The Traditional Markets of Seoul This post is for superfoodies and those looking to spend the day immersed in the Korean Traditional Markets of Seoul.  With the right planning, you could hit all the markets in the same day to have breakfast, lunch, dinner with drinks, shopping, and snacks between the meals.   In this post I’m going to help you organize a full day Traditional Market Tour. Plus, these markets are all located north of the Han River so you could easily explore each of these markets without wasting a lot of time traveling. The famous markets we are going to look at today are Namdaemun Market, Tongin Market and Gwangjang Market. Namdaemun's King Dumplings hotteok photo by Michelle Min Breakfast at Namdaemun Market Namdaemun Market by Sungnyemun Gate is the place you can get everything and anything except, according to history, “A Cat’s Horn.” It has over 10,000 stores and it is the famous district for children’s clothes, ...

It's not often that my friends say that we have to go to raw beef alley over by Jongno 5-ga. I mean even my most hardcore guests that come on my food tours will chow down on some live octopus but will stay away from raw beef. Korean raw beef is a delicacy. It's not aged so it has a very clean taste to it. They place pieces of the beef over matchsticks of Asian pear and topped with some sesame seeds and a raw egg yolk. The yolk adds a creaminess to the whole dish and it makes it taste so good that I think that someone should come up with a yukhwae bahnmi (I think this would be awesome!). It's good plain but you can give it a dip in the sesame oil and salt. This adds a bit of savoriness to the dish. Lookie who is in the picture: Chef Ciaran Hickey of the W-Hotel Yukhwae Jamae Jip There isn't much else at there restaurant other than the raw beef dish. If you would like a mix of liver and cow stomach, they have that as well, but...I find the liver to be a bit too metallic f...

Korean Raw Beef: Yukhwae It's not often that my friends say that we have to go to raw beef alley over by Jongno 5-ga. I mean even my most hardcore guests that come on my food tours will chow down on some live octopus but will stay away from raw beef. Korean raw beef is a delicacy. It's not aged so it has a very clean taste to it. They place pieces of the beef over matchsticks of Asian pear and topped with some sesame seeds and a raw egg yolk. The yolk adds a creaminess to the whole dish and it makes it taste so good that I think that someone should come up with a yukhwae bahnmi (I think this would be awesome!). It's good plain but you can give it a dip in the sesame oil and salt. This adds a bit of savoriness to the dish. Lookie who is in the picture: Chef Ciaran Hickey of the W-Hotel Yukhwae Jamae Jip There isn't much else at there restaurant other than the raw beef dish. If you would like a mix of liver and cow stomach, they have that as well, but...I find ...

Last week the Agency for Traditional Market Administration sponsored a market tour and a Crescent Moon Rice Cake Cooking Class with O'ngo Food Communications for Filipino Mothers and children currently married to Korean spouses in Korea. I mentioned it before on this post on the cooking class,  but I didn't post the pictures of the market tour. For the tour, all the kids were dressed in hanboks (Korean traditional clothes)- even the babies. They looked very cute and colorful as they walked through the market. If you haven't been to Kwangjang Market yet, I highly recommend it. The shopkeepers are all very friendly, the food is delicious, the prices are cheap, and there is just a wonderful energy about the place. It's the place to see the real Korea. Dan Here I explain Rich Soybean Paste and Red Pepper Paste (Gochujang) I think she's posing^^ Everyone loves the Bindaetteok Here is the motherload of Banchan (Side Dishes) See.. Squid is not that ba...

Bottoms up! Korean Soju Shots I just wrote an article for Koreataste.org which has been kind enough to ask me to write for them on a regular basis. The site is one of the best sites I have seen so far for Korean food. It's new (It has only been open since August 15th), but it has a wealth of content on the site. I wish that I could make Seouleats that organized. Anyway, I'm a writer and I'm happy to write for them. Here is an excerpt of the article. Jump over to their site to read the rest. Please vote (Give a Thumbs up!) and leave a comment. It makes the site administrators (and me) very happy. When our company, O’ngo Food Communications ( www.ongofood.com ) started our night dining tours, our concept was to introduce real Korea to tourists and have them experience the culture through the cuisine. It has become our most popular tour with over 200 participants. We start our tour around the shops of working class people around Kwangjang Market. As night falls, t...

When the musical Rent came to Seoul in September, I was lucky enough to have been contacted by them. I first went out with a couple of the cast members to Cafe Sobahn. There we had some great bibimbap and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Later, I got to hang out with Andy Senor Jr. Andy played the part of Angel in the original casting of the famous musical. Interestingly, when I went to see the musical back in 2000, I probably saw him on the stage. Andy has a great food blog called La Vie Boh...mmmm!!! He gets to travel around the world eating by day and performing by night. Geez...what a great life. Anyway, we wandered through Kwangjang Market together and this is the video that he made. Be sure to watch for the part where Andy learns some Korean. Dan