Day 1: Korean Traditional Porridge at Myeongdong

Ok, it's about time we post about Korean food.

After one whole morning of catching up with sleep at Gimpo Hotel Airport, we were fully charged to 5 bars, revving to go, with our stomachs at empty tank, & our mouths wide open. This is our very first real day in Seoul. FEED US!

We weren't really sure which were the good restaurants but we knew that there were supposed to be lots of food in Myeongdong. And we felt like porridge, sort of like to cleanse off the constipated airline food in our system.

In the maze-like confusion of Myeongdong street, we actually had to circle a few rounds before spotting the porridge word in Mandarin, right above our heads. If you're coming out of Myeongdong subway, you'll be at the main road. The restaurant is at the first inner street, parallel with the main road (see how confusing it is?) If all fails, just look for UNIQLO. The porridge is just opposite from there.

If you can read the name of the place, tell us - it's inverted in the photos.

You'd need to walk up the stairs to this nice little cosy restaurant that serves all sorts of Korean porridge - abalone, chicken ginseng, red bean, beef & pine nut. Compared to that, we Malaysians only know 2 types - Teochew style (porridge with separated rice & water) & Hong Kong Cantonese style (really sticky, almost like puree). This is the porridge of the third kind.

Korean style - very sticky but with the grains still whole. Extremely different texture. Extremely nice. There's something about Korean short, stubby & fat rice grain.

For 2 hungry travellers, this has got to be the most refrshing meal ever. The porridge came out piping hot with the Korean side dishes. Porridge with Kimchi, now that's an idea!

And we found out later that Korean's unsually serve cold soup with hot porridge. It's sort of like a pair that goes together in cooling the body down.

We ordered the Abalone porridge. Abalone pieces small as compared to the Jeju ones but that is another story. Still yum nonetheless!

Chicken and ginseng porridge. Korean eating ginseng is part of their meals unlike Chinese which treat it like a rejuvenating herbal 'medicine'.

The whole thing cost us 18,000 won (RM50) which was pretty normal for a standard Korean restaurant meal.