Korea's unlimited rice cake refill buffet @ Dookki 두끼떡볶이!

Anybody who knows me knows that I am a big fan of 떡볶이 (Korean rice cake)! When I was studying abroad in Korea, my teacher recommended us to try out this famous Korean rice cake buffet chain store, which can be found easily, especially at tourist hot spots. 두끼떡볶이 (Dookki) is the name of the store.

I went to the chain store at Ewha on my last day in Korea, and I regret it so badly. I should've went earlier so that I can eat it everyday. The price is really cheap too. It costed 7,900won for adults, 6,900won for students and 3,900won for children (below 7 years old). Very cheap right right?

It is a buffet restaurant so you can eat as much as you can! But make sure you don't take too much, because they have a variety of different food other than rice cakes too. Although it is a buffet, you have to cook the rice cake yourself. You choose your own ingredients, then you mix your own sauce, add water, and cook it to your preference!

You don't have to worry about your cooking skills, they have instruction stickers on the table so you can just follow it, setting the temperature and time so that the rice cakes turns out perfect! You can ask help from the staffs too, especially if you cannot read Korean or simply because it is your first visit. I personally have been in a lot of situation where the servers came up to me and ask whether it was my first time visiting the restaurant while setting up my table. I said yes and they will teach me how to eat or how to order, so no worries!

I love the fact that they have carefully planned and recommend a list of different sauces that you can mix and match with to suit your preference. For people who prefer less spicy or less sweet, you can just follow the sauce recipe. I've personally tried the second one, which was 두끼궁중, it is half spicy half sweet. It looked weird at first because it was a red sauce mixing with a brown sauce. But the taste was out of the world.

Now moving to the main ingredients, they offer different rice cakes other than the regular rice cake. I'm sorry I've only managed to take picture of the other side of the chiller, can't really see the rice cakes. Other than the rice cakes, the have many different vegetables, processed food, 순대 (blood sausages), mussels, and of course fish cakes!

Besides, they also have a section for fried food and noodles. The fried food are ready to eat while the noodles are meant to be added to the rice cakes. For people who can eat a whole lot more and is sick of rice cakes, they also have a lot of instant noodles for you to eat for free!

You might find it cloy or too spicy to eat, they have boiling hot 어목 (fish cakes) and broth for you to endure! If i remembered correctly, they have both original and spicy flavour fish cakes.

It says the fish cakes in front are the cooked ones.

So this is now the table setting looks like. I didn't know what kind of pots or bowls to take because cookware and tableware with different shapes are used for different purposes. So I just glanced at how other local Koreans are doing it, and I just followed. Honestly the table was a bit small, so it was a bit cramped.

The flat pot on the electrical stove is for you to cook, the deep big bowl on the right is to put all raw ingredients, the small frying pan "bowl" is your personal plate, the small measuring cup is for your to put your sauce

With that big pot, I've cooked twice. I have lost count of how many servings I had but what I can tell you is that I had no room for instant noodles and fried food.

Don't forget to put on your plastic apron to avoid sauce splattering on your beautiful clothing.

Here's the direction to go to 두끼떡볶이.

It is located at Ewha. So take the subway to Ewha station and exit from Exit 1 or 2. Continue to walk towards Sinchon's Megabox mall direction. The Sinchon station nearby the restaurant is NOT the line 2 Sinchon station, so be careful!

Address: 서울 서대문구 이화여대길 89

Phone: 02-365-2771

Operation hours: 11am - 10pm

2017.10.23 | 지도 크게 보기 ©  NAVER Corp.

꽃보다 남자 Boys Over Flower's famous porridge restaurant @ 본죽명동점

Some of you who visited Korea before would have heard of this Korean porridge chain restaurant 본죽. I am not sure how you guys get to know about it but I get to know about it when I was watching "꽃보다 남자 Boys Over Flowers" back in year 2009. The main actress, Jan-di (starred by Gu Hye-sun) was a student working part time at this chain restaurant with her best friend. In the drama, the owner of the shop (starred by Kim Ki-bang) told Jan-di how food like porridge should be treated with respect because it heals people. It is a holy food. Well, it is true. I always eat porridge when I am sick because it has more liquid than rice, which helps our digestion and appetite.

 There were a lot of scenes in the drama that were filmed in the porridge restaurant

When I was living in Korea, I was sick for a few days near the end of semester. I wanted to eat porridge so badly. I had some fresh ingredients that I have bought from the Lotte Mart opposite my place, so I made my own porridge. It has kimchi, tofu, mushrooms, cherry tomato and Korean rice. It was the first time I've ever cooked porridge and it was the best!

My favourite kimchi octopus porridge 본죽

In the drama, they have lots of different porridge and it always look so good. One thing I like about Korean porridge is that the texture of it is thicker than the porridge I always have in Malaysia. Maybe because of the type of rice grain they use or the just the way Koreans like to cook it. Normally, after eating porridge, you will feel hungry in no time because it is digested faster than other food. However, it was fulfilling to eat Korean porridge as it really fills up your stomach.

I tried 본죽 at Myeongdong. It was a small restaurant located at the 1st floor. I have tried it in Sinchon and they both tasted the same. So I guess you can just visit any chain and still get the best flavor! However, over at Myeongdong, you cannot order only one potion of porridge and share by 2 person. It's the rule!

I've ordered the Kimchi octopus porridge (낙지김치죽) and also the Shredded beef seaweed porridge (쇠고기미역죽). Both came with 4 side dishes. They have different categories of porridge to choose from. The prices also varies with the ingredients in it. They have the special dish menu, the healthy menu and the nutritious menu.

