Cass beer.

 

Savory egg omelette with ketchup

Grilled mackerel - note the wasabi and soy sauce condiment

My first visit to a bona-fide pojangmacha

 



Our final stop was Kwangjang market - a traditional food market with many casual eateries selling street food.

 

Kwangjang market street food

 

We were guided to a popular restaurant specializing in bindaetteok - a crispy pancake made of mung beans. The mung beans are ground up; mixed with bean sprouts, green onions and then fried. It did not taste too special to me - similar to hash browns. I did love the accompanying makgeolli though - a milky, slightly sweet rice wine that tastes like alcoholic soy milk!

 

Mung bean pancake with oysters



Makgeolli bottle with a promo by Jun Ji-Hyun (You from another Star was airing then!)

 

The evening ended there - at a very bustling, noisy restaurant. The tour lasted about 3 hours and at the end, I would say I was only 85% full.  Looking back, I wished the tour had done the stops in reverse order so that we finished at the intimate BBQ place, drinking our soju bombs through the evening. Or perhaps the group just started out in high spirits but never truly bonded so there was no impetus to continue on our own. It would have been fun to end the night with noraebang - karaoke k-style!

With the tour priced at US$80 per person and 8 people in the group, we certainly were not getting our money's worth on the food which was very cheaply priced. Also, Paul was totally tee-total while we had some strong drinkers in the group which I'm sure ate into the budget. However, without the food tour, we would never have walked through the inner back alleys and visited the authentic local eateries where no tourists venture.

Green Tea Everything

I love green tea. I drink so much of the stuff (easily 5-8 cups a day), a Chinese doctor told me to cut down! One look at my tongue and they told me to switch to black tea (too much green tea over-cools the body and dampens the digestive fire). It's not the same though -- the slight bitterness of green tea is what I crave and matcha is the ultimate fix. Needless to say, my love for green tea extends to green tea lattes, green tea cakes, green tea ice cream, green tea Kit-kats....

In February this year, the siblings had planned to reunite as a family in Hong Kong. I couldn't resist the chance to revisit Seoul - for the food, cosmetics, shopping and to be in the place I have seen so much of from k-dramas! It was a bonus to discover Seoul did not lack in the green tea department.

On our first day of vacation, we discovered O'Sulloc tea house in Insadong- a modern three-storey building dedicated to tea. On the ground floor, they sold teas in various forms - all beautifully packaged while green tea leaves roasted in a huge cauldron by the entrance. The café was on the second floor -- with a tea-heavy menu and enticing display of cakes and pastries . The top floor was  quieter with a more exclusive setting for private parties and VIPs. The whole building exuded a calm zen-like ambience.

Paul and I both had the hazelnut caramel green tea latte with green tea cheesecake - which was about $11 a person. Note that in Korea, this could have bought a whole meal e.g. a bibimbap with all the side dishes. Although pricey, both were incredible. The green tea cheesecake had a generous dusting of matcha powder on top which provided some bitter to counter the sweet.

The hazelnut caramel green tea latte

Green tea cheesecake with matcha powder dusting

Throughout the next 5 days, I couldn't resist any tea house I saw during our shopping excursions. At a sweet waffle and patbingsoo house in Samcheongdong, my green tea latte came resplendent with a foam bunny.

Green tea latte art

We visited other O'sulloc branches in Myeongdong and Hongdae - at the Hongdae branch, Paul got his usual hazelnut caramel green tea latte but I got a regular matcha latte. We enjoyed two roll cakes - one was green tea, the other earl grey. No prizes for guessing which one I liked the most!




Green tea drinks and roll cakes


 

Final SQ22 flight: pre-board party

I had no idea that my return flight to the US from Singapore was the final retirement flight of SQ22. This is the route that most US business travelers to Singapore loved the most - a direct flight from Newark, NJ to Singapore in 18.5 hours. The whole plane was Business Class and it was the most relaxing long-haul flight I have ever been on! Imagine - no screaming babies, only the loud snores of passengers in deep sleep. No wonder the ground staff said they loved the passengers arriving in Newark from this flight - everyone was in great moods due to restful sleep!

However, Singapore Airlines decided to retire the route. Perhaps due to cost (I did notice some empty seats on the flight) and the chief attendant mentioned that the plane had to be retired due to maintenance. But not without a farewell party!

When I arrived at the lounge gate, the jazz music was pumping, hor d'oeuves and drinks were served and polaroid photos were being taken with representative Singapore Airlines female attendants. In keeping with the theme of this Singapore trip, the food was excellent. I was especially fond of the macaron lollipops which was a very tidy way to eat this sometimes messy treat.

Delectable macaron lollipops - the blueberry was my favorite!

Various savory hor d'oeuvres

Scallops

Cold hor d'oeuvres

 

 

Party in full swing - drinks bar and wait staff passing around the hor d'ouevres

The requisite photo-op - with the plane in the background

Every passenger received a commemorative certificate!

Singapore = Amazing Food!

 I last visited Singapore approximately 10 years ago and I thought it paled in comparison to Hong Kong. I remembered a very sterilized version of Asia - great for families with young children only. It was a claustrophobic place where you had to walk when the green man said so and the streets of Chinatown were un-authentically clean!

Fast forward to 2013 and life in Singapore looked very enticing. With so many new structures - from Marina Bay Sands with its rooftop infinity pool; the modern Helix bridge to the beautiful Gardens by the Bay, suddenly Singapore seemed an exciting place to play.

It helps that the food in Singapore has always been incredible - a perfect melting pot of Malaysian, Chinese and everything else in-between. Foodies in Singapore have discerning palates; food blog-like mentalities and do not suffer from lack of choice.

