Hey Hive!
So if you missed the last few posts, I've been sharing about our first trip to Seoul back in Nov 2022! We were waiting post-covid for everyone to go on their holidays before taking a big one and we finally decided to go on our honeymoon! It's also our first time experiencing Fall so we were double excited!
Last week, we ended the day of exploring Hongdae by going to a self photo studio end then having an early dinner at a celebrity KBBQ restaurant!
The food was delicious albeit a little pricey compared to other KBBQ restaurants, or so we've heard since it was our first time eating KBBQ in Korea.
Anyway, it's finally time for a new day so let's go!
12 Nov 2022. Saturday.
We wanted to try another cafe for breakfast and came across this robot hotel not too far from the hotel we were staying in. I think we've seen some videos about these robot hotels online but it was cool to see it in-person!
For some reason there were also some dinosaur animatronics in the lobby. I'm not sure what that has to do with the robots though but maybe there was a theme that we didn't understand since we weren't staying there.
The cafe we wanted to try was this one called Leesar Coffee that I found on NaverMaps (Korea's Google Maps because it doesn't work there for some reason).
It looked pretty fancy from the outside and didn't seem like our style of cafe but we wanted to go check it out anyway.
Source: seoulshopper
I thought the interior would look more fancy on the inside but it was pretty simple with some small black marble tables.
The cafe itself has two floors but it was pretty packed at the time so we took one of the few first floor tables.
This was the menu:
It was a lot fancier than we thought it was going to be, and since neither of us are coffee drinkers we felt really out of our element. There were so many different types of coffee and none of them were names we recognised like latte or cappuccino.
It was also pretty pricey, so we were considering leaving to get something else instead. But since we were here Sean said we can try one drink, so we bought one of the cheapest ones which was the Caffe Strapazzato which we've never even heard of.
I'm not sure this was the best idea though because when our cup came it was literally just half a cup of very concentrated coffee. It looked like someone had drank half of it that we thought it was a mistake. But after Googling, it turns out this is what it commonly looks like although you'd think an espresso topped with sweet coffee cream and dusted with dark cocoa would look a lot better than this.
If you can believe it, the taste was even worse than how it looked. It was truly like super concentrated coffee. I guess that's what an espresso is, but not being coffee drinkers we were so confuddled as to why people would like this.
Needless to say, we did not enjoy it at all and just barely managed to finish that small half cup. The biscuit was nice though.
We were considering visiting another cafe but it was already going to be lunchtime soon so we took a cab to Gangnam to see the huge mall there.
On the way we came across this doggo living its best life with its head out the window! He even looked at us I felt like he knew we were admiring him.
He was so adorable though I wanted to pet him so bad. Don't mind the bird poop on the window btw.
When we were dropped off we thought the driver made a mistake since he dropped us off in front of what looked like an office building. Turns out the mall is the next building over so we walked there and saw lots of sculptures on the way.
Turns out this is the actual mall and it did look really huge indeed.
Just outside the mall was this sculpture of hands called Gangnam Style since it's in the position of the Gangnam Style dance that Psy does. I'm sure everyone has seen this at least once. They were also blasting out the song and video in the kiosk beside it.
The mall is called coex and I think it's the biggest underground mall in Seoul. The name "COEX" is derived from "COnvention centers" and "EXhibition halls". I guess that's why it's so big since there are exhibition halls here as well.
Even the entrance was pretty big already.
We walked in and were immediately overwhelmed. The floor seemed endless.
I think this was the exhibition hall entrance though so that might be why.
It already seemed really huge here but other than a few shops the exhibition side doesn't have much, so we tried to find our way to the mall side.
There was an outdoor walkway towards the mall with these many screens that I guess would be showing advertisements for whatever exhibition was going on.
Soon enough we finally found our way to the mall and went to look at the directory to see what shops were here. We were surprised that the mall itself is only 3 floors, but I guess it is called an underground mall after all.
We didn't really have any particular aim in mind so we leisurely made our way to the food section.
On the way we saw some interesting things like this punching bag station for people to let off some steam I guess? Seems like you could just get a free workout here.
