Today I interrupt our regular programming to talk about something very important:
snacks!
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| snack food haul from my 2017 trip to Jeju Island |
I love snacks. I like to think of myself as a snack connoisseur of sorts. I was initially planning to incorporate this information into my
Seoul travel guide, but then realised that I have enough photos and overly strong opinions on snacks for its own post.
My relationship with snacks goes way back...back to the orphanage it seems!
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| My question is, does this mean that they had an abundance of cookies and doughnuts etc. at my Korean orphanage in the 80s?? |
So let's just say that I have a verified sweet tooth and a legitimate need for tasty snacks to help me generally deal with life¹ and that need only intensifies as a lonely single person in a foreign country 😅.
The intensity of my cravings for Western food, or more accurately Western comfort food, while living in Korea surprised me. I was fully aware that I was surrounded by a whole lot of great Korean food, far above the standard of any Korean food in Melbourne², and that my needs for very specific Western tastes were stopping me from appreciating all the new culinary experiences at my disposal, which is a shame. But the body, with its emotional bank of food memories, wants what it wants, and so, I couldn't really do anything about it at the time.
Due to the scarcity of ovens in Korean kitchens and the difficulty of obtaining certain baking ingredients (this is changing in Korea for sure though), when I had a particular sweet craving, instead of baking it myself I would run around Seoul like a crazy person in search of it. And thus it became a kind of mission to evaluate various treats and map out my go-to spots across Seoul.
Finally, the act of eating well (I mean in general, not only cookies and donuts - I've come a long way since the orphanage), cooking or sourcing exactly what I feel like eating, has long been a source of comfort, perceived control, and empowerment for me. If I could find a chewy, dense bagel or a perfect, flaky croissant, that was a definitely a small victory as well as a small pleasure, and it mattered a bit less that no one could understand my broken Korean that day.
Anyway, enough weird psychoanalysis - if you happen to be a lonely expat craving mostly Western snacks like I was, let me guide you so as not to waste your calories!
1. My convenience store (편의점) snacks of choice
The local convenience store is obviously the easiest and cheapest way to pick up a tasty snack in Korea. FYI, Korean potato chips are much less salty and savoury than what I was used to in Australia, and at first that made me sad. But then I realised that there are so many new weird/cool things to try and checking out supermarket and convenience store wares in foreign countries is FUN. (An analogy for the experience of moving to a new country in general.) Here are two of my favourite convenience store snacks³:
i. 뿌셔뿌셔 raw ramen snack
If you didn't eat raw Maggi 2-minute noodles as a kid, you missed out, and you also probably had a healthier childhood than I did. Koreans have created an ingenious snack that tastes like uncooked ramen but doesn't need to be cooked, with real ramen-esque packaging and a seasoning sachet inside. I tried to taste as many different flavours as possible while I was in Korea, but I think my friends Mee Joo and Lee have tried more, and their favourite is 불고기맛 - the bulgogi one.
ii. Choco Corn Stars
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| Sorry for this terrible picture |
My Korean brother's wife introduced me to these weird and wonderful chocolate corn stars. Somehow, despite lacking a real chocolate flavour and generally tasting weird, I found them strangely addictive. I wish I could find them at a Korean grocery store here in Melbourne. They taste a bit like a chocolate cereal but softer with a fine chocolate-flavoured powdered coating. Yes, I know I'm making them sound super appetising.
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| Close-up of a chocolate corn star with Netflix, an accurate representation of my winter months in Seoul. Also, I like to eat chips with chopsticks, especially messy ones (I blame it on my Virgo nature, along with my other unattractive qualities). |
2. My cookie of choice
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| Ben's Cookies...a too-regular Korean haunt |
My controversial cookie vendor of choice is the
Ben's Cookies chain, rather than the small business
Cre8 Cookies. Some of my foodie friends prefer Cre8 so I have pondered the reasons for my preference and I think the main one is simply that Ben's Cookies are a chunkier, sizeable treat while Cre8 cookies are a flatter, more delicate 1-2 mouthfuls. What can I say, sometimes size matters (ahhh couldn't resist, sorry).