Shredded beef seaweed porridge

Kimchi octopus porridge

As expected, the Kimchi octopus porridge is slightly expensive because of the ingredients used. However, they are not stingy with the octopus at all. Here is a close up of the beautiful shot of the octopus. They were cut into small pieces so you can eat it together spoonful by spoonful with the porridge.

I wasn't paying much attention to the side dishes when I first tried this porridge. But it absolutely blew my mind! This marinated shredded beef is one of the best side dish you could ever have with porridge. It is so flavorful. I had to go for a second serving everytime. The kimchi was cold, so I put them in my pipping hot porridge to warm it up.

Beef seaweed porridge on the other hand was slightly bland compared to the kimchi octopus. It being bland, you can actually taste the original sweetness of the rice. You can always eat with the kimchi and other side dishes if you like it more salty. However, having seaweed with porridge is very good for your digestion.

If you cannot finish it, like me, you can always ask for a take away. The packaging that comes with it is so beautiful I thought they gave me presents. The container was beautiful and the paper bag was trendy too. This is how you know your food is of high quality.

The store at Sinchon is actually a specialize store for bibimbap too. Not all stores offer the same thing so you can actually eat different porridge at different places. I never had the chance to try out their bibimbap but I might one day.

So here is how to go to 본죽명동점!

Address: 서울특별시 중구 충무로2가 65-2

Phone: 02-755-3562

Operating hours: 9am - 10pm (everyday)

Website: https://www.bonif.co.kr/bonJuk/home

2017.11.3 | 지도 크게 보기 ©  NAVER Corp.

Authentic Korean black bean noodle, Jjajangmyeon 진정한 한국 자장면 @ 홍콩반점0410

I have tried Korean black bean noodle (자장면/짜장면 Jjajangmyeon) a few years back in Malaysia. It was my first try and I liked it so much. However, I was curious as how authentic Jjajangmyeon will taste like. I believe most people would agree with me that Korean dramas and variety shows are the one who exposed Jjajangmyeon to the world. The way actor/actress and entertainers eat Jjajangmyeon on the show makes everybody go wildly curious on the actual taste of it.

Han Ye-sul eating Jjajangmyeon in the drama Couple or Trouble is probably the first time I know the existence of the food. The way she ate was scary and funny at the same time. In the drama, Jjajangmyeon became her favourite food after Oh Ji-ho bought it for her.

So, some interesting fact here. When I was studying in Korea, I came across the word 자장면 during my mid term exam. I was confused why did the examiner wrote 자장면 when almost everybody out there, including restaurants, were using 짜장면. So when exam ended, I asked my teacher. She said 자장면 was the correct spelling but people get used to saying 짜장면 because it is more comfortable to pronounce. Then, it was so widely used that the dictionary then added 짜장면 as an official spelling too. So in fact, for now, both 자장면 and 짜장면 can be used in Korea!

Now back to my story, I've tried eating the Jjajangmyeon in Busan before, not in Seoul. I had some good ones, and some bad ones too. It was inconsistent so I was reluctant to give any Jjajangmyeon restaurant a try, unless it is really nice.

So during my last visit in Korea, literally on my last day of the trip, I gave this restaurant a try. Some of you guys must have noticed that it is a chained restaurant in Korea, you can see it almost everywhere. The name is 홍콩반점0410. I visited the one at Myeong-dong after a day of over-shopping.

It was located at the 1st floor and fortunately it wasn't crowded. I was so hungry and I needed food fast. It was a fairly big restaurant, considered it located at 1st floor. The ahjumma gave me the menu and ask me to order it at the counter in front. 

The pillar by the wall became a space for their gigantic menu

The food are all reasonably priced I would say. They have some special menu for the Summer too. The cold Jjampong looked nice but I was so craving for some good Jjajangmyeon. The next time I come, I would probably order something else and slowly try all of the food they have.

They have Tang Su Yuk, which is the sweet and sour pork. I didn't get the chance to try it but I am desperate to try it the next time I go!

They have a variety of different Korean-Chinese food and also snacks. Jjajangmyeon is a must to try, of course! Besides that, they also have snacks like fried dumplings and fried bun with dipping sauce. It looked so tempting I had to try all! Thank god the snacks can be order at half of the normal portion size, making more space for my stomach.

The portion of the food was huge, I couldn't finish it. The food was heavenly good. No doubt why it has so many chain restaurants in Korea. I literally need this everywhere I go. Among all the food that I've ordered, none of it is anywhere below 90 marks. I could rate 5 stars for all of it. The service was good too.

This is the Jjajangbap. It has rice and omelette with the Jjajang sauce (black bean sauce). The omelette was surprisingly the star of this dish. The Jjajangbap comes in a set with the soup. I am not sure what soup is that but it tasted like the soup for Jjambong (Korean spicy seafood noodle).

Jjajangmyeon is here! Look how appetising the noodle looked. It taste as good as how it looks. The noodles were chewy, the sauce were thick and savoury. It has lots of onions and minced pork meat in it. Don't underestimate the portion of it. It was really huge!

The fried bun that comes with a sweet dipping sauce. Not sure exactly, but the dipping sauce tasted exactly like condensed milk. It might look weird but it taste really good. It was beyond my wildest expectation! The buns were also fried to perfect golden brown.

The fried dumplings were quite huge, compared to the other fried dumplings that I usually have in normal Korean restaurants.

The total bill of all the food I've order was around 15,000won. It was definitely worth it. Anybody who would like to try Jjajangmyeon and doesn't want to be disappointed, I truly recommend this restaurant!

So here is how to get to 홍콩반점0410 at Myeongdong!

Address: 서울특별시 중구 충무로1가 22-1

Phone: 02-3789-0413

Operating hours: 11am - 9pm (everyday)

2017.11.2 | 지도 크게 보기 ©  NAVER Corp.