Amazing Korean Food and Attractions in Seoul! (Day 2)

You gotta love when your bowl of noodles comes with scissors on the side. There are sesame seeds, there's some red chili paste, there's half an egg. Good morning everyone, it's Mark Wiens with migrationology.com in Seoul, South Korea. We are walking to Seoul Station. Ying. Yes. Where are we going? Gyeongbokgung. Gyeongbokgung, we are stopping off at City Hall Subway Station, and we're gonna see another palace first. What's interesting about this palace is that it is located right in the middle of Seoul. There are sky rise, modern skyscrapers all around, but in here it is calm. There are cherry blossoms. We are just gonna walk around for a little while and explore this palace. Most of the buildings within this palace are Korean style architecture, but right behind me is a building that was completed in 1910, and it is a Western style building built by a, or designed by a British architect. Back when it was built, it was used as a residence and a place to entertain guests, but now, part of the palace, it is the National Art Museum. That was a nice place to walk around. We are now heading to Gyeongbokgung. Take exit number five from the subway station, and you emerge right into the middle of the palace. Ying and I came to Gyeongbokgung on our first visit to Seoul, which I think was about four years ago. We're gonna walk to the front first and take a look at the guards, the famous guards. This is probably one of the most visited things to do attractions in all of Seoul, so it is busy today, but I think just like every single day that you come to visit. And standing at the front of the gate are the famous palace guards. Entrance is 3,000 won. Gonna have a quick walk through, but I am getting really hungry. This was built in the Joseon Dynasty and built in the year 1395. It is a huge, huge complex. You can walk around this entire area, and there are guards, guards, guards, guards, guards, there are gardens, there are squares, and this is definitely Seoul's biggest and most major, maybe most famous landmark and site in Seoul. Could definitely spend a couple of hours here walking around because this whole complex is huge. We are walking through the neighborhood now across the street on the maybe east side of the palace, and we are approaching the area of Bukchon Hanok Village. And hopefully around here, we are gonna find some lunch. We just walked down the road, came off on a little small sidewalking alley, and there's this restaurant that specializes in mandu and also all sorts of different types of noodles. It is impossible to resist a side alley with this much steam pouring down it. This one? Can we have this one for, okay, this one? It is a very tight, cozy restaurant in here, mostly with counter seating, but they have a couple tables in the middle, all shared tables, so you grab a stool. This is my kind of dining. We got a whole mixed combination platter of different mandu dumplings. There's some shrimp ones, some pork ones, these are fried ones, and then also meatballs. I'm gonna have to begin with that shrimp mandu. Oh, these are beautiful. Just big pockets full of delicious things. Oh, that is amazing. There's a shrimp in there, an entire shrimp, and then it's surrounded by seasoned minced pork. Oh, that is delicious. That is so hot and fresh. There are many things that I love about Korean food. One of them is that a lot of dishes that are meant to be served hot, the soups, are served extremely hot, boiling hot, in earthenware dishes, but they also have cold noodles, which are also excellent, and when they mean cold noodles, they do not joke around. There is actually ice within the noodles. These are buckwheat noodles, and you can see over here, there is an entire frozen chunk of soup broth in the soup. There are sesame seeds, there's some red chili paste, there's half an egg, and you gotta love when your bowl of noodles comes with scissors on the side. I'm gonna take this, and I think what you're supposed to do is just chop up the entire thing. Chop up these noodles. I definitely need to work on my food-cutting skills with the scissors, though, but I'm just gonna chop it all up. Okay, that should be good, and chop up that piece of ice just for fun. Okay. I'm gonna stir this around now. Oh, yeah. Let me just taste that broth real fast. Yeah, that is icy cold, and it has a sour chili and kind of sweet taste to it. Oh, those noodles have an unbelievable, wonderful, chewy texture to them. They're really chewy, and they're really ice cold. I'm gonna go in for one of the deep-fried mandus now. Whoa, it's so deep-fried, it has little bubbles of pastry. That is fantastically tasty. It's so crispy, and that minced pork in there, I think mung bean noodles, maybe some scallions and onions and garlic. I added some soy sauce and some vinegar to this bowl for my next bite, and that is the dipping sauce. That