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...

If you are looking to travel to Thailand and you're looking for some high-end restaurant recommendations that serve authentic Thai fare then here were some recommendations from my buddy Vincent who is a writer and editor out of Bangkok. Here's Vincent: [quote] Hi Travelers to Thailand. Thailand has a vibrant culinary scene but it might be difficult trying to find good restaurants for special occasions. Here are some of my recommendations for authentic Thai restaurants that have a mix of good atmosphere and food. They are a bit pricier than you would find on the street, but what you are getting is quality. My first choice for the food would be the tasting menu at Bo.lan ( www.bolan.co.th ), creative, varied, but not over-the-top. It's the definite foodie choice, though I know one non-foodie who was a little underwhelmed. Attentive service, nice low-key dining room. A close second, and definitely the prettier restaurant is Lan Na Thai in the Face Bar ( www.facebars.com/en/ re...

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...

Since our company has started doing Incentive tours and events, I have been lucky to eat breakfast at many of the 5-star hotels in Seoul. We usually have morning meetings or lectures over breakfast. Now breakfast is one of my favorite meals, so I am very happy to organize these types of events. Over the last few months, I have eaten breakfast at the InterContinental Coex and Parlas, Ambassador Hotel, Grand Hilton, Somerset Palace, Fraser Suites, and in the past I have been to W-Hotel and a few others. Anyway, my guests are always asking about breakfast in Seoul and I generally suggest they stick to a nice hotel breakfast or have an early and a late lunch. Now out of the hotels in Seoul, I think that the Grand Hyatt has the best spread. Their eggs are cooked right, cheeses are rich, coffee strong, and the bread is really bread. The Grand Hyatt also has excellent cappuccinos. The other thing for me that makes this place stand out are their smoked fish. It has that sticky sheen of smoke ...

I am indulging today. I went to Krispy Kreme for a donut and a coffee when I saw their pumpkin jelly donut. In the spirit of Halloween, I had to get it. It wasn't bad. The filling was orang and it was flavored with pumpkin, but it tasted a bit like apple. I wouldn't have been able to eat more than one of these but it was fun trying it anyway. They have others that look like ghosts and bats and stuff. Meh. If you are feeling nostalgic and want to feel like a kid, get the pumpkin one. Dan

Hi Mom, I'm in Korea. Yesterday was a fun day. I went up Inwangsan Mountain in Seoul. It's the mountain that is behind the Gyeongbukgung Palace and the Blue House. The Blue House is where the president of Korea lives. The hike was a long one. It took a good hour to get up to the top and I got winded a couple of times but the view from the top was majestic. Yesterday was a beautiful clear day and you could see the entire city. It was amazing from up there. The mountain is considered by many to be a sacred mountain and many people that live in Korea wish to have their windows face that mountain. They say that one of the rocks there looks like the Sanshin or Mountain god. It looked just like a big rock to me, but I guess from a distance it could look like a rock god. Don't worry mom, I didn't get hurt. I took water. I actually got to climb the mountain with an experiences mountaineer. He is going to climb a big rock in Nepal for 3 weeks. (Yeah, that sounds like a fun vacat...

Trying to eat healthier. Here is some tea from Cha Sarang in Insadong. Eat more apples! This one from daegu was the size of Mike Tyson's fist. I love sundubu and this is from a little place over by Anguk Station exit 2. The name of the place is Jedong Sundubu. cookies from Singapore from a food tour guest.

Too many good food weeks are starting to catch with me. Sure, I have a bit of a weight issue but it is starting to become a lower back issue. All this sitting at a computer is starting to cause me lower back problems. My doctor also told me that I slouch like a crane and I lean my head forward like a turtle. He said this is what is causing my back muscles to be all tight. He says it is not really from stress. I mean do I really have that much stress in my life? Not really. I live a pretty charmed life. So here are my current goals: 1) I am going to stand up straight. 2) I am going to sit up straight in my chair with my butt to the back of my chair. 3) I am not going to slouch (it makes me taller :) 4) I am going to cut down on my drinking. (This week, I have only drank once) 5) I am going to join a group exercise class like yoga or boxing (I belong to a gym, but it is boring). 6) I am going to document what I eat more so I will be better aware of it and I can make conscious efforts to...

  The train to Mokdong is crowded on a Thursday evening, and I shift uncomfortably, brushing against anonymous handbags and shoulders, happy it’s only a short ride from the point where I had transferred to line 5 (I don’t know what it is about the purple line, but it’s always been my least favorite). Today I’m headed to Bandi & Luni’s, a bookstore in the Mokdong U-plex, in order to purchase NU’EST’s newest album, Action , for a chance to get in to a fansign event. Its ironic, I think, that my last fansign in Seoul will be with the first group I ever went to one for. Assuming I get in. Attendance is determined by lottery, you see, so out of the albums sold Wednesday through Friday, 150 fans will be chosen. Of course, when I went to my first NU’EST fansign, getting in was a simple matter of being one of the first 150 fans to buy the album from the host record store on the specified day because it was first come first serve. I’m actually a bit proud of them for meriting a lottery styl...

This is a guest review by Wilfred Lee of the Artist Journey Facebook Group . Photo by Um Misong. I've been searching for the best poutine in all of Korea. I remember my days in Canada going to a Harvey's restaurant and having them blow my mind with such a simple but 'me gusta' induced coma. Even Burger King in Canada had an awesome poutine! Hey, the gravy may not have been 'real gravy' and the cheese curds made the sound of wiping a window clean when you chew, but they were so vainglorious with their gracious portions of gravy and cheese, it was the perfect post party midnight munchie snack. So when my girlfriend told me she found a 'Poutine Factory' by my gym (it's okay, I have one cheat day a week), I was a little worried she might have been mispronouncing a completely different word, but lo and behold there is was! Although they have a variety of poutines, we tried the classic one as the foundation to measure the other ones. They come in two sizes...