For Valentine’s this year I decided to let my lovely boyfriend surprise me by choosing where we would be eating. He opted for the brand spanking new 37 Bar & Grill at the Conrad Hotel in Yeouido. They had a special set menu for Valentine’s Day which was priced at 160,000 pp for 6 courses. As a Valentines special they had a His and Hers menu. The main ingredients were the same but each dish was served with different accompaniments.  A rather cute concept, I thought. They had wine pairings with each course that you could order for a set fee. However you know by now I’m a cocktail girl and ordered a few of those instead. Priced between 20,000-30,000 you will need to take your gold card to get drunk. We arrived at the 37th floor location and were shown to our beautiful window table with a panoramic view of night-time Seoul. We were presented with our His and Hers menus and a complimentary glass of champagne. I was a little concerned that there were three fish dishes on the menu w...

I heard that Dal.Komm Coffee was supposed to be the cafe of the future. I heard they had iPads for you to check out free of charge with your coffee, fast wifi, great music and sound. It is supposed to be the cool new place to be. However, it is just a lousy cafe hiding behind a facade of a great idea. The concept is quite confusing and the vacuous space in Hongdae is so noisy that the tunes you are supposed to be able to hear are muffled over. Also the levels of the sound from song to song are different so they must be using mp3's rather than high quality CDs or even high quality downloads. Oh, and the coffee? Blah. You can choose three levels of coffee K1: mild, K2: Rich, K3: Deep. Yeah, the gimmick was too much of a gimmick. The mild tasted like water and it wasn't "well balanced and sweet nutty" as promised. I got the coffee cube: coffee ice cubes in a latte drink. A tad too sweet and the ice doesn't melt fast enough to be enjoyed properly (they should have ma...

On Monday I went to Fell n Cole and had their funky banana ice cream, the Gorgonzola ice cream and the lemon ginger. All were very creamy and packed with flavor. The banana one was my favorite and had a subtle banana flavor and nice, yet not overpowering, sweetness. The lemon ginger was zingy and the ginger pop was just right. The Gorgonzola ice cream was like watching a unicorn being attached by zombies. The ice cream is disturbing but you can't keep tasting it. It has a true Gorgonzola flavor but with cool cream. Yummy. One more thing: the flagship store in Hongdae will be closing at the end of December. They have a shop in the Galleria and they hope to find a place in Itaewon. Dan Dessert: Fell + Cole This creative ice cream shop makes up new flavors almost everyday. On a given day you could ice cream made from perilla leaves, squash, green tea and whisky, salted caramel and much more. Don’t worry they have delicious sounding ice cream like “Blueberry Banana” and “Just Boring Va...

While walking down by Hongdae I spotted a new stall that was booming loud techno music and some interesting new snacks. They are called egg balls and they are like crispy waffles with a choice of flavoring. They had peanut, chocolate chips and original. I got the chocolate chip and they were good. The balls are crisp and light and have a light egg batter. I highly recommend you get some. You can find them across from the trick eye museum in Hongdae.

There are some foods you dream about. I have dreams about the crunch of garlic stems I had at Mimine. Wow. I don't know how they do it, they just do it well. The tempura is shatteriffic while not being greasy. The Kimmari is also quite awesome. The individual strands of sweet potato noodles are fried crisp and the wrapped seaweed part is flavorful and moist. The Tteokbokki is awesome as well. The sauce is balanced- not too sweet and not too spicy. It is also not too thick so it is great for dipping the tempura in. Mimine is great. It's gourmet. It's also expensive compared to the regular street Tteokbokki (hence, I could seeing people being critical of it). An order of Tteokbokki costs 3500 won and the assorted fried snacks cost 9500 won. The space is cramped, service slow, but the food is totally worth it. Mimine Mapo-gu Seogyodong 367-1 1st Fl 02-3143-7244 Directions: it is in the Hongdae main parking area near Sang Sang Madang.

