La Bocca Cafe, Italian Pastry, Deli and Wine Bar in Itaewon

La Bocca. In Itaewon. It’s a Cafe, Italian Pastry, Deli and Wine Bar. Does it suffer from the Korean bibimbap factor of trying to mix too much into the pot?

Unju and I went to La Bocca in Itaewon last week. The menu looked very impressive. I mean real prociutto and salami with high quality cheeses…; it sounds like heaven.

The bread was perfect. The crust cracked and there was a plush density to the loaf. It’s a wonderous combination of air (yeast) and earth (grain). It’s the perfect carrier for the meats and cheeses.

The eggplant sopped up the flavors of vinegar and oil. The argula added a piquant green, the bresoala was marbled and cured like it should be- a small amount of it had enough flavor to fill the entire loaf-, and the gorgonzola cheese added the right amount of mystery.

The interior was contemplative and well thought out.

For dessert we had the Tre Chocolat e Zucca. Pumpkin Cream with 3 different chocolate mousses. You had me at Pumpkin.

Yum. Oh, and the dark chocolate mousse on the back of the cake was studded with hazelnut. Delicious.

I recommend that you go!

www.labocca.com 02 790 5907

About the Author

Daniel

Daniel Gray is a Korean adoptee that returned to Korean in 2005 because he wanted to try and find his birth mother and to learn about Korean culture. He started a restaurant review blog in 2007, www.seouleats.com, that became a local and international hit. He and his blog has been featured in the New York Times, Monocle Magazine, The Kimchi Chronicles, Bizarre Foods, Rudy Maxa, Olive Magazine, Euronews and much more. He now is a partner at O’ngo Food Communications (www.ongofood.com), which is a culinary tourism and consulting company that offers Korean cooking classes and restaurant tours to travelers. Their food tours and cooking classes are ranked as one of the top attractions in Seoul according to tripadvisor.