Dan’s Diary, Day 7 – Filming with Gizzi Erskine and Really Great Fried Chicken

Day 7:

As I have said before, eating my around Seoul is not exclusively about Korean food.  Increasingly like London and other major cities, Seoul has really started to diversify into being a mecca for good alternative food, and this is what led me to finding a particular burger joint in “Little France” quarter of Seoul called “Napkin Please”.  There was a small array of burger selections, but the one that caught my eye was the highly recommended Sloppy Joe’s something not that familiar back in London.  This all-American classic was just precisely what I wanted.

A true sloppy mix of ground beef, onions, and a tomato sauce, on a bun, served with shoestring fried lathered in chilli beef, melted cheese, and chillies.  I can see why this place is called “Napkin Please”.  Eating it with hands was an impossibility!  Of course, this was washed down by an ice cold Coke (what else?) and made for a decent lunch.  Loved it.  Although not particularly French, even though we were in the French Quarter!!!

So, onto the next part of the day, and onwards I went to a place called Mapo-Dong, where we caught up with Gizzi Erskine filming at the Suh Suh Galbi House, where the idea is you stand and eat in what was, frankly, a Spartan-like surrounding, where the emphasis was on food, i.e. the Barbecue.

Taking what looked like a large oil drum, where there was a bucket of a type of Korean charcoal absolutely blazing out some heat, the food gets cooked and you stand around eating Korean Beef Ribs.  Bear in mind that there was an hour long queue to get in, and the restaurant was filled with different types of people from every walk of life.  This was how Koreans really eat!

Filming this with Gizzi was great fun, where we managed to wash down the galbi with plenty of Somek (Soju with Beer) and had a great time with the crew, especially catching up with old buddies like MJ, Adam Hobbs (the most talented cameraman I’ve ever seen – www.adamhobbs.tv) and Nils Clauss, who works closely in collaboration with Adam.

There are far better photos of the BBQ on Gizzi’s Instagram @gizzierskine and with Gizzi receiving a “Selfie Stick” as a present, there are some awesome selfies on her Instagram too! Funniest moment was watching Jik Kim, my “little bro” here in Korea, totally clam up during the interviews with Gizzi, despite being a bit of a motormouth when relaxed!

So, were we going to stop there?  Hell no!  Onwards we went to a Lounge in Itaewon, where Jik and I seemed to be the only fellas in the whole lounge.  Cocktails ensued, with a stack of Onion Rings to accompany the food…

But alas, Gizzi has been very professional and decided on heading back to the hotel to complete some work to meet her deadlines.  However, I was still a bit peckish, so we finished off some Mango Patbingsu, one of my favourite desserts ever.

Patbingsu is basically red beans with shaved ice and condensed sweetened milk, and you can add toppings to it, like ice-cream and other fruit.  But the night was early, so we discovered that Judy Joo was over at Kkanbu Chicken Restaurant, and a Korean fave of Korean Fried Chicken and Beer ensued as Judy and her chefs from Jinjuu London tested out the various types of Korean Fried Chicken.

So, quite a feast really!  A fantastic mix of different food experienced today.  Filming was great fun too.  And watching Gizzi experience the “Selfie Stick” provided a lot of laughs.

Sunday is a day for rest.  I am also in serious need of sleep.

Day 5 – Dan’s Diary – Dan eats like a King

Day 5

Can’t believe it.  I’m sure the housekeeping have been having a laugh with me by setting the alarm for 4.30am!!!  Scrabbling around trying to work out how to switch it off made me wake up, so I’ve only had one decent night’s sleep since arriving.  Anyway, did manage to drop off again, but I think it was closer to 6am, and then up again, blurry-eyed, and just about managed to cram in alight breakfast of croissants and a couple of mugs of coffee.

Anyway, off to my first meeting of the day, and when they took me out for lunch, I saw this immense Palatial building that doubled up as a restaurant!  Wow!  Seriously impressed.

