Seoul 2012: Edae & Sinchon

As I had previously mentioned in my 2011 post, Edae is like a shopping mecca for women. The two areas, Edae ( 이대) and Sinchon (신촌) are on the same metro line (Subway Line 2) and are just one stations apart from each other. In fact, I recommend alighting at Edae, and then walking around and eventually, you'll most likely end up around the Sinchon area. I'll mostly highlight dining options (aka what I ate) around these two areas cos I wasn't taking pictures of the shops (I was too busy shopping ha!)

Edae

Random cafe we had lunch at

The girlfriend and I had made an appointment to do our hair, and we walked around a bit before popping into the nearest cafe we could find. We ordered drinks and an omu-rice to share. The food was not very good, but at least we had a place to sit and have a quick meal before our appointment.

Shop: Gami Bunsik (가미분식)
Address: 54-1 Daehyeon-dong, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul
Opening Hours: 10 a.m. - 9:30 p.m
Get there: From the subway station, walk towards the main gates of the university. On the right side, a block before them, turn right uphill, the restaurant is on the right on the same corner.

Gami Bunsik (가미분식) , Edae

I made a few trips to the Edae area during my 2012 trip. On another day, I had lunch at Gami Bunsik, a place that I found through online reviews. It seems to be quite a popular recommendation, but I thought that the food was just average only. I reckon it could be a fave among the uni students as it serves affordable Korean dishes. We had the cold noodles, cheese ddeokbokki and bingsoo.

Cafe Pera, Edae

Here's another place we stopped to rest our weary feet after a day of shopping at Edae. It's relatively near Gami (if I recall correctly), within a few minutes walk away. We shared some cakes that were passable...but the real star here was the matcha latte.

Just look at the deep green peeking out from beneath the white milk foam. This was one place that didn't skimp on the matcha powder. The matcha flavour was so strong that the latte was bitter, and not sweet at all as compared to most places versions are as they tend to just add a pinch of matcha powder. Oh no, Cafe Pera added a generous dose of matcha, so we thoroughly enjoyed our cuppas. I might say this was the best matcha latte I've ever drank in my life so far.

Shop: Palsaik Samgyupsal ((팔색 삼겹살)
Address: Mapo-gu, Nogosan-dong 107-111, Seoul (서울시 마포구 노고산동 107-111)
Phone: +82 2-719-4848
Opening Hours: Mon - Sun: 11:00 - 12:00
Get there: From Sinchon 신촌 Subway Station (Exit 6), walk straight until you see a crossroad. Cross the street and keep walking and look around, just look our for the restaurant below.
Website: http://www.palsaik.com

Palsaik Samgyupsal, Sinchon

After shopping around at the Edae/Sinchon area, the girlfriend and I met up with my family for dinner. We were walking around to find a dinner spot as the original restaurant that I had wanted to go to was quite hard to locate. We stumbled onto a real gem by chance - Palsaik Samgyupsal.

The barbeque restaurant was quite crowded, and from the looks of it, what was their specialty seemed to be marinated meat. In fact, I think most (if not all) of the people who had their meal there ordered a plate of the marinated pork.

The eight marinated flavors on the platter are Ginseng, Wine, Pine Leaves, Garlic, Herb, Curry, Miso, Hot. We ordered the set, and it came together with a big wok of soup (which sad to say, we neglected because we were too busy stuffing our faces with the barbequed meat) that was heaped with lots of ingredients.

*swoon*, then *drool*

Marinated ginseng; vegetable accompaniments

Sizzlin'

The service was good - as we didn't speak Korean, the wait staff tried their best to explain whatever questions about the food we had earnestly though they didn't speak much English either.

Needless to say, this was one of the best dinner I had in my Seoul trip 2012. Gimme a good barbeque (plus a mug of ice cold beer please!) and I'm a happy girl. *burp* We were super stuffed at the end of the night, to say the least. I'd recommend this place, so good luck to you if you manage to locate this restaurant (sorry I can't give better directions).