We visited Chan’s mother’s side of the family in Hamyang. We stayed in a local hotel but everyone was basically a 3-5 minute drive for us. It’s a really small town but I loved it. His family are so loving and warm and they all were AMAZING chefs. One of the Aunts owns a restaurant so we got to grind so much good food every night. First night? Hanwoo beef, Korean beef! It’s like eating the wagyu A5 of Korea, they bought the plus plus version of it (aka $$$).

Mushroom Medley – peek that fluff ball! Does anyone know what that mushroom is called??

Here is the fluff ball unfluffed. They just dipped it raw in sesame oil with salt. It was delicious. A bit of a nutty flavor, I really enjoyed it!

HELLO. Look at that marbling. So good. Everyone super enjoyed the dinner. That meat was crazy.

No real dipping sauce needed or seasoning. They chopped up green onions seasoned it with sesame oil and salt and I’m sure other seasoning that we ate with the meat. It was the perfect accompaniment.

End the meal with a simple Doenjang jigae. Nice warm soup to warm up in the increasingly cold weather!

I see the brown donkatsu dish in many Korean dramas so I’ve been wanting to try it! Well, there was a Brown Tonkatsu restaurant near our place so we tried it out!

Cream Soup

This soup was good! Very mild in flavor but didn’t taste too rich. I definitely dipped my bread in and enjoyed.

Bread

Brown Pork Cutlet Set (Sirloin + Tenderloin) | ₩11,500

They ran out of shrimp this day so that was a bit of a bummer especially since Chan likes shrimp cutlets. So we got this set, I really enjoyed it. The brown sauce isn’t really a gravy, it’s almost like a tangy steak sauce gravy thing. I liked it. Chan’s brother wasn’t a huge fan and said they have nothing on Tonkatsu Tamafuji. Haha, I agree that Tamafuji is winners but I guess I wouldn’t compare this dish to theirs because it’s a completely different dish? Anyway, I enjoyed it! Fulfilled my craving. 🙂

Sorry folks, I might not have the names of a lot of restaurants for these posts since I left it up to Chan to do the ordering from food delivery apps and it’s not very English friendly. This was a very nice and warm and comforting soup dish! Do you know what soondae is? Why, it’s blood sausage of course! I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but it is mine.

Soondae Guk-Bap (sorry I didn’t take a picture of the innards!)

Delcious soup! Huge portion, I think it gave us 2-3 extra meals worth of leftovers!

Rice and raw onions and chili peppers to add to your soup! And of course a side of kimchee daikon!

Korean Wanja Meat Patties

I think that’s what these are called? They are smothered in like a sweet soy marinade and mayonnaise. Was very good!

Assorted Mandoo

I may be in the minority but I only like steamed mandoo or pan-fried mandoo. I don’t care for deep fried mandoo. Mmm…this mandoo was so good!

One of the biggest bummers of my trip lays in this post. I was so excited to try bhc chicken. I’ve been watching Korean mukbangers eat their “bburinkle” chicken on YouTube for months on end. It looks like it’s dusted in like a cheesy ranch coating – and they dip it into this white sauce and just made it all look so good. I think you know where this is going…

Bburing Hot Dogs

Now that I look at the pictures, I can see that we went hard and fast on the bburinkle seasoning not knowing if we would like it. We didn’t like it. It looks so nice and cheesy and savory. IT IS NOT SAVORY. Here is a hard lesson we learned in Korea, any dish that is cheesy is also very SWEET. I don’t know what the obsession is. So yeah, this coating was making everything sweet. It was not good.

Bburing Cheese Balls

The cheese inside the balls were nice and melty but once again, this was coated with the bburinkle seasoning so it was too sweet!

Bburing Bburing Sauce

Here is the dipping sauce I told you about that goes with the kitchen. So what is the white sauce? Well, it’s basically sweet plain yogurt. Gross.

Chicken Radish Pickle

Radish pickle, look…how can you go wrong with pickle? It was fine.

Bburing Fries

Sigh…yup, fries seasoned with bburinkle.

Bburinkle Chicken

I am ppurinkled out just from these pictures. The chicken was fine…but sweet. I really hated the seasoning. Sigh…we learned the hard way.

Spicy Choking Rice (LOL)

I can’t help but laugh at the name of this dish. I enjoyed it since it was the one thing not ppurinkle. Hahaha…and I didn’t choke! I don’t think I did. Anyway, this meal was kind of a tester for Chan to learn how to order food delivery because Korea is known for it. It was a bit of a struggle at first but he got a full handle on it and well, a lot of our meals were food delivery which is all good with me! Disappointing experience with bhc but at least we know now.

First day in Korea! We went to the National Museum of Korea. I didn’t take much pictures inside because I didn’t want to be one of those tourists…hehe. But it was a very nice museum and definitely worth a visit if you are interested in Korean history.

The museum also has Namsan Tower as a backdrop so if you don’t plan to go up Namsan Tower, I recommend coming here and taking pictures. Admission to this museum is free! Warning, many school trips here so…many kids!

Lunch was Northern Chinese food from Golden Dragon, it was a restaurant located close to where we were staying.

When ordering Northern Chinese food, gotta have the raw onions, daikon and black bean paste!

Tangsuyuk (Sweet and Sour Pork)

This is a must order dish anytime you get jjamppong or jajangmyeon. We had the sauce on the side and was dipping it at first and then just poured the sauce all over it. It was fried very crispy!

Seafood Gan Jajangmyeon

Gotta love jajangmyeon. Gan (dry) just means it’s like a less soupy sauce – I like the more concentrated sauce and of course I love seafood. Was delicious!

Jjamppong

This was Chan’s dish. He enjoyed. I think it would be too spicy for me, I tried some of the soup. Hehe…