3. Ice cream of choice
If you feel like something a bit more special than Baskin&Robbins (which I do not mind at all, I think they are tasty and conveniently everywhere), my pick is
Sticky Ricky's over
Fell+Cole and
Emack & Bolio's. They have great, rotating flavours including collaborative flavours using Cre8 Cookies (everyone seems to love Cre8 except me).
4. Chocolate of choice
I am a chocolate, rather than candy, person, and more specifically, a milk chocolate person, although white and dark also hold places in my heart. I look for something creamy and not too sweet with a high percentage of cocoa solids, which can be hard to find in Korea, but Loacker ticks all my boxes. And you can find it at the convenience store and it's not too big so I can finish it all by myself sans guilt.
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| It also has a wafer running through it, which is neither here nor there. |
Other close contenders are Royce (lovely flavour and texture but expensive in Korea and harder to find) and Whittaker's varieties from Olive Young stores (easy to find but completely overpriced in Korea).
5. Other chocolate-y hits
There may come a time when you've had a particularly hard day in Korea and you want a strong chocolate hit and nothing else will do. Don't worry, I got you.
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| Mousse cake on bottom right. Cacaodada is serious about their chocolate. |
This blended iced chocolate drink was inspired by the famous original version from Serendipity in NYC. It is completely over-the-top but somehow not too sweet and really hits the spot. A heads up - it can be hard to get a seat at
Mon Cafe Gregory on weekends.
Hotteok (호떡) involving Nutella
I know that Nutella isn't really chocolate (it's probably not even hazelnuts either, but just a load of sugar and palm oil), but it kind of satisfies that same chocolate-y craving for me. Regular hotteok (the korean street snack with molten sugar and nuts in the middle) is also great but sometimes you just want something a bit extra. Perhaps this regular one, on the left, folded up with Nutella, is a
too extra.
This one on the right with a nutella filling, is just right (from
Sammat Hotteok).
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| Folded with nutella (Tongin Market) |
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| Filled with nutella |
6. Baked goods
i. SF bagels
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| The SF bagels cinnamon roll |
While the sourdough bagels at
SF bagels are delicious, I was slightly obsessed with the cinnamon rolls. I would closely monitor their social media pages for cinnamon roll updates before visiting, to save myself from the ensuing, deep disappointment when they had sold out. The owner Minsun is lovely and she recently made a special creme brûlée and donated all the proceeds to Koroot, a guesthouse for returning Korean adoptees. Also, most of the stuff at SF bagels is vegan.
ii. Anything from Tartine
I had never tried
Tartine, the renowned San Francisco bakery, before it opened in Seoul and I was curious to see if it would live up to the hype. Well, everything I tried was delicious (my favourite was perhaps the morning bun), though pricey. Damn trips to Tartine probably constituted half of the credit card debt that I returned to Australia with.
iii. Bob's Bread
There is a time, living in Korea (not the intense chocolate-craving time, another time) when only chewy sourdough with a crust you have to saw through will do and
Bob's Bread is for that time. Bob and his wife are also super friendly. Completely worth the trip to Yeongdeungpo-gu (FYI it's only takeaway though).
Ok, that's it! If you've read this far, thank you, and I hope you don't feel sick at the thought of all this sugar, or alternatively, too hungry for snacks! Also, I've just booked another trip to Korea, so I'll be eager to try my old favourites as well as discover new treats 🙋
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¹Perhaps a self-soothing coping mechanism born in early childhood trauma? Or maybe I'm listening to too much Gabor Maté...
²To be clear, I still think Melbourne is possibly the best food city in the world (arrogance/bias fully intended).
³Of course, I didn't try all of the convenience store snacks in Korea, although I made a good attempt in Japan.
I'm sorry Korea, Japan royally screwed us over AND their snacks are next level.)
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