Seoulful insight: Happy new year! Korean restaurant & cafe culture post

Hello and happy new year everyone! I hope 2017 will be amazing year for you guys :)

I have been so busy during this week. I have been meeting friends, going christmas sale shopping and of course, spending new year's eve yesterday. And I can't believe how time flies, I'll be going to Korea next month! Can't wait!! And before it, I have two things to be excited about; 24K concert next week (a korean kpop group is coming to Helsinki to perform) and then Matkamessut aka Nordic travel fair in the end of January. I'm a travel blogger in travel fair so if you recognize me come and say hi ^^ My speciality is South-Korea (obviously) so if you have anything to ask about travelling to Korea, I'm there to help :D

Sooo... I promised a post about korean cafe culture and restaurants and here it is. There's some things that I mentioned in previous post but I wanted to dive a little deeper to explain things to you guys, I hope it will be helpful to those of you who have absolutely no idea about eating/cafe culture in Korea~

Restaurants

Important to know: in very, very few restaurants you'll pay in advance. If cashier is right beside door it usually means you pay after you have eaten so you can just go inside restaurant and go to table. More affordable restaurants have just a little note rather than actual menu the waiter will give you and it's usually in korean. From there you are supposed to choose what you want to eat but if you can't speak korean there's a higher chance these restaurants have photos of their foods on walls so just point what looks good to you or point other customer's food what looks delicious to you. More pricier restaurants have romanized menus.

If you have travel guide there might be a short introduction of most common korean foods so look that up or then google the most common foods because in streets there's usually romanized signs about popular foods restaurants offer so you can choose what you want to eat based on that. For example restaurant might have sign which says "비빔밥 - Bibimbap" and when you go inside there's only korean menu. But at least you will know it's bibimpab restaurant and if you have looked what kind of food it is there should be no problem.

Anyway, again I will say this; it's useful to be able to read korean alphabet even if you don't understand the language. But it makes your life more easier in restaurants and cafes.

Table setting is usually small cup, chopsticks and a spoon but if you find it hard to eat with chopsticks restaurants have forks, just ask and they'll give you. Even if otherwise waiter don't speak english, they understand when you say fork. In some restaurants you will have to go get your water yourself from water purifier machine so follow what other people do if you're unsure what waterpurifier looks like or where to get your water.

Almost forgot to mention, beside your food you will get various type of side dishes and they don't cost any extra for you. It's kind of tradition in korea that with every meal you should have rice and kimchi besides your main dish so in 99% cases you will have at least these side dishes. Other side dishes vary depending on restaurants and food you order.

After you have eaten you actually go to pay to cashier rather than asking the bill. More high end restaurants might bring a bill to you but in other restaurants you will have to pay at cashier. If you are with friends, count your sum before leaving your table and put the money together. In Korea, there's usually always only one person who pays all food so if you don't want that and want separate your bill then count it before you pay. If you say to cashier that you want pay separately it might get difficult. Of course most restaurants especially in Seoul area understands if you want to pay separately because you're foreigner but basically it's more easier for you and them that you just separate and count your bill yourselves and only one goes to pay.
IMPORTANT: Do not tip!! It's not in korean culture to tip waiters and they might even get offended if you leave a tip.

By the way Korea is very family and friends oriented so like 90% of restaurants meal portions are for two people. Some chains offer meals for one person only but those are only couple chains like "김밥천국" (means kimpab heaven) which is a chain offering affordable everyday korean foods (you recognize this chain from it's bright orange sign).

I have some food photos from pretty common foods (I'm getting hungry when I'm looking these lol).

This is called Budaejjigae (부대찌개) which is a soup where you have basically everything you can imagine you can put into a soup. Ham, eggs, noodles, vegetables etc.

This is called Omurice (오므라이스) which originates from Japan but is popular in Korea. It's a rice dish wrapped in egg. The rice contains vegetables but sometimes there can be various things like meat inside also.

Samgyeopsal (삼겹살) is one of the most popular korean dishes. It's basically a barbeque feast :D You have meat you grill in center of your table and then you have various other dishes and side dishes. After finishing whole samgyeopsal meal, koreans like to eat cold noodles (냉면) to top it.

These are various popular street foods in korea. The red snack is ddokbokki (떡볶이) which is spicy rice cakes (they really are very spicy!), beside it is mini kimpab (김밥) which is usually bigger and it is seaweed roll (so good!!) and next to it is mandu (만두) which is a dumpling filled usually with either meat or kimchi.

This is padak (파닭) which is a very popular chicken dish in korea. It's basically fried chicken with onion or vegetable topping and O.M.G it's so good!! I have never eaten so awesome fried chicken in anywhere. This is usually eaten at evening or night. (It's our equivalent of pizza which you order at evening to parties etc).

Here's Manduguk (만두국) which is dumpling soup, this is very delicious and you will get full from this only. Beside it is right sized kimpab (김밥) roll. Kimbap's can by the way be filled with various things like meat, vegetables and cheese for example. And never say kimpab is sushi! It's offending to koreans!

This is kalbitang (갈비탕) it's made of beef short ribs and noodles. It's mild and doesn't have almost any spices so if you are not a friend of spicy food definetly try this.

This is one of the most popular and known dishes ever; kimchijjigae (김치 찌개) which is kimchi stew. It contains kimchi, meat and sometimes tofu. It's very spicy but soooo good!

Cafe culture

Cafe culture is big in Korea and you can find cafes almost in every street corner. There's various chains and unique cafes, most known are for example Dunkin donuts, Coffee gurunaru, Paris baguette, Caffe bene and Tous les jours... major of coffee chains have french name for some reason lol. In coffee shops you order and pay first, then wait your order to be ready. Most cafe's have this device to give you and it alarms when your order is ready.

One funny detail; some koreans drink hot coffee with a straw so don't wonder why in some coffee shops you will get a straw automaticly with your hot drink.
But actually koreans have useful inventions with take out cups; the lid's small hole you drink through can be closed and opened, when it's opened there's a small hole in the lid you can just put the small part. Sorry, I'm reeeeally not good explaining this in english (in finnish it would be challenging too actually lol).

Koreans favorite drink to order is americano but latte is popular too so you can find those two almost in every place and with different flavors. Matcha latte (green tea latte) is popular too but it's mainly going by the name nogchalatte (녹차) which is basically meaning green tea in korean.

In cafes there's many cakes and sweets to choose with your drink and omg koreans are so inventive with their stuff. They have cute cakes which are really affordable so I'm always getting extra kilos when I go to Korea lol. I just can't resist tasting those!
And besides just coffee, korean cafes offer lemonades, teas and other drinks so definetly try those out. This year popular trend drink was Ade which is basically lemonade drink with different flavors.
My favorite tea chain is Osulloc and they have "coffee shop" where you can get various teas and matcha lattes. Sooooo good, I definetly recommend them!

Here are some photos of coffees and desserts (you really have to be careful in Korea with these or you _will_ get more extra weight after your holiday in Korea is over xD ).

Some photos of Bingsus which I have talked about before. They're traditional korean dessert made of shaved ice, ice cream and some toppings. You usually mix milk to shaved ice to make it tastier.