Seoyeon Pak · 4 stories
Writes about small restaurants around Seoul, one visit at a time. · Writes about: Restaurants
Cultured is a Western-style family restaurant on Seungcheon-ro in Ara-dong, Jeju City, near the Verache apartments, serving pasta, pizza and salads. Arriving between 7 and 8pm, the writer ordered rosé cream pasta, steak salad and pepperoni pizza at spice level 1, and found the sauce thick and the shrimp large. Because Cultured lets you pick the spice level, it works well for families eating with both children and adults.
Brivit Gangnam Station is a fresh-pasta Italian restaurant in the alley between Gangnam Station and Sinnonhyeon Station in Seoul. From a terrace table just after 7pm, the order was the 50cm fresh-noodle steak pasta (37,900 won) and the Hop-hop! rabbit pasta (18,900 won), which came with a limited-run rabbit plush toy. Brivit Gangnam looked like a place that only had the atmosphere, but the deeply truffled cheese sauce and the spicy seafood pasta were both good enough to bring you back.
Pan Fan is an instant tteokbokki (stir-fried rice cake) restaurant on the main road between Yeongdeungpo-gu Office Station and Mullae Station in Seoul, where every tteokbokki is simmered in Wando mojaban (fusiform seaweed) broth. The Wando mojaban brisket tteokbokki starts at ₩9,000 per person for two, and adding eggs and garlic butter fries still left room for the free self-serve bar of fried snacks, noodle add-ins and fried rice fixings. A filling meal at Pan Fan that never felt like a splurge.
Izawa Yeouido Direct Store is a gyukatsu (Japanese fried beef cutlet) restaurant on the 2nd floor of Yeouido Jonghap Sangga, right in front of Exit 5 of Yeouido Station in Seoul. Arriving just past the weekday lunch rush at 1pm, the writer ordered the double gyukatsu for 33,000 won and dontoro-don (pork jowl rice bowl) for 13,500 won, grilling a few pieces at a time on the mini charcoal grill and dipping them in salt, wasabi and yuzu sauce. Tables turn over quickly at Izawa, so with the right timing it makes an unhurried Yeouido lunch.
