Do you love chewy rice cake in spicy gochujang sauce as much as you love those fishcake skewers (odeng) soaked in clear broth? If your answer is yes to both, then you'd love Dookki. Imagine eating an unlimited amount of tteokbokki and fishcakes to your heart's content, buffet style! Sounds fantastic, yes? Ahhh, but there is a catch. This is a time-limited buffet. For dinner, there is a 90-minutes time limit. Adequate for the majority of us as the ingredients only needed a few minutes to cook.
store front
Just make sure that all pax in the party are at the door otherwise, time starts when the first person starts. The service staff would ask if it is your first time, and if yes, he/she will take the time to explain briefly the processes.
instructions
Staff will help you to create the sauce in accordance to your spice level preference. We asked for a mild spicy as there is one in our party that has lower tolerance to spicy food. The broth will be set to boil while the staff goes to make the sauce. If you'd like to add the cheese ring to the meal, it is of a separate charge and not included in the buffet by default. About $9.80 for the cheese ring with sweet corn.
broth (soup base for the sauce)
A tumbler of the base broth will be left at the table and diners are free to pout it into the pot once the pot became too concentrated after prolonged cooking.
Staff would explain which are the containers for cooked food, and raw ingredients. Each diner gets their own personal 'plate' that look like a mini tiny sauce-pan. So cute.
raw ingredients
Liked that the tteokbokki are really tiny. Loved the purple coloured ones for they reminds me of ang ku kueh. Chewy exterior plus sweet fillings. Try it and you'll know what I mean. If you like the cheesy ones, the pale yellow tteokbokki that looks like mini sausages (similar to purple tteok) contain cheese fillings. The chicken bulgogi tasted good even when boiled in the soup/sauce. And with Korean army stew style, one could put in as many pieces of luncheon as you desire.
take your pick
first round
We exercised caution when taking the ingredients. First round was just to try what's good and what's not. For the cooked food section, there was a lot of fried stuffs (twigim). Totally regretted taking the fried chicken! More flour than chicken. The mandu are decent and so was the gimmari (fried seaweed roll).
twigim 튀김
My favourite and probably the safest bet, was the odeng / eumok (fishcakes). A few varieties and my friend asked what's the difference. Err...the shape and density? Hahaha!
fishcakes 어묵/오뎅
Meanwhile, do place all the ingredients that needed cooking into the pot. And while it is boiling away, one could start with the twigims and eumoks. Remember to eat the cheese ring once it start bubbling otherwise, either the cheese gets chaotar (burnt) or the ring will stopped cooking after a short while and the cheese will harden.
cooking in progress
If you are looking for utensils/tissue paper, for Korean food dining, most places would have this compartment as part of the table design. For Dookki, it is the same.
at the side of the table
For the best fish cake, it got to be this one. The soft and fluffy ones.
best fish cake
For dessert, don't bother. Just shaved ice and chocolate sauce. Hmmm, we shared one and agreed that this was not worth any stomach space.
We were always on the lookout for great tasting grilled meats and decided to go for the crowd favourite at Maple Tree House Itaewon. This area is pretty well known for its its cosmopolitan dining and nightlife, and is practically littered with many restaurants including Korean BBQ. Many foreigners like to hangout at this area too.
Arrived at that area at about 8pm and there was a queue already. Left our name and the service staff informed us to come back in another half hour's time to check if there's any available table.
let's dine here
Was basically just walking up and down that area to kill time. There was a huge Chinese restaurant, international restaurants serving German, French fares and plenty of watering holes.
soju bottles as wall decor
Finally got a table at about 840pm and we were pretty excited! The restaurant serves mid to premium range meats, and its diners were mostly working adults and tourists.
our corner
for larger groups
Our main target for the night was Korean beef, 한우 (Hanwoo). When else can we eat Hanwoo if not when we were in Seoul, right? But we were also mindful of budget so we ordered sparingly. Almost.
USDA Prime Ribeye (150g)
Premium Korean Aged Beef Striploin (150g)
charcoal fire is a must
wait for it
almost there
grab a bite of mouthwatering succulent piece
The beef was tender yet retained its beefy-ness. Not overly marbled but satisfying enough. I think we ordered another round of the striploin for the finale.
For drinks, we had Korean raspberry wine. Like a dessert wine. Offered a glass to the Caucasian family at the next table to try.
bokbunja
Also ordered some pork to grill. Fresh meat that was not frozen makes all the difference, you know.
front: Jeju Korean Black Pork Belly (150g) Back: Jeju Korean Black Pork Collar (150g)
let it grill~ let it grill~
The pork jowl was so amazingly white and promises of an amazing experience. Indeed, it had a fantastic mouthfeel and 'crunchy' firm when the meat was chewed. Juicy as promised.
