Gastronomic Experience in Seoul

I'm way behind on my blog posts.  Anyways, Korean food is my favorite cuisine.  Before the Samgyeupsal craze, I love eating in grilled korean barbecue restaurants, and my favorite even is Sariwon (#notsponsored).

So anyways, I thought I'd share with you my food experience in my recent trip to Seoul.

I would start with airplane food.  It was our first time to ride with Korean Air, and I think the food we had on our trip to Seoul was worth mentioning, for someone with 1st time experience like me.

Yes I was so much fascinated with what I had on the plane.  Bibimbap!!!! and it's even good.  So there's a separate pack for warm rice then with little kimchi, there's even bean soup, then beef bibimbap.  See the tube of white thing on top of the plate of meat and vegetables? That's the sauce for the bibimbap, amazing isn't it?  I really had fun eating this in the plane.

Upon our arrival in our airbnb, was around dinner time already, so we were hungry.  Our itinerary was supposed to eat streetfood, but we were really hungry already so we ate a little at a restaurant just beside our airbnb.

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Myeongdong Street Food for a First-Timer in Korea

It was our 1st time in Korea, I put this in our itinerary as our 1st activity the moment we arrived in Seoul.  We arrived in Seoul around 7:00pm so just in time for dinner.  Well actually since we're already so hungry upon check-in at our Airbnb, we ate at a nearby restaurant a little first since we'll be taking the subway to Myeongdong from our Airbnb.

Just a brief background of our trip, we went November 27, 2018.  It was beginning winter season already and our conversion rate during this time was: 1Korean Won = Php 0.048.

So here were a few of the streetfood we ate at Myeongdong.

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Welch Sparkling Juice Dupe

I'm a big fan of the Welch Sparkling Juice, but living in a dormitory/condominum, sometimes you don't have access to grocery nearby.  Convenient stores are now more accessible than the major supermarkets.  

This is not a total replica, but at least "Pwede na" if you're craving for a 1 glass drink.

Ingredients: (I bought everything from a convenient store).

• Welch grape juice
• Sparkling water

Recipe: 

Pour 30% of Sparkling Water into a glass and 70% of Welch Grape Juice.

You can alter the to taste.

Food in Nishiki Market

This was actually an unplanned part of our trip.  On our last full day, we just decided to make it less stressful.  Somewhere near our AirBNB so that we can always return whenever we get tired.

Japan leaves a mark in your memories because of the unique experiences it offers.  I think this is one of the strengths of travelling to Japan.

This is an overview of the path of the Nishiki Market.  I think it's one of the great places in Kyoto.

The first thing we tried upon entering the market are the seafood skewers. The names that I will state here were all invented by me, meaning I don't know the real name of the food. There were lots from Octopus egg (Quail Egg as head of octopus and the tentacles of octopus), Grilled/scallops on a stick, Octopus tentacles alone, Fish etc.  I collectively call them seafood barbecue 😜.  There's a "fishy" smell to the food, but I prefer the scallops personally since they were tasty and fresh.

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Apple Bunny Bento

Holy week just passed by, and rabbits and bunnies are everywhere as they're symbols of the Easter.  In the Rise of the Guardians, the Easter Bunny is the Guardian of Hope. Well I'm starting this April with something related to bunny.

Someone just kept bugging me "I want bento....~", "I want bent~to~". And being someone who doesn't know how to cook, of course I'm cheating! haha

Here's how I did my "cheat" bento 😆

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Lemon Yakult Hack

I would like to thank Ezra for this idea for my artsymed post.  Even if this was all around youtube (as I've just recently discovered), I only discovered this as I was thinking of doing this post.

I like drinking the Lemon Yakult, we had near in UST.  Sometimes you just want something refreshing to drink.  But it's kind of expensive for a student, at P69 for a drink.  So if you're on a budget but still on the crave of drinking this, here's a cheaper alternative.  But not as healthy though as the real thing.

Ingredients:

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Dorm Cooking - Convenience Store Cocktail

Have you ever experienced having a bad day and sometimes you just want to have a drink but it's in the middle of the week and you can't ask someone else to have a drink with you and you just end up drinking alone?

Or just having one of those days when you just want to have a drink alone trying to forget your bad day?

One of our GS consultants visited our staffroom and asked us if I like soju, and I said I tried it once and I don't like the taste of it.  And he said to me, don't take the plain soju, you should try the flavored soju, it tastes better.