Over by Daeheung station exit 2 I found a cute little cafe serving good Dutch coffees, hand drips and pretty awesome pancakes. This place is the regular hangout of my friend Perry and I can see why. The baristas carefully coax the flavor our of their craft beans and they have a great selection of pancakes. The blueberry lassi pancake was sizable and had a light yogurt lassi topping and plenty of blueberries. For only 8500 won it is reasonably priced and tasty. Caffè Centro 마포구 신수동 22-9 Mapo-gu Sinsu-dong 22-0 02-711-6066

Shabu Shabu is great when it is done right. First there should be good broth. It should be clearish, light in flavor but with body. There should be ample amounts of veggies and a healthy portion of meat or seafood. To do it all well takes effort and dedication. Restaurants tend to skimp on different aspects of it in order to present the idea of Shabu Shabu but it usually lacks in flavor. Luckily this is not the case at Seo-u Shabu Shabu. The ingredients are fresh and ample. You get a heap of vegetables and a good kimchi dumpling to add to their fresh tasting broth. The broth has body but it is not over-powering- it takes on the characteristics of the ingredients and gets better over time. For one serving of beef Shabu Shabu (18,000 won) you get a lot of meat. With the seafood Shabu Shabu (25,000 won) you'll get shrimp, giant mussle, clam, shrimp and baby octopus. The sauces are good as well. You'll get a light soy and a vinegared chili sauce. Oh, the meal starts with a small t...

Sometimes you just want to have something greasy and full of meat. A Philly Cheese Steak fits that description and they just opened up a Charleys Philly Steaks at Mercanopolis at Hapjeong station. Cedric, the manager invited me and I brought some Seoul Eats people out to it to check out the food. The interior is flashy and cool an it has big signs letting you know that this place is famous for steak sandwiches. Here you can get the classic, a bacon an cheese or chicken steak sandwich. You can also get a side of fries topped with cheese or cheese and bacon or cheese bacon and ranch dressing (ummm ranch dressing). I got the classic and the bacon cheese fries. The steak was grilled and topped with melted cheese. I like my steak chopped up a bit more but they don't do it that way. The cheese was ok and it had some mayo, lettuce and tomato (if I had known about this, I would have asked for them to take them off). Overall the sandwich was large and filling. It was greasy and just what I ...

I like Korean Dramas but sometimes I OD on them. The last one I watched was Bachelor Vegetable Stand and it left a bad taste in my mouth (handsome, ambitious guy ends up with the stuck up girl that was the doppelgänger daughter to the CEO of a major corporation. Well at least the fake mother of the doppelgänger daughter who killed the ambitious handsome guy's grandmother had a miscarriage and later goes crazy thinking she didn't have a miscarriage...) ??? Anyway, the drama started off well and I went to the vegetable stand that is now a cafe and it is awesome. The place is well maintained and it seems to embody the ideas that the main character had in the drama: hard work and high quality. The space is well lit and the outside patio looks like a green house. They have a basic cafe menu, but the coffee is good and they have an organic selection of teas. I had the peppermint chocolate and it came out in a Mason Jar with the lid as a thing for my tea bag. Everything seemed well th...

Shabu Shabu is a good meal to have with friends and on cold days. I had a meeting over at the 63 building and decided to have lunch there with a friend. At the 63 building there are numerous Japanese places and cafes but no Korean places. Anyway, Shabu 63 seemed to be a good choice. The place is modern looking. A bit upscale and they have those black ceramic induction burners for the soup. We ordered the lunch special (16500 a person). It came with an array of side dishes, veggies, meat and later noodles and mandu. Meh. I mean the food was fine, but nothing gourmet. The broth was flavorless (a ladle wasn't given to try it). The side dishes were ok as well. The meat was of decent quality. the service was a bit horrendous. We didn't have proper tongs and scissors to start cooking the food. Refills on side dishes took a while. We had to refill our own water (however, this is not a self-service place). What they need to do is to put one of those damn buttons on the tables so serve...

This is the real Korean beef restaurant and it hasn't really changed much in over 20 years. It is in a classic looking hanok and there is only one meat on the menu: Hanwoo (Korean Beef). You cool it on a cast iron pan with some cow fat to grease the pan. How's the meat? Perfect. You get some different cuts of beef. Some are richly marbled like snowflakes and other are more fleshy. You cook I on the pan briefly since you wouldnt want to burn your 38,500 per order meat. Afterwards, I recommend their fried rice. They take liquid from their turnip kimchi and cook it down and mix it with rice. It makes a risotto like dish with Korean accents. Dan Seungdong-gu Hongik-dong 431 (Wangshipri flagship); +82 2 2292 9772; 11 a.m.-9:30 p.m.;  www. 대도식당 .kr