Homemade Sourdough Bread in Korea Hey world,  I have just a few minutes before my children wake up and in that time I catch up on work, look over my investments and make sourdough bread. I am not a fan of sugary and soft breads from the Korean bakeries and with a bit of time and love, it can be made at home.  This is made from sourdough starter 5 or Evan 5 as I would like to call him. He is a rye based starter that has survived the harsh Korean winter and intermittent feedings (due to my schedule) and come out strong and tasty.  I have been using a banneton which adds a nice crust. When I move, I will try and get a proper oven to make more bread but for now, I am using a tabletop model. It really is nothing special. One day, I will get some fire bricks in order to add a nicer crust, but for now this works fine.  I feel like Betty Crocker these days since I am raising kids (2 daughters). Props to my mom and all moms for doing this. I can barely keep...

Chocolate Croissant For a society whose staple food is rice, the consumption of bread has grown exponentially in the last 25 years. The leading bakery corporation, the SPC group has seen their Paris Baguette franchises grow from 3 in 1988 to 1400 in 2005 to 3316 in 2015 (Hankyung News 2015). The per person consumption of flour foods has dramatically increased from 11.5 kg per person per year in 1965 to 33.7 kg per person per year in 2015 (avg. 32.8 kg). While in the past flour was mainly used for noodles, batters and dumplings; these days bread and pastries have become increasingly popular. In 2015-2016, it has been all about the full-fat, cream filled breads. This started from the “kopan” bread which is a red bean and cream filled sweet roll. This style of rich cream has since moved to choux, donuts and rolled cakes. Koreans tend to like more of a less-sweet, milk-taste cream but currently green tea flavor has come back into fad. Also, the cream craze has since grown to includ...

I have been enjoying my lovely sour dough loaf from Bob's bread for the last few days. It has a perfect crust, chewy interior and slight sourness. It is made from all natural yeast cultures they have kept alive since 2008. I also ordered some ciabatta bread for my family, they liked it more than the sourdough bread- which was fine for me me. The bread is large as well and can be used to make manly sandwiches or great open-faces ones like I did. If you are headed over to the Costco by Yeongdeungpo, this is a great spot to spot by. They are open from 12-7 Tuesday-Saturday. Oh, and once they sell out of bread for the day, they close. Often they sell out by 5-6. You can order on their website as well www.bobsbreadkorea.com   Address: 77-71 Yangpyeongdong 3(sam)-ga, Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul https://maps.google.com/?q=near%2077-71%20Yangpyeongdong%203%28sam%29-ga%2C%20Yeongdeungpo-gu%2C%20Seoul&hl=en-US&gl=us   #seouleats #artisanbread #bobsbreadkorea 

Happy Fish Bread Is this going to be the new food trend in Seoul? In my years in Seoul, I have seen food trends rise and disappear like a cresting wave. One place becomes popular and then instantly there are dozens of imitators and even more franchisees. I think we are going to witness another trend that will become popular for a couple of months and start seeing them all fizzle out by years end. This particular food is a flakey, hot pocket like bread that is stuffed with a variety of different things. You can get your cute fish stuffed with pizza filling, red bean, sweet potato, bulgogi or even tuna. The pastry is very nice- very buttery and flakey. I had the pizza fish bread and it was stuffed with sweet tomato sauce, corn (WTF), onions, and a bit of mystery meat- it didn't taste like the pizza I think of when I think of pizza. This is Korean pizza in a cute wrapper. It's not a bad snack, but I would rather just get the street bangeo-bang: crisp fish bread snack filled...

 Here is a random snack from Paris Baguette. They are thin, flakey bread sticks that have parmesan and shrimp flakes. They taste interesting- like Korean shrimp chips. I can't say that I was in love with them. Dan

I went to Paul a couple weeks ago. Paul is the famous Paris Boulangerie, known for their breads and desserts. It has been around for 120 years and it is a very common fixture in France- much like Paris Baguette in Korea. The first Paul Bakery/ Restaurant is at the Marriott Executive Apartments on the first floor. My friend and I decided to go on a Saturday morning and we got there around 10am. Luckily, Koreans don't like to get up that early so we were quickly able to get a table. I was hoping to get a croissant and a latte to start but my hopes were dashed when I was told that Paul didn't get their shipment of croissants. They didn't get their shipment of croissants? Hmmm...I thought that Paul would make their own croissants- not have them shipped. It must have been a bad Saturday for them because we were told they were out of many of their signature cakes and eclairs (the only option was the coffee one). Sigh...instead of stomping out. I ordered a crepe and my friend...

Originally Published in the February Issue of Seoul Selection Magazine. Retro Oven in Gangnam Pain De Chocolate Quick Bites by Daniel Gray Retro Oven Redux My favorite bakery in Seoul has gotten themselves a new location, but quality and attitude have not changed. The owner, Pak Cheol-woo, is a born baker: he is humble, diligent, and precise. Every loaf and roll that comes out of his oven are marked for greatness- they are not just one of the nameless many. His crusty country loaf will hold its own against any meaty sandwich and his cloud-like ciabattas are great right out of the bag. The stars of the bakery are his German-style soft pretzels, pretzel croissants, and his many layered (I counted 29 layers in mine), flaky, buttery pain de chocolate. Oh, and they are generous. If you stick around, you'll get sample after sample of their delicious bread. Retro Oven Gangnam-gu, Nonhyeon-dong 254-22 02-544-9045 Go out Gangnam-gu Office Station (Line 7) Exit 2. Turn around ...