And I was happy to see flavored soju in the convenience store.

Ingredients:

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Dorm Cooking - Overnight Oatmeal Breakfast

Sometimes when you leave in a dormitory, where you don't have a stove to cook your meals, you're forced to be creative with your meals.  Here in this recipe, I'm using ingredients from a convenience store since I live really close to a convenience store.  I don't know if this is called a challenge, but maybe??

Ingredients:

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My Top 5 Grocery Gifts (Pasalubong) from Australia

Since the items in Australia are expensive, I just bought my pasalubong from their groceries.  I tried to look for some that are really unique from Australia.  This is just my personal opinion, of course there are others depending on their tastes and personalities.

1. 3-in-1 coffee

One of the things I love most about Australia is the Coffee!!!  To the point I wanted to bring them home.  I've tried the Cappuccino and I loved it! In fact I've just finished 1 box and will be opening this one below soon.  

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Vegemite Food Challenge / Review

When I went to Australia for the APCC Convention, according to my sister who also went with me, Vegemite is one of the popular Australian product.  But not all want the product and for some reason, Australians love this product.  So we bought one, but unfortunately we were not able to try it while we were in Australia, since I had a busy schedule attending and presenting in the convention.

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HK Must Try Food, Mini List

Hong Kong is one of my favorite countries, whenever I go there, this is just a mini list of my must eat food everytime I visit Hong Kong.  The items in this list are generic and can be found in a lot of places in Hong Kong.

1. Roasted Duck/Goose

Our family loves this so much that whenever we go back to the Philippines, we bring at least one or two whole roasted ducks as "pasalubong".  It's just so fragrant and tasty.  You just have to tell the seller that you'll bring this back to your country and they'll pack it so it's ready to put in your hand carry bag.

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Le Petit Souffle - Food Review

It's been a long time since I wrote a restaurant review.  Hope I have what it takes to make a review.  This review is in no way sponsored.  We weren't invited either.

Le Petit Souffle is a French-Japanese cafe that offers comfort food.

Ambience	The ambience is very comforting! It has a french cafe theme. It has a feel good vibe and is a perfect place to have dates.
Food

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Mason Jar Cooking

I recently bought mason jars as a container for a gift. I just bought extra for me. As I was thinking what to do with my new mason jar other than drinking coffee or tea with it, I thought I could incorporate dorm cooking into it.

Let's start with strawberry yogurt oatmeal.

Ingredients:

Yogurt drink

Instant oatmeal

1. Pour in the yogurt drink over the instant oatmeal.

2. Mix

3. Refrigerate overnight

4. Pop into your microwave

The oatmeal smelled really good! And it tasted great!

Our second recipe is for

Pata Noodles

Ingredients

Left-over crispy pata

Instant miso soup mix

Egg noodles

Lettuce

1.  Cook your egg noodles in your mason jar 1/2 filled with water in your microwave at medium heat for 3 minutes.

2. Pour in your miso soup mix and mix well

3. Put your pata cut into strips and your chopped lettuce

4. Place in microwave for 1 minute

5. Enjoy!

Kawaii Themed Cafe

Finally got my break from the hospital, so I grabbed the chance to escape away from the Philippines, to visit HK.

I think it's been 3 years since I've been in HK with my friends. This time it's different, I get to travel alone, I felt kind of excited and scared at the same time at first. But hey, it's Hk and I'll be living with my relatives, what could possibly go wrong?

I felt I got to try somethin pg new in Hk apart from shopping, while searching the net I came across a snoopy themed cafe. The coffee shop was named Charlie Brown Cafe. So I decided that I'll devote my time to visit these kawaii themed cafe in HK.

Let's start of with Little Twin Star themed cafe. In Langham place in Mongkok, they have this celebration for 40 yrs of Hello Kitty. So for a certain period of time, the restaurants in Langham Place will have decorations devoted to the character, last month I think was Kuromi & my Melody (too bad I missed it, or it would be like heaven for med, I really love Kuromi!!!). Anyways, at Langham Place, at the 10th floor, 1000 Bites have decorations and food Little Twin Star themed.

The prices are really expensive, all I could buy were the cookies priced at HK$22 for 2 pcs of butter cookies.

Next stop will be the Hello Kitty Secret Garden Cafe at Tai Hing. This is actually hidden, you have to have a really active internet connection to help you navigate through the small streets in Hk. I advise you not to go there alone, or if you're alone, go there during the day.

