#6 Pizzeria D'Buzza

On a rare rainy Wednesday after work we decided to try the place known for pizza on the street known for its doggy jimjilbang in swanky Hannamdong (the posh side of Itaewon)...

JGirl had been before but this was JBoy's first time. We've spoken before about queuing for food in Seoul and unfortunately this place suffers a little from the queue, in, eat, drink, pay, out mentality. We had picked a non-busy night and were eating late, doubtless people were put off by the heavy rain, so we expected a slightly slower, more personal service because it was quiet.

Upon entering we shook down our umbrellas and commented on the rain in a very British ooh-rainy-out-there-isn't-it kind of way - no banter from the  waiter.

We perused he menu which had stars next to the mains. The key to this five star system was in Korean and so intrigued, we asked no-banter-waiter (NBW) what the stars meant and he curtly replied "it doesn't matter, it's all good" JGirl later commented that it was like asking for a recommendation from a robot. We don't want to get rants before we get to the food but for a restaurant on the fringes of the foreigner ghetto we have come to expect and enjoy a slightly more friendly, personal level of service.

SERVICE RANT OVER  - back to the food and drink. The overpriced drink. JBoy had house wine because it was only a dollar more than an imported European lager. Lager, dear readers not fancy schmancy craft beer that seems to be everywhere these days in Seoul. We are used to paying nine or ten dollars for imported craft beer but not for lager and we are sure that Seoulites would be surprised how non luxury the European brands they are sold as luxury are in Europe. 

DRINKS RANT OVER

The food:

You can't fault the food which makes it well worth a visit. We went Seoul date style and shared two different mains between two, awkwardly, across the tiny table. Everyone else seemed too be doing the same thing. 

Parmigiana Melanzane 

It was cheesy, baked, veggie goodness personified. "Really well done" said JGirl whilst JBoy gobbled up the last of it. 

Something Funghi With White Truffle Oil Pizza

As mushroom lovers this hit the spot and was faultless. The base was the right consistency - thin Italian, not American-style, kind of stringy doughy elasticity flat goodness. Wood oven is the secret (no photo, more on that later). Truffle oil - indiscernible to our untrained palates. 

THE PEPPER DEBACLE 

JGirl politely asked NBW for some black pepper. NBW went back to the open plan kitchen to discuss this conundrum with NBWs 2,3 and 4. Confusion abound. Suddenly a lightbulb moment occurred. NBW2 remembered the location of the the electronic pepper grinder, reached up and.... Didn't bring it over to us. No. He returned it to the group who discussed it further with an almost religious sense of reverence. After more discussion a plate was produced upon which pepper was ground by NBW2 whilst NBWs 3, 4 and 1 looked on. NBW1 returned with a plate of ground pepper. This is clearly how things are done at D'Buzza but we had broken all the rules by asking for a condiment that wasn't already provided.

THE PHOTO DEBACLE

As we like to include snaps of the place as well as the food we attempted to grab one of the whole place with the wood fired oven in the centre. Alas this wasn't OK according to the NBW training handbook. No photos allowed apparently. Big crossed arms moment 🙅 Feeling suitably British and sheepish we returned to where we belonged - outside in the rain...

THE VERDICT (all marks are out of ten)

FOOD

Originality: 7.5

Taste: 8

Quality Of Ingredients: 8

SERVICE: 6

Banter: 0

Atmosphere: a clinical 2

VALUE FOR MONEY: 6 (minus points for the overpriced drinks)

OVERALL EXPERIENCE: 7

#5 Jacoby's

Living in the foreigner ghetto means that at some point you'll inevitably need some grease to soak up the remnants of last night's over-indulgence. I guarantee if you're reading this blog this WILL be you one day.

If you're lucky enough to work sociable days/hours you may hit the jackpot and not have to queue. However on most occasions 

From what we gather from friends in Seoul the last few years has seen the rise of the gourmet burger (just like in London, really) and itaewon/kyungnidan/haebangchon are burger-central. Perhaps it's the sheer number of our American cousins nearby, perhaps it's just cos soeulites love a food fad, either way one day you'll need one and you should brave that queue to get a good one. Here's why:

The menu is super-flexible and you can 'Have it Your Way' by getting your less-hungover friend to tick the right boxes. The last thing you want when hanging is an ingredient you hate spoiling your burger AKA ruining your LIFE.

