Breakfast in Seoul

Okay, continuing my story...

Breakfast in Seoul was quite the adventure. Our hotel was charging $23 USD per person for breakfast and since Vinny and I are on quite the budget, we decided to venture out at 7:45 am to find a different place. Our concierge pointed us to a cafe down the street and we decided to check it out. Woohoo...

The menu was entirely in Korean and no one spoke English. Also I keep forgetting that we're in Asia and that Vinny sticks out like a sore thumb, so we received quite a few curious stares. Vinny and I sat at a table in the corner and stared at each other for about 2 minutes absolutely befuddled as to how we were going to get food. Finally I grabbed the food order ticket and walked up to the counter hoping to ask for an English menu (which probably didn't exist). Luckily this very sweet old woman stood up from another table and tried speaking to me in Korean. Of course, I had no idea what she was saying but I motioned that we were hungry and pointed to another table where two men had been eating a bowl of some soup and then pointed back to the food order ticket. After about 2 or 3 minutes, the woman kept pointing to the bowls of eaten food and then the large menu overhead and then the food ticket. I just kept nodding earnestly and prayed that she order something. She did and a couple minutes later, two large bowls of a delicious smelling soup came out.

Wow was it delicious. We had "ordered" a special rice cake soup that is eaten specifically for New Years Day. Vinny and I devoured this soup that was a mixture of egg drop soup bases + Udon soup + miso soup + these delicious oval rice cake patties that were chewy and soft and were absolutely wonderful in texture (think pasta al dente but rice cake style). Yup breakfast was delicious. So delicous that we missed our 8:05 am appointment time for the tour and our concierge ended up calling the restaurant to make sure we were okay and to let us know our tour bus was waiting for us. So how important were we to get a phone call while eating in a cafe in Seoul? We had a good laugh as we happily woofed down our food before our morning tour.

Happy New Year to everyone in the States!

Next blog: Morning tour recap