This has gret interiors, you can see the tables have printed hello kitty in them, the chairs as well. Th comfort room even has hello kitty tiles.

I ordered bacon and pumpkin quiche. And also coffee latte

Tuna sandwich also. The food tasted ordinary, nothing special, but the presentation of the food is such an eye candy.

And can you see all the cakes with hello kitty in them! The cakes are priced HK$45 each, the latte I think around that price also, I forgot sorry!

There's also a small branch of the Hello Kitty cafe at Sogo, Causeway Bay. It's really just a stall, no place to eat, if you want to take out a cake, you can get from there, since it's more accessible and easier to find than the secret garden cafe.

The 3rd and certainly my favorite of all the cafe I visited, is the Charlie Brown Cafe, located at Ca,eron Road, Tsim Tsa Tsui.

I think this is the most authentic of all the kawaii themed cafe. Everything, from walls, imteriors,  lights, mirrors, doors, are all snoopy themed! This was definitely all worth it looking for and going into.

If I am to go back I'll go back here! I ordered cafe latte and cafe mocha, the mocha tasted great. Priced at HK$42 for small. They have 3 different sizes for the coffee

I think my tita enjoyed the experience also 

Amazing cakes! Priced at Hk$40+ I think for the mousse cakes.

It was a definitely fun experience visiting these kawaii theme cafe in HK, different from the typical shopping I usually do here. It was really worth it!

Til next trip!

Cupcake Omelette - Dorm Cooking

One of my residents yesterday asked me to make an artsymed dorm cooking. Time to try out the silicone cupcake molds I bought from the supermarket.

This recipe will yield 11 mini cupcakes.

Ingredients:

1 small can vienna sausage

2 medium sized eggs

1/2 eden cheese sulit pack

salt & pepper to taste

1. Whisk the eggs  & put in salt & pepper to taste

2. Cut the cheese into cubes & slice the vienna sausage.

3. Line the silicone cupcake molds with cupcake liners

4. Pour in the egg into the molds, drop cheese & sausage.

5. Cook your cupcake omelette in the microwave under low heat for 2 minutes

6. Enjoy

Ramen Nagi - Food Review

Ramen Nagi at Robinson's Magnolia just opened.  There's been a craze over ramen here in the Philippines lately & this will be the first time I'll eat here after a few months since the peak of its craze.

It's a pity I didn't order the black ramen, I didn't know this is the dish to eat here. My med school barkada and I tried the other flavored ramen.

 I ordered the Butao King. As the menu says, it is their signature and there was a crown in the label in the menu, so I thought this was really their signature dish.  But I really love this dish, flavorful.

 Ivan ordered the red nagi, this is the spicy one.  Really spicy according to him.  He loves it but since he tasted butao before, he prefers butao king compared to the red nagi.

 Benj ordered the new dish, which is the curry ramen.  He said he wanted to try something different.  He loves it. I tasted the curry soup, it was kind of weird for me, since I love curry when compared with rice.  It was weird to taste it with ramen.

Here's the three of us while we were waiting for Jan, he was in the volleyball game as one of the doctors there.

He said he was on his way to Magnolia so we ordered his ramen in advance.  But he got caught in traffic, so his ramen turned cold, the dining manager noticed the untouched ramen, so he took it out.  According to him, he'll serve a freshly made ramen when my friend arrives free of charge.  Isn't it nice? Taking pride and trying to maintain the best time to eat the ramen.

Finally Jan arrived and was rewarded with his freshly prepared, hot ramen & a paper bib hahahaha.  He ordered the red ramen also, and loved it.

It's been I think 2 years since we got together again.  Sa uulitin!

My rating: 5/5

Livestock - Food Review

We had our Journal Club last Thursday. After the discussion we went to Livestock & had the best crispy pata.

Warning, if you're hypertensive, be sure to take your meds prior to eating here, it's really sinfully deliciious.

We had Crispy Pata, it's so tender that they used tongue depressors to slice the meat. It's so good that you can't stop eating it. Sorry I wasn't able to take a picture of it since everybody just dove in.

Everything in this restaurant is related to meat, pork, chicken.  Don't visit this restaurant if you're a vegetarian since everything even desserts have 'meat' component.

There are others that we ordered like the pork belly, sisig, etc.  All tasted superb.

Even the dessert has bacon in it.

I'll give this restaurant a 5/5.  Will definitely go back here to eat. This is great place to eat with family and friends or barkada.

'til next journal club!