It's delicious. Maybe it's the hangover but we remember good tastes all round. We had our usual sides, special homemade, fresh cut, organic something something chips. THESE ARE NOT FRIES.

Be sure to enjoy them with both ketchup and the delicious garlicky dip, which almost turned JBoy on to mayo. Don't be tempted to order a full portion, just get two or three people in a party of five of six to order 'sides' for their burgers - it's more than enough to feed a family of stray cats in haebangchon for a week. Unless you're American, then, order away y'all! (JOKES)

We also went for more grease in the form of onion rings, which were amazingly crispy and satisfying.

JGirl plucked for the 'healthy' veggie burger with ALL THE SALAD and lashings of mayo. It's the best veggie burger she's had in Seoul, not too greasy or beany.

JBoy's burger came with juicy mushrooms and salty, soft emmenthal cheese melted just right. The beef was delightfully pink in the middle though Jacoby's are happy to burn it for you if you prefer. It hit the spot.

Burger PS - the bun is often the undoing of a burger and we are happy report that here that isn't the case. Choose from brown or white and everything is freshly baked and seeded. YUM.

Special mention to out friends who bravely attempted the onion ring tower challenge of doom:

Larger 'tower challenges' are regularly attempted by less-experienced patrons of Jacoby's but sadly we weren't shameless enough/too hungover to discreetly take photos of others failing in their attempts. Just go and see for yourselves. 

THE VERDICT (all marks are out of ten)

FOOD

Originality: 7.5 (for sheer range of choice and good sides)

Taste: 8

Quality Of Ingredients: 8

SERVICE: 7 (it's kind of service lite as DIY BUT not the most efficient at turning table around for those queuing)

IS THE QUEUE WORTH IT FACTOR: 9

VALUE FOR MONEY: 8

OVERALL EXPERIENCE: 8 (very good at what it does)

NB please don't be tempted to skip the queue and head for a burger place of lesser repute on the HBC hill - we are thinking in particular of the time when JGirl found hersel hanging in haebangchon in sub zero temperatures not suitable for queuing and ended up in Jacoby's 'explosive' rival down the street. Obviously opting for the veggie burger, she had no idea what was to come. The burger arrived lacking its main ingredient - the (veggie) patty, replaced by a cold, sugarcoated fried egg. Yes SUGARCOATED. Assuming this was a genuine mistake she proceeded to enjoy her rights as a Korean consumer and complain about said missing patty. Communication errors abound, this sorry tale ended after much to-ing and fro-ing with JGirl's wallet heavy and her stomach light, watching her friend chow down on a massive hangover-busting burger whilst she sipped a free sprite and a solpadine. NO BURGER. 

#4 Sitara

On a rainy Sunday afternoon in Seoul sometimes all you want is a reminder of home and to be warmed all the way through and for us that means curry! With our British-Indian Friend (B-IF) in tow we decided to check out the Indian over the road from the bar we found ourselves in whiling away the hours avoiding the rain.

JGirl had been to Sitara before but was slightly inebriated. After a few cocktails with B-IF in Hapjeong's Bali Superstore it was time to give the place a second go. We were initially deterred by a waiting list but in the end it proved worth it (and the wait turned out to be only ten, rather than twenty minutes - a trend we've noticed quite a bit in Seoul)...

We ordered aloo pakoras to share to start and a curry and naan each. Everything came super-promptly (often a worrying sign of microwave scariness - in this case a totally neurotic worry because a little lean over the counter into the semi-open-plan kitchen proved that everything was being freshly prepared)...

Pakoras: light, cute

Curries: JGirl tried the Kerala 'shrimp' masala (Brits - that's 'prawn' to you and us) which was "nice, spicy, most of the time a bearable heat but at one stage I did bite into a chilli and lose the power of speech"...

B-IF had a palak (spinach) curry which she called "the best spinach curry she had ever had in Seoul" - quite the accolade from someone who grew up, as she put it, waving a glass of Chardonnay around, with "fingers smelling of curry!"

JBoy sampled the Delhi Chicken Curry and was put off only by the few bones he found "when you get curried chicken you expect legs and wings and drumsticks but when something is being sold as chicken curry, diced, you don't expect bones". Some of out pickier friends would have been put off but JBoy was three cocktails and a third of a bottle of Chardonnay to the wind by that stage, so soldiered on, unfazed.

