Quote:
Originally Posted by
edinatlanta 
OJFC. With a caveat (see below).
OK, while the dude may be a doucher, I have to say, Seoul was incredibly intimidating and I've been all over the world and walked around a city just to see it. So I think in Seoul it may be useful to have a giude or at least some structure for--"food touring--as much as I may hate that phrase. Also considering with the street food I really didn't know what any of it was but it was still great. So, I guess sometimes it would be OK.
I mean, on the one hand, eating the food is probably my favorite part of a city and sometimes i have no idea where or how to start. But how hard is it to go to a restaurant and know let's go here next? So sometimes it may be OK, mostly probably not.
Basically, don't ask me for anything.
Seriously dude? I understand that Seoul would be tough if you had like 24 hrs or something, but if you have any more than that, you can at least get some stuff in, with minor research. The tube is pretty well organized, and the taxis are cheap as water and are more plentiful than private cars on the roads by nightfall. We are pretty densely populated here but there is still enough space and free time for a cabby to pull off to the side of the road and take out his personal cell phone and call to ask where to go, if all you have is a magazine article with the phone number or something. They'll do that even before dropping the meter, and if they still don't know, they'll roll down their windows and ask everybody they can talk to at a stoplight or something.
Also, If you ask for directions on the street or at a random shop here here, oft times strangers won't stop at just showing you their iPhone map or something, they'll walk you to where you're going to make sure you get there. It's no insidious thing where they want a tip or anything in exchange, they are just showing you their country. That has been done for years and years here. I guess regarding the people you meet on the street, the Japanese are really polite in a manner similar the British, but Koreans are generous and straight shooting.
Overall, if you did a preliminary internet search on the stuff you want to look for, blogs, websites, etc, you'd get along just fine. It's like NYC where you just gotta get some semblance of something to tell the cab driver before you set out, and you're fine. Plus, a lot of the food here is very homogenized and tastes the same everywhere, so you don't do badly by just staying in one popular neighborhood and digging through it, like for example, Myongdong, with it's huge shopping street and the two or three department stores with food and restaurant arcades inside them, plus the two or three luxury hotels that represent high-end dining... bit of everything in the same block.
to read. I mean honestly, is this a good food blog, written by someone who knows anything about food?