I stuffed myself for one week and no meal was bad - although there were some exceptional highlights. Let's start with a photo of Makansutra Gluttons Bay - an outdoor hawker center that opens in the evening. The picture of a giant plate and chopstick epitomizes my mindset - FEED ME!

Landing in balmy humid Singapore was a deep contrast to frigid North-east US, so I was feeling a bit dazed and bloated as I followed Aunt Alice to the Ghim Moh Market for a hawker center lunch. We enjoyed wanton noodles, duck noodles with gravy and a braised five-spice tofu dish with broth.



Lining up for the food - no air con!

Yummy duck eggy noodles and a braised 5-spice tofu dish with broth - delicious!

Slurping up the noodles - my favorite pastime!

Wantons in broth and a char sui noodle - both very good



Looking hot, sweaty and bloated next to Aunt Alice - body still adjusting to the humidity

Later that day, Aunt Alice's maid cooked up a seafood feast. What an excellent cook she is! Although I enjoyed crab at a restaurant later that week with colleagues, the home-made crab and shrimp dishes were far superior in taste and quantity. We enjoyed cornmeal shrimp with fried curry leaves and home-cooked black pepper crab and curry crab dishes.

Spicy unami-laden black pepper crab

Cornmeal-crusted giant shrimp with fried curry leaves

Curry crab

With Aunt Alice living right behind Orchard Road, some shopping therapy was definitely on the agenda. Interspersed amongst all the brand-name clothing and cosmetic labels, an occasional food stall will catch my eye. Exotic fruits anyone? I couldn't resist this colorful display of ready-to-eat fruits - melon, pineapple, jackfruit, Chinese pear, mango. They had it all. My eyes beelined for the magenta dragonfruit - an incredible variation of the usual hot pink fruit but with grey flesh, this one had flesh the color of fluorescent magenta. I was told to eat quickly and neatly as the fruit juices can easily stain clothes. It was sweet and delicious.


Gorgeous fruits - pret a porter

Magenta dragon fruit

Throughout the week, there were lots of culinary adventures to be had. On our way to the monorail to Sentosa, I couldn't resist this sign I saw at a food court. Who could?



The pork came separate which meant you could use the braising sauce for dipping!

Perfect impromptu snack for two

The braised pork bun was incredible - just as its picture had promised. Now why no place in Boston can duplicate this and can only produce mediocre imitations, I do not know.

Other meals to highlight - one night out with colleagues to eat crab at New Ubin Seafood brought about this artery-clogging dish. Choice ribeye steak on a board with hand-cut fries. The best though was how they used the residual steak fat to cook a delicious fatty fried rice - the rich meaty savory flavors just exploded in your mouth.  Incredibly satisfying.

And finally some simple lunch meals to show how even lunch during a working day brings about immense culinary satisfaction. In one of the many office buildings in the Financial district, an Ippudo Ramen Express delivers hot and luscious ramen. This is the Akasaka  - my favorite Ippudo ramen in its signature red bowl. And to round off this post - a  simple yakitori snack meal at a shopping center food court - cheap but great.

Singapore - your food is amazing. I love you!!

The Akasaka ramen

Japanese yakitori on a bed of nori-laden soy sauce rice - simple but great

The power of Din Tai Fung

Taipei, 2001. My first experience at Din Tai Fung. Hectic lines outside, people mixed with parked scooters - managed chaos. Hungry eyes look into the clear shop front where a team of workers deftly folded dumplings round a table. Thirteen years on, I can't remember the work projects that led me to Taipei, nor the conversations with my work colleagues and I barely remember who was there at the table. But I can never forget the food -  hot soupy dumplings, black chicken and ginseng soup. Dish after dish of the best food I have ever tasted.

Little did I know that a place my Taiwanese colleagues insisted for lunch that day was the start of a long-distanced love. Long-distance as to this day, I still have not found a place in the US that can rival Din Tai Fung's succulent soup dumplings (Xiao lung bao). Delicious porky goodness, flavorful soup wrapped in a thin yet strong wrapper. Hong Kong now has two branches which are hard to get into. Crystal Jade in Hong Kong is a sure and steady runner-up but there is something about the mystique I have built up about Din Tai Fung that is hard to rival.

Perhaps no surprise then that my one culinary objective in Singapore was to visit one of the many Din Tai Fung branches that Singapore are so blessed to have! How much will have changed over the years? Can it beat the rosy memories of a lunch that is solidified as the "best ever" in my mind? With my Aunt Alice as menu guide, we ordered the following:

The dumpling makersIncredible appetizer - the Oriental salad - tangy and savory tofu, vermicelli, seaweed, Chinese vinegar dressing

Hot and sour soup - serviceable version

Gorgeous spicy rendition of wontons in black vinegar and chili oil

 Some greens to balance the meal - stir-fried dou miao with garlic. Note these are baby dou miao which were extra tender

Noodles in a sesame dressing - solid choice but did not stand out compared to the oriental salad, soup dumplings and the chili wontons

 The one and only - pork Xiao long bao. The thinnest, silkiest wrapper I have ever tasted - yet strong so the soup doesn't leak. Perfect soup dumplings.

 

 

 

 

The incredible truffle Xiao long bao - should have ordered more as one was not enough!

All in all, it was an incredibly satisfying meal and the stand-outs were the soup dumplings along with the oriental salad and chili wontons. If I lived in Singapore, I'm sure I would be here every week! Although there is something about visiting the original Din Tai Fung in Taipei and it being the very first time I bit into the dumpling that will glow in my mind forever.