Korea – Hole in the Wall Authentic Korean

Restaurant: Hole in the Wall Authentic Korean (I don’t know the actual name, I can’t read the sign)
Cuisine: Korean
Last visited: April 8, 2010
Location: Seoul, Korea
Address: n/a (By a major shopping district)
Price Range: $10CAD or less

1: Poor 2: OK 3: Good 4: Very good 5: Excellent 6: Tres Excellent!!

Food: 4
Service: 4
Ambiance: 3 (appreciate it for what it is)
Overall: 4
Additional comments:

• Very local
• Hole in the wall
• Authentic Korean food
• Home made
• Busy for lunch
• Very cheap
• Fast service
• Eat in/Take out/Delivery

**Recommendations: Korean dough noodle soup, seaweed bimbimbap

This is a very casual hole in the wall restaurant in Seoul, Korea. It serves decent portions of authentic home made Korean food for very cheap. The 3 of us ate for $12CAD altogether. They have an attached coffee shop and 2 coffees ended up costing almost the same as our lunch.

Nothing is in English, but there are some photos on the wall…I was lucky to have locals with me so they did the ordering.

I don’t know the name of the restaurant so I tried taking as many photos as possible. So if you ever travel to Korea and decide to go to this restaurant then I hope someone can put these photos into perspective for you. It’s by a major shopping district with lots of buildings that sell lots of clothes…the other activity we planned for the day.

This is how small hole in the wall restaurants in Korea deliver food. Talent! I saw a lady with up to 3 trays on her head.

I’ll be comparing some of the items to another restaurant so you get an idea of the variations of how one dish can be served in Korea.

On the table:

Complimentary Appetizers

• Must have the kimchi appetizers. This one was the standard kimchi appetizer and the other was a shredded daikon, celery and carrot kimchi.
• The silver bowl is soup.
• The dish on the bottom right is the bimbimbap sauce.

**Seaweed Bibimbap – 4/6

• Seaweed, bean sprouts, radish sprouts, green onions, and fresh seaweed (shredded dark brown garnish on top of sprouts)  served over a bed of rice.
• I haven’t seen this type of bibimbap in Vancouver and it was my first time trying it.
• They serve things in big metal mixing bowls in Korea. Maybe because it requires mixing before you eat it…but it makes me feel a bit savage like.

• It’s served with bibimbap sauce which you pour over top and mix in.
• The sauce is made from garlic, sesame oil, chili paste, sugar, soy sauce, scallions and rice vinegar. It’s salty, tangy, sweet and slightly spicy all at once. It’s great!

• It was delicious! It was nice and crunchy and very fresh tasting. This particular bibimbap was vegetarian. It was almost like a salad mixed with rice. It wasn’t dry either because of the sauce.

Korean Bibimbap #2 – 5/6

• My first authentic Korean bibimbap! Served with Korean chili sauce, dried sardines, fresh seaweed, kimchi and soy bean soup $9CAD
• This bibimbap is from a different restaurant, but for comparison’s sake I decided to add it to the post.
• This is actually from a nice food court in Korea. The food court is located in a pricier part of Seoul. It actually resembles Harrod’s (the famous high end designer department store in London)…this is pretty much from the Korean version of Harrod’s (which also has a gourmet style food court).
• There’s definitely lots more ingredients than what we’re used to in Vancouver. It had everything and more…except no egg…which made me really sad.
• There were so many toppings and so much variety. I really liked it!
• Everything is cut really finely: carrots, mushrooms, seaweed, spinach, fresh seaweed, green onions, bean sprouts, purple cabbage, green cabbage, pickled radish and of course shredded beef slices.

**Korean Dough Noodle Soup – 4/6

• Back to the hole in the wall restaurant.
• Homemade noodles served with soup, fresh seaweed, dried seaweed and green onion.
• This is a classic Korean comfort food. People grow up with it and really like it.
• It’s a very simple dish and for me it wasn’t as big of a deal. It was still very good, but it was too basic for me.

• The noodles are big, thick and flat. They’re filling!
• They’re home made and the recipe is simply flour and water with maybe some salt.
• They taste like boiled dumpling dough.
• The soup is made from anchovy and radish so it’s very simple and surprisingly not fishy in taste. It tastes vegetarian actually.

Korean Dough Noodles #2

• This is another version of the Korean dough noodles served at the same Harrod’s like food court I got the bibimbap.
• This was my friend’s so I didn’t end up trying it.
• Sometimes they serve it with rice and you can mix the rice into the soup as well.
• The side dishes were 3 different kinds of kimchi: green onion kimchi, regular kimchi, and a soy bean leaf kimchi.

Stir Fried Korean Rice Cake Noodles with Gochujang Sauce (Ddeokbokki)

• Back to the hole in the wall Korean restaurant.
• I usually LOVE these rice noodles, but they didn’t make them well at this restaurant.
• It was one dimensional in flavour and only spicy…I like mine a bit sweeter with a creamier sauce.
• They serve it with sliced fish cakes which are made from pureed fish and then they’re fried before serving.
• The noodles are chewy and they’re really filling.
• It quite spicy! The sauce is made from Gochujang (traditional Korean chili paste) chili powder, garlic, sugar and water.
• Definitely a must try in Korea, but just not at this place.