Then we came across what looked like a bookstore but turns out to be a library!
It didn't seem like a very conducive library though especially since it was very open and noisy.
There were especially a lot of people in the middle of the library trying to take pictures with this very tall gold Christmas tree.
It is a very nice Christmas tree tbf, but I was more fascinated by the ceiling height bookshelves. There was no way those books were for reading because how on earth would anyone even reach the top.
The whole library really didn't feel like a library. Even though it was cool outside it was surprisingly warm in here. I guess the windows made it into a greenhouse of sorts. It was also really noisy so I was surprised to see quite a lot of people reading/studying.
We tried to be as respectful as we could not bothering anyone and just taking some quick photos before leaving.
We walked on and finally came to where the food section was!
There was this cookie shop called Ben's Cookies which I think used to be in Singapore too but has since closed down and we never got to try it. I'm not sure what the hype was about or if there was even hype about it but since it was here we decided to try it.
They had quite a variety of flavours of cookies too. Unfortunately I don't remember which one we bought exactly but it was pretty good. It was on the softer side but still held its shape as you hold it which was a good consistency.
We walked on and even though this mall was only three floors each floor was so huge it was seemingly endless.
The lights here made a kind of laser effect I think if we were on a scooter or wheels it would look like we were zooming through hyperspace.
We came across some World Gourmet Tour pop-up market in the middle of the walkway which looked interesting but they had mostly packaged food and we were ready for lunch.
It did look interesting though and there were quite a few different stalls here.
Then we came across this shop that looked like a clothing or athleisure store at first until we looked closer and realised it was actually a restaurant! We were both intrigued and hungry so we decided to check it out!
It was actually a really interesting concept; there was a market section with packaged snacks, drinks and food.
They seemed like regular supermarket food though so I'm not sure what was so special about this market.
But there was also a seating section so I guess you could buy the snacks and eat it here too.
Other than the supermarket snacks it was also an actual restaurant so there was cooked food to order as well.
Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the menu but they had some Korean-style dishes.
The market also had lots of packaged/pre-made food that you could buy and heat up at the self-heating station that was full of microwaves.
I guess that was the most economical option rather than buying the restaurant food. It's cool that you have options.
Source: koreagaja.com
Thankfully the seating section had plenty of space so we could choose any seat we wanted.
After about 10 minutes or so, our order was ready! They had some interesting things on the menu and we ordered this huge fried potato pancake that looked like a rosti topped with perilla leaves, and a fried gimbap.
And of course our meal came with sides of kimchi, radish and soup too! We didn't expect to get two packets of what we thought we cheese sticks but it turns out they were cheese cakes!
This was the fried potato pancake that tbh definitely was more like a rosti than the traditional Korean pancake. I think this was meant to be a side dish to be shared but it looked quite substantial and it was pure carbs too.
There was some shrimp mixed in with the potatoes so it wasn't just pure carbs though. We were kinda skeptical of the fried perilla leaf but it was fried so that they were crisp and matched the rosti really well!
The gimbap had a nice crunchy katsu layer on the outside that was unique since the closest we've seen is a katsu gimbap where the katsu is inside the roll. So to see the gimbap with the fried katsu on the outside was a first.
It was very saucy but it was delicious! The sauce actually helped to give some moisture to the gimbap which would otherwise be quite dry. But the meat blended well with the rice and vegetables. There was a good proportion of everything too, as opposed to the normal katsu gimbap where there would only be a little bit of meat and too much rice.
We couldn't decide which dish was better because they were both so delicious! It definitely boosted our mood after that disappointing coffee earlier.
For dessert we tried the cheesecake which was alright, a little too buttery for my liking but it was good.
We actually still think about this restaurant and that rosti. Maybe next time we'll try to find other outlets.
But I think that's gonna be it for today! Thanks so much for reading and tune in next week for more of Gangnam!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
Check out my previous post in this series!
TacoCat’s Travels #242 (Seoul): Enjoying Celebrity KBBQ and Snacks! 😋