NAANS WERE AMAZING

We sampled three of the seven different kinds and, dear reader, they were all delicious and they were all HUGE. Perhaps it was the aforementioned booze we had consumed by then but as far as we are concerned curry should always be eaten with naan instead of rice! 

Ambiance was beautiful, tiled, blue-green, hazy, just lovely. To be honest, dear reader, it didn't matter by this stage we were just so happy to be well fed.

Service was, as mentioned, speedy, friendly and smiley. In fact, as we left it seemed like one of the chefs took a particular liking to JGirl! BONUS

Basically, if they did dial-up takeaway like at home we'd need a second mortgage to fund our habit.

THE VERDICT (all marks are out of ten)

FOOD

Originality: tough to rate this menu on originality; we weren't looking for anything flouncy fancy schmancy

Taste: 9

Quality Of Ingredients: 7 (seafood: great, chicken: not so much)

SERVICE: 9

VALUE FOR MONEY: 8.5

OVERALL EXPERIENCE: 9 

#3 Honesty & Cherry Blossoms

WARNING: A THOROUGHLY 'NICE' DAY OUT

A few weeks ago we headed to Yeouido for a friend date amongst the young couples and the crowds. We unwittingly found ourselves in the midst of a large, minimalist, white domed space after exiting the subway in an unfamiliar part of town. Upon entering we felt a strange sense of déjà vu until we realised we had both been to an IFC Mall before. We don't normally frequent shopping centre food courts (snobs we know, but they are rarely good outside of SE Asia, in our humble experience) and in Seoul they're just chain restaurants and overpriced Korean food you can get better elsewhere; if you know what you want that's great but we don't head to such places intending to review or recommend them to people... OK, rant over, to the food:

It was a struggle to find a non-chain restaurant and a place open in between lunch and dinner, weird for a food court, but after some persistence we found ourselves in Honest Kitchen, place JGirl had heard of on the foodie app MangoPlate.

The menu was kind-of sprawling, Asian fusion: don katsu, sashimi, crabcakes, bibimbap, barbecued meat (Korean style, like bulgogi) alongside Asian beers and 'rollerskating' waitresses, all organic, apparently... The menu matched the décor: kind-of funky, beechwood furniture, white lamps, faux-rustic with a giant cherry tree and Kpop playing softly in the background. In short, it felt like a teenage 'eatery' trying to be a grown up, proper restaurant.

We had crabcakes to start, which were nice, followed California rolls which were nicely arranged and went down nicely (it was nice to have avocado, because avocado is nice) and a deep-fried prawn katsu curry and all rounded off with a nice chilled Tsingtao.

As you may have gather, dear reader: everything was NICE but nothing was amazing. 

Honest Kitchen is, honestly, one of those places where you can't quite put your finger on why it wasn't great or why you wouldn't walk out thinking to yourself "I SIMPLY MUST tell all my friends about this place". 

As mentioned above, everything food-wise was satisfactory. Service-wise we admit we do usually have some strange requests such as 'is this vegetarian?' which weren't immediately obvious from a glance at the menu so our waitress had to enquire a couple of times about our choices (eventually we discovered that our prawn katsu curry was made with chicken broth but we didn't mind - JGirl, after four years in Asia, had already assumed this would be the case). For people with less patience and used to Western-style pickiness being tolerated by waiting staff this could be quite hard to swallow. We thought that even omnivores would struggle with such an extensive menu, however.

THE VERDICT (all marks are out of ten)

FOOD

Originality: 5 (a bit too eclectic)

Taste: 7

Quality Of Ingredients: 8

Niceness: 10

SERVICE: 7.5

VALUE FOR MONEY: 6

OVERALL EXPERIENCE: a nice 6

After such a nice meal we needed a nice walk along the cherry-blossom-lined crowded river so we joined the many, many Seoulite couples taking selfies and enjoying the first days of spring.

After such a romantic stroll in such nice surroundings we felt, like Cinderella approaching the midnight hour that it was time to head back to the foreigner ghetto in gritty Yongsan for a real drink. Who should we happen to stumble upon at that very moment but our new best friend Super Nice Cocktail In A Bag Van Man (SNCIABVM, of course!) ...

pic

Not the best mojito ever but... can't say it wasn't... nice.