The food to be served was Korean Royal Cuisine.  It’s highly thought of in Korea, for obvious reasons, but not commonly eaten. It’s a bit of show really, but replicates the kind of food that Kings used to eat.  The Gujeolpan, (9 compartments in a lacquered box) was beautiful.  You basically take a tiny bit from each of the 8 surrounding compartments and add it to the pancake in the middle, roll it up and then dip it in a mustard sauce.  The taste sensation was unreal.   This was served with a pumpkin porridge, kimchi, a cold radish soup, and a delicate salad on the side.

This was then followed by the next courses, which consisted of a beautifully cooked fish (can’t tell you what type, but it melted in my mouth), Royal Stew, a traditional bulgogi, mushrooms, served with a multi-grain rice.  What really got me was the delicate flavours.  Korean food is not normally renowned for being delicate, but clearly Royalty back in the day were treated to finely cooked delicate light food that ultimately made a terrific lunch.

Food fit for Kings!

Fortunately, unlike most Korean kings, no-one had attempted to poison the food and try to assassinate me, but I suppose it might have been interesting to have a “taster” test the food for me first.  Maybe in a future life should Royalty be re-instated in Korea?

So onto my next culinary venture.  After such a superb lunch, I was kind of dreading dinner.  I had no confirmation of dinner plans in any case, so it was a simple case of wondering if my next meeting would result in the company asking me out for dinner.  As I had never met them before, I was secretly hoping that if they were to take me out, it wasn’t going to be Korean BBQ.  However, after the meeting, they simply put me in a taxi and on my way I went!  Unbelievable!  No hint of dinner at all!  I won’t be visiting them again! 🙂

So I arrived at my hotel, closed my eyes just for a second, and then………9pm?!?!?!  Checked my phone and missed calls from friends with texts of “meet us at 7pm for dinner if you’ve not already made plans?”  Bugger.  It just wasn’t worth it.  So what do I do now?  Can’t really be bothered to go out.  Let’s check out the hotel restaurant!!!  Ok, I’m staying at the Best Western Premier in Gangnam.  It’s tidy and clean, but I don’t think it has a reputation for food.  What’s on the menu?  I’m in the mood for rebelling a bit.  Korean and oriental food is awesome, but I need to have variety in my life.  Right now, I’m craving a meat and potato pie or something like that.

Now for those of you who have no idea who I am and what I look like, let me put it one way for you.  There are groups of my friends who have nicknamed me “The Burger” or “Burger Buddha”, and my profile pics on Twitter (@DanSuh_KF), Instagram profile (@sumodan), my Facebook profile, Kakao profile, and just about anything like that is a picture of me eating (in most cases) a burger.  It’s what I’m famous for.  And shouting at me from the menu was the Best Western Special Burger!  I’ve eaten burgers in Korea before, and they ain’t all that, but I’m game for trying a burger tonight, with crinkly fries and of course, a glass of cold Coke!  Sometimes, you just can’t beat it!

I’ve had more aesthetically pleasing burger and fries before, and looking at it, I was thinking, “oh no, another standard Korean burger”, but in fairness, the brioche bun was not too sweet and sickly and held the components pretty well together, considering that there was the full salad treatment, a quite full flavoured burger with a good texture, topped with cheese and egg.  The egg was slightly runny (yes, it’s true I ended up with egg on my face), and it barely fit into my mouth so I could that satisfying “first bite”, but frankly, I was pretty surprised.  It was good!  Even the fries were crispy, and actually had quite a bit if fluffy potato inside.  And the Coke washed it down beautifully.  How satisfying can a burger get?

So ok, I’m ready for Korean again.  I’m actually due to eat at a restaurant called Bicena in a swanky part of Seoul.  It’s owned by a chef called Lucia Cho, who has quite a grand vision about making modern Korean food, rather than fusion food.  There is supposed to be a real modern twist on original Korean flavours, so I am really looking forward to it.

Hope any of you reading my mini-diary are enjoying it.  Sorry about the quality of some of the photos.  I appreciate some of them are a touch ropey.  And I do apologise for posting up a photo of a urinal the other day.  With 5 more days to go, hope you keep following my daily updates (unless I get too drunk, in which case, expect a “later” update!).  We should have a HUGE day on Saturday, where we start filming with Gizzi and other members of our Korean Krew!

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