Coffee and Eats, Korean Style

Seoul is the home to a million cafes and coffee shops. Some ones you know, like Starbucks, even if you do have to do a double take to check out the sign:

But mostly, they're ones you don't know. They're trendy or crazy after often themed. Case in point: 

Down the street from: 

And these shops have funny names with sometimes profound messages: 

To add to the levels of quirk, Seoul takes theming to a new level. Cats, dogs, puzzles, you think it and it exists: 

Korea also introduces people to the concept of 'Dessert Cafes', coffee-shop like wonders where dessert reigns supreme and brownie milkshake concoctions raise the chance of diabetic coma dramatically: 

And that's only the beginning of the true food feast. Having limited knowledge of Korean food, I assumed this cuisine boiled down to meat and rice. In a way, it kind of does. But with the addition of kimchi, pickled cabbage, spicy sauces and sizzling vegetables, Asia has another powerhouse of food. 

Fried fish, tempura style, with bowls of steaming Korean rice: 

In Namdaemun market, we ducked into a traditional Korean restaurant for bowls of bibimbap,  rice mixed with fried vegetables, seaweed, chilli pepper paste, soybean paste and different types of kimchi. If you eat meat, there might be some of that too: 

 

When mixed all together, it becomes a delightful mish-mash of flavours and textures:

 

Later in the week, we made our way out for Korean BBQ at one of the city's ubiquitous restaurants. From the windows, all you might see are low tables with spaceship-type attachments that turn out to be vents for the grills below. At smaller tables, a waiter brings out big nearly-table-sized grills and smoking hot charcoal to heat the food beneath.

As a table, you watch, flip and eat the food as it becomes ready. Proper vegetarians like my friend, Mel, are fed bowls of seaweed and rice that are hand stirred and formed. Courtesy of the plastic glove, you save yourself any mess. 

 The concept of eating while you drink is also a thing that Korea embraces wholeheartedly. Cynically, it ensures that restaurants make enough money by selling more than just cheap alcohol. We were introduced to this idea by a Korean friend of a friend who ordered us a steaming plate of deep fried vegetables to wash down the soju, a strong Korean spirit that varies between 20-5% alcohol by volume. It's rumoured to be 'tasteless' but that's kind of hard to believe when it hits your tastebuds, and your stomach.

Due to lax production laws, the spirit varies in strength, taste and colour. Sometimes it's poured into cocktails but we chose to mainline it and chase it down with our beer and very fried food. That may be how we ended up with this stuffed animal. I can't quite remember:

 

I'm fairly certain we stumbled on beyond this. To bars and market stalls in the trendy and bustling Hongdae district of the city. To be fair though, the food was good in every part of the city. Every meal offered a new and exciting taste and, happily, being vegetarian was not a problem.  Winning all around.