I've seen the devil.

[itsstillmatt]

http://www.gourmetwalks.com/gourmet-sanfran/

Was out getting some salami and such for dinner, and I ran into these people. They were all milling about, taking up space and eating until their tour guide gave them the word to move on. Oh brother.

 

[gomestar]

Rainbow assortment of perfect Parisian macarons, dubbed by food writers as “the next cupcake”

coming from the 'boutique cupcake' capital of the world, all I have to say is - ha!!!

 

[lefty]

Had I bought that place on Hayes it would have been the house they had to quickly walk by lest they get doused by my hose.

You were at The Fatted Calf? The bagged chicarones at the counter are pretty damn good.

lefty

 

[impolyt_one]

Same dude I always rail on, he does this same thing - food tours. ****. He says things like 'tour with a local food expert' (himself) and says things like 'we'll start at my cooking school' - which he neither started/owns, or does any cooking/instruction at - guy can't cook. I really, really ******* hate this guy, and I don't even know why anymore - http://seouleats.com

 

[acidboy]

Artisanal salumi from the first couple of charcuterie

piob and wife?

 

[edinatlanta]



http://www.gourmetwalks.com/gourmet-sanfran/

Was out getting some salami and such for dinner, and I ran into these people. They were all milling about, taking up space and eating until their tour guide gave them the word to move on. Oh brother.

OJFC. With a caveat (see below).

Same dude I always rail on, he does this same thing - food tours. ****. He says things like 'tour with a local food expert' (himself) and says things like 'we'll start at my cooking school' - which he neither started/owns, or does any cooking/instruction at - guy can't cook. I really, really ******* hate this guy, and I don't even know why anymore - http://seouleats.com

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.

 

[kiya]

This is such a joke.. the guy walks you 6 blocks down Hayes street. The businesses must hate him.

 

[itsstillmatt]



This is such a joke.. the guy walks you 6 blocks down Hayes street. The businesses must hate him.

Trust me. Most of the clients couldn't have gone much further.

 

[mordecai]

Lol. At least you don't get fanny pack wearing historic staircase tourists from the valley snapping photos through your window while you're in boxer shorts making coffee at 9am on a sunday

 

[Piobaire]

WTF? No tasting at the saki place?

 

[impolyt_one]



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.

 

[edinatlanta]



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.

ok well i did have just 24 hours. Not even that. But it was like, I was trying to get to Myongdong (pretty sure) and just had a map and it was little help because, IIRC they didn't put Korean characters on my map or the street signs didn't have the English equivalent, something like that so it was kinda like, well I'll look for this landmark and then couldn't find it. so yeah, that's my experience. Was still fn walking around except for when I was walking through some just boring places where they sold like just homewares and knockoff stuff. That kind sucked. But yeah dudes were helpful

 

[impolyt_one]

Yeah Seoul is good for adventuring, one month is fun if you have people to do things with. Seoul is barely on the cusp of getting expensive on the low-end stuff, so now is a good last chance for people to get that in I guess. In Tokyo, you really gotta pay to play if you want to gallavant around town and eat and drink well, and most people aren't gonna be bothered to really help you out much over there, just too many people and not enough time.

Back to my other post though, the seouleats guy, I don't know why, but all these weirdo foreign people in Korea feel compelled to start blogs on topics they know nothing about, and they actually gain some notoriety, so it's infuriating if you're actually into something and do know a bit about the topic. There was a guy who started a street fashion blog but did it so that he could take pics of girls feet (no joke) and later on started claiming he had the leading fashion blog, and then this seouleats guy who went from pics of his free school lunches as an English teacher to being a 'food expert' with nothing in between to really pad that.... it's pretty to read. I mean honestly, is this a good food blog, written by someone who knows anything about food?
http://www.seouleats.com/2011/07/review-edward-kwons-lab-xxiv.html

 

[esswhykay]

^lol

That barely reads better than a Yelp review.

 

[edinatlanta]



Yeah Seoul is good for adventuring, one month is fun if you have people to do things with. Seoul is barely on the cusp of getting expensive on the low-end stuff, so now is a good last chance for people to get that in I guess. In Tokyo, you really gotta pay to play if you want to gallavant around town and eat and drink well, and most people aren't gonna be bothered to really help you out much over there, just too many people and not enough time.

Back to my other post though, the seouleats guy, I don't know why, but all these weirdo foreign people in Korea feel compelled to start blogs on topics they know nothing about, and they actually gain some notoriety, so it's infuriating if you're actually into something and do know a bit about the topic. There was a guy who started a street fashion blog but did it so that he could take pics of girls feet (no joke) and later on started claiming he had the leading fashion blog, and then this seouleats guy who went from pics of his free school lunches as an English teacher to being a 'food expert' with nothing in between to really pad that.... it's pretty to read. I mean honestly, is this a good food blog, written by someone who knows anything about food?
http://www.seouleats.com/2011/07/review-edward-kwons-lab-xxiv.html

I remember you recommended, or at least alerted me to his site. It was...wow. Some places I wanted to go to but ended up not getting a chance to (and I'll be going to S. Korea more in the future so I'll have more opportunities to go). right behind my hotel was one of the supposedly best korean bbq places in seoul it was great.

Question--what's the flat pancake like thing that's filled with that sweet kind of cinnamon-like stuff served hot, that everyone eats from the carts? Also, that red soup everyone sits around eating at the carts...what is it, what's the process for that?