Retro Oven Pain De Chocolate It was an excellent foodie weekend as I had to quickly do some stories for a couple of writing assignments that I had so I had to stomp all over Seoul to get pictures, do interviews, take notes, and eat. Above, you can see the Pain de Chocolate from Retro Oven over by Gangnam-gu chong Station. It was flaky and delicious and oh, so chocolatey. You can see a picture of Chef Pack below holding up some of his other goodies. I also went to Flora in Hyojadong for some black bean calguksu- it was alright. The highlight of the weekend was steamed shellfish at Gyomokgil! I'll be putting the information on how you can find these places soon- but I have to get back to work for now. Sooo... Where did you eat? How was it? Retro Oven's Chef Pack

It's an intriguing idea. I wonder if other people have thought about it? Pieman in Korea , a baker and pastry chef down in Busan has been blogging his creations for a while. I have been following his stuff for awhile and I admire his creativity. Now this Frankenstein bread might be start of something new in the realm of baking. Dan Kimchi powered bread...kind of. I love sourdough bread... So much so that it was one of the first breads I introduced to our bakers. But for sourdough bread you need a starter. In the past I've used grape based and raw cabbage based starters. It's basically the natural white powdery yeast that cover grapes and cabbage leaves once used to consuming flour they go bananas and excrete lactic acid and CO2 which give the sourdough the tang and lift. So it was actually about a year ago while eating some very mature and sour shin kimchi that I thought if I can capture the yeast and eliminate the chili/garlic taste it would make the best starter...

With the increased number of foreigners in the Gyeonidan and Haebangchon (out Noksopyeong Station Exit 2) area of Seoul, even more stores are opening to cater to this demographic- especially bread. Sure there is 2 Paris Baguette, Tour le Jours, and commercial breads at the Super Markets, but what about artisan bakers? Bread from Wing Bakery in Gyeonidan Recently, Wing Bakery opened where my beloved Istanbul Kebap Shop used to be. I was happy to see that at all and I was all set to hate on them from the getgo. There was a small problem through. Their bread is good. They fresh bake everyday (starting at 10am...they should start at 6 like normal bakers!!!) and their bread is all natural with no sugar and no butter. They make proper crusty bread like Rye Champagne, Seed Brot, Ciabatta, and crusty baguettes.

Lord Sandwich. It's not even like the place is called "The Sandwich." It's got Lord as an honorific, and if that doesn't scream hoity-toity , then the design of the building will for sure leave you looking twice. Or at least staring hard. But let's take a gander in a bit. What makes a good sandwich lord sandwich? Is it the carefully thought out combination of greens, cold cuts, and cheese? The delicately spread ketchup, mayonnaise, or mustard? I mean, the combo list can go on forever. But ask yourself this, what's the staple for every good sandwich? Because no matter what goes inside any great 'wich, the first bite is always reminiscent of its bread. And of course the quality of the ingredients inside are important, but for me the bread can often make or break my entire day . So. Back to Lord Sandwich. After walking past it every day on my way into Sinchon, I met up there with my good friend, Gahyun, for lunch one day. We decided to sp...

Good morning! As a newbie in Seoul one of my biggest fear was not being able to find goo d bread. When I say good, I don't mean the fancy, complicated, stuffed with ketchup (eh!, that's fancy on a whole nother level) kind. I'm talking extremely simple bread, bread so simple it allows you to meet and greet the subtle flavors of each of the ingredients. I'm no connoisseur of bread, but I know what makes my taste buds itch with joy. The crunch vs. the soft (the scratch marks inside your mouth nourished by the fluffy chew of the bread). That color! The joy of cracking that initial shell of crunch and watching it pull apart into millions of beautiful layers and layers and layers.... bring a foolish smile to your face, good . Well... I found mine at Pain de papa (one tear drop). hello beautiful! The pretsel baguette was one of my favorites with just the right amount of sea salt specs and crunch to ... be drooling right now. Just a tad flavor with yuzu bits hiding in th...

If you are looking for some good bread in the Gangnam area, then I recommend Retro-Oven. It's kind of hidden, so the best way to find it is to go to their website http://club.cyworld.com/retrooven. The chef was trained in Germany, so he makes rustic German style loaves that he has changed for the Korean palatte. The bread is fluffier and lighter than what you might find in Germany, but it doesn't mean the bread isn't good. It is very flavorful and I think it must have to do with the yeast that he uses. The bread has a sour-dough taste that is quite surprising. They make fresh bread everyday starting at noon. They have chocolate croissants and cheese danishes at 12. At 12:30 they start serving hard loaves, pretzels, and olive loaves (recommended). They make the bread fresh everyday and they close when all the bread is gone or at 5pm. They even make their own jam. I'm a big fan of their Laugen Croissant, which tastes like the perfect German soft pretzel. And their...