Pork Jowl (150g)
pork jowl
The grilled meat came with leafy vegetables for the wrap, salad and some side dishes like kimchi and tofu.
pickled perilla leaf
We enjoyed the meats and left the place happy. Spent about $50 to $60 per pax. To end the meal, we were served cold omija tea. It's also known as five-flavours tea which consist of sweetness, sourness, bitterness, saltiness, and pungency/tartness.
omija 오미자차
Maple Tree House
Address: 26 Itaewon-ro 27ga-gil, Itaewon 1(il)-dong, Yongsan-gu, Seoul, South Korea Website: http://www.mapletreehouse.co.kr/kor/html/main.asp Contact: +82 2-790-7977 Business Hours:
Daily 1130am to 1030pm (till 12am on Fri and Sat)
If you're at Myeongdong, these would be familiar sights. Throngs and throngs of people. Smell of BBQ and bright lights from the shopping malls. First up, getting an egg bread for snacks. It has been years since I last ate one. Would it still be as good?
gyeran bbang seller
계란빵 gyeran bbang (egg bread)
The seafood grill looks good but we didn't get any. Our target for the night was Korean BBQ, so was saving stomach space for that.
yakitori looks so tempting
cat walk
We didn't have a clue of which Korean BBQ to go, so was just randomly walking and seeing which one to go into. Previous visit, I'd done Wangbijib and that was good!
which one?
Then, we were approached by a man and he managed to persuade us to go into his restaurant. Hmmm, I think we were too easily persuaded. Hahaha.
the restaurant is down there
The restaurant was spacious and not many diners in there. Ordered a few cuts of meats and the course set came with bibimbap and mini jeon (pancakes).
our table
someone famous ate here before?
As with any Korean BBQ, we ordered makgeolli (rice wine). Loved that it is served in a pot. Charcoal fire for the BBQ, that's a good start!
makgeolli 막걸리
BBQ commences
first slice
We love meats, so there were orders of pork collar, beef slices and beef tongue. The side dishes of the black beans was quite good. Kimchi, as usual, one of the must haves when eating in Seoul. BBQ meat and makgeolli were good combination. Enjoyed the dinner. Washroom is outside of the restaurant and need to walk up the stairs.
meat
marinated
cooking well
can't wait to eat these!
Besides the meats, the set included some other cooked foods. It was rather nice to have mixed rice after the BBQ. So comforting. Liked the beef soup too.
small bibimbap
mini jeon 파전 (service)
beef soup
It was quite difficult to get the staff attention at this restaurant though. Food is decent. The experience felt similar to eating out in Boat Quay/Clarke Quay area.
明洞京城炭火烧烤
Address: 194-94 Hoehyeon-dong, Jung-gu, Seoul, South Korea Business Hours: Daily
We were at the shopping street close to Ewha Women University and was looking for a lunch place. Unfortunately, many were closed due to the Chuseok's holidays. Had to make do with some chicken skewer and Isaac Toast meanwhile.
street side vendor
putting on some sauce
super long tender chicken skewer @ ₩2000
The shop at Isaac Toast had a queue and most tables were taken. So we had to eat it outside of the shop. It was nice but those were not proper lunch. We wanted to go somewhere, sit down and have proper food.
Isaac Toast sandwich
Saw this dakgalbi shop somewhere along the many many rows of clothing/shoes/accessories shops. Unfortunately, we were there rather late for lunch and too early for dinner. At that awkward time of 3pm or so. The shop lights were off and a lady was actually sweeping the floor outside. We enquired and she said they were closed.
We were like disappointed and were discussing on where to go next when she took pity on us and asked us to follow her. So we did. Turned out that the lady was opening her shop for the 5 of us. So nice! Did not manage to take the name of the shop but it has a large standee poster of rooster and the restaurant is at basement level.
restaurant interior
We ordered dakgalbi and ginseng chicken soup to share.
banchans
must take picture first
cooking in progress
gracious boss who opened up her shop earlier for us hungry travellers
spicy chicken, tteokbokki, cabbages
in goes the rice
mix it all up
flatten the rice
eat!
We thank the sweet lady boss (who looked a bit fierce tho) who was so gracious to let us into the shop although it was not time to open yet. She also did the cooking for the dakgalbi where the process took about 10 minutes.
ginseng chicken soup
Both the dakgalbi and the ginseng chicken soup were comforting to soothe our tummies. We left feeling full. The dakgalbi had a more homely flavours as compared to Yoogane. Felt much better after food, so we went walking and photo taking around EWHA University grounds.
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