Bbopgi, honeycomb on a stick! Street food in Seoul

After a huge bibimbap for lunch, we make our way back to wander the walking street ... and I spot something from a distance. Sugar, on a stick - perfect!



Kids and adults alike are walking around with these things, each etched with a different hand drawn artwork. We make our way over to one of the bustling little street side stalls. They are making giant clumps of honeycomb, and then pressing them flat, piercing them with a stick for convenient eating-while-walking, and then etching the picture into the hot candy.



Apparently the idea is to eat around the shape without it breaking/cracking? I just ate the heck out of that sugar in one swift motion it was so good ... Will give the whole eating around the shape thing a go next time.

Walking the walk, Insadong.

Insadong is the cultured heart of Seoul with art and antique stores a plenty. On week ends the main street is closed to vehicular traffic and the streets turn into a bit of a flea market. We had all intentions of checking this out, but first off to more important matters such as our breakfast (which was taking place about lunch time (holidays people)) About half way up Insadong gil our rumbling tummies led us down a flight of stairs to the biggest bibimbap we've ever seen, it was just a plastic sample model but at that stage if they had been selling them that size we would have considered.



As the menus arrive so does the banchan, a half a dozen small plates of pickles and salads as well as to thimbles of ginseng rice wine, full of the earthy flavor of the root.



Our bibimbaps arrive not long after, a raw beef one for myself. Served in a huge brass bowl the textural additions of the nuts and seeds is great. I never really had idea about how much they were used in Korean cuisine.



Kat has the house signature, it arrived sizzling away in it's stone bowl, the verdict.... also awesome.



let the mixing begin



The restaurant is located in the basement of a funky building called the Ssamzie building, housing dozens of small arty shops with a long walk way spiraling around each floor until you reach the rooftop gardens where we stopped to snap a few pics of the grazing giraffes a peak down onto the market street below.





The building is full of all sorts of art installations, mobiles of picture frames, art on the walls, giraffes on the roof, funky maps of the area...



Next up sugar madness.

Gogung
Ssamzie building
Insadong gil

Open from 11am - 10pm

So much porky goodness.

Hong dae, I hadn't thought much about the area at first but this is because we had be visiting in the wrong time zone. Hong dae is most definitely a night time show. As we walked back around the formerly empty streets it was had to remember how it was pre-midday. Crowds of people thronged the streets and alleys delicious smells were every where, music pounded out of clubs, it was fantastic. We stopped for a little appetizer at a busy bbq place picked at random. A plate of meat, wraps, accompaniments and a couple of Cass beers and we're good to go.





We knew we wanted more and traveled a good few feet to get it. As we stepped out of the bbq joint we saw a lot of people enjoying Bossam right next door, with this way up on our must do dishes we took a few steps and sat down again.



A towering plate of pork arrives along with chillies, garlic, kimchi, wraps, saeujeot (pickled fermented shrimp) and a Haejangguk, a murky bowl soup made from ox bones and blood jelly.
the first moments are spent thinking, wow glad we ordered the small size, but then first taste and we know there's no way we won't finish this bad boy.





Grab a little pork add some sweet sweet Korean garlic, chili and a splash of baby pickled shrimp, wrap it all up in a sesame or lettuce leaf and chow down, have a little kimchi to cleanse the palate, totally awesome.

The Haejangguk is a traditional hangover cure so this was a preemptive strike on the following morning. The soup was of the Seoul variety made with a soy bean soup base, cabbage, green onions, bean sprouts and plenty of the blood jelly. This sort hangover cure I could get used to.



We sat for a good while, every time a banchan bowl was emptied a refill was quick in coming, and magically the plate of pork disappeared, amazing.

With bellies filled with awesomeness and doing the happy dance of satisfaction we took once more to the streets to watch and join the spectacle that is Hong dae by night.

Parting gratuitous pork shot

Macarons; will they ever stop being so hot right now?

Taking a look through the basement food courtia of one of the vast department stores we happened across these babies.



Truffle macarons. Awesome!!!

Crisp shell, slightly sweet, then a head full of truffle funk. More addictive than smack. We stopped by on the way back through Seoul and picked up a few more to bring home....half of them never made it out of the country.