crispy wrapper makes it incredibly good. It's so icy refreshing. We must have gotten lucky, though, because when we came here, there was no line, but now, when we're walking out, it is packed. There is a queue, and lots of people are waiting for some delicious food. Thank you. For our next stop, we came to this grilled chicken skewer place. Ying and I came here a couple years ago, and it is one of our fondest grilled chicken skewer memory. Really, really good. We got the spicy sauce, and I couldn't help but order two skewers. Oh, yeah. That is amazing. Oh, that's like a slightly spicy and sweet barbecue sauce, but what's really good is just how the chicken is so tender, so juicy. That is a treat on a stick. The reason you have to have two skewers is because you'll finish that first skewer without even thinking about it. It's so good. Oh, and I am dripping barbecue sauce all over my bag. I think we're just gonna walk around, maybe go to see some more of this heritage area, but I'm at that stage right now where I'm so happy full of food that I can just walk around smiling for a while now. What's up, Jonas? What's up, Mark? Nice to meet you, man. I can't believe I'm meeting everyone. Very good to meet you. Keep supporting him. He deserves it, totally deserves it. I mean, you have no idea how much you like. We are walking around and exploring the Bakchon Hanok Village, which is a traditional village in Seoul, a heritage village. It's quite touristy, but it is quite pleasant and very enjoyable to walk around walking on the hills. There are lots of boutique little shops and restaurants and little shops and snacks, but yeah, it's just really a very pleasant place to walk around and explore, place you have to check out when you're in Seoul. Some of the houses in this neighborhood have turned into businesses or into guests' house or even into museums, but a lot of them still remain quiet, normal residential areas that are homes that have been part of the family for many generations. We're at Anguk Subway Station. We're gonna take the subway station back to Seoul Station and rest for a little while back at our apartment. It's 6 p.m. We are on our way to Dangdaemun Market. Before we have a more substantial meal, we just decided to stop by at a street food stall for some snacks, some pre-dinner snacks. These are the famous rice rolls in chili gravy, and then he scooped it into a bowl and then topped it with perilla leaves and cabbage, and I will take one of these compressed rice cakes with some of that vegetable as well. They're very sticky, sticky and gooey, and that's like a sweet chili sauce. What I really like is the addition of the perilla leaves, which have a wonderful minty, licorice-y taste to them. That gives it the refreshing touch, and then we also got some gimbap, some little rice rolls. Those are wonderful. Wrapped in seaweed. It's a little bit sour from the pickled vegetables in there, and also you get the crispness from the pickled vegetables as well. And then finally, I think this is some kind of fish tofu, and it is kind of crumpled up onto a giant skewer. This is like a huge skewer for this amount because it's boiled in water. Oh yeah, it has a bit of a fishy aroma to it. Oh wow, that's kind of like fish bologna. That one is actually really, really good. Yeah, I like that. They also have some pretty awesome street food cup dispensers here. Press the big yellow button, and the cup comes right out. Oh, after those salty snacks, you gotta wash it down with a little bit of water. Very good, very good. Okay. Thank you. We decided to go for the grilled fish restaurant. Kind of pointed to a number of pictures and different types of grilled fish, but this is an awesome little place. It is really small and cozy, and you can just smell the grilled fish aroma in here. The fish are already partly grilled, but as soon as you order them, she puts them back onto the grill and gives them that final char. We got four different types of fish, some of which I don't know what they are, but I know one of them is a mackerel, and one of them is a Spanish mackerel. Then one is a bigger fish, some fish fillets, and then a smaller fish. Let's check it out. I'm gonna try this fish first. Oh, that's just solid, solid meat. Are there bones? I don't think there's even bones in here. Wow. It's just very, very lightly seasoned. I think this was just with salt, but you can really taste that smoky grilled flavor to it. Oh, grilled fish is one of my absolute favorite things. I think this is wasabi, I'm not totally sure, and then maybe soy sauce? I'm not sure, I'm not totally sure what you're supposed to do here, but maybe I will just mix in a little bit. I'm gonna try some of this fish. Oh yeah, there's some bones in this one, and I'll try it with some of that wasabi. And with some rice this time. That fish has such a buttery, creamy texture to it. And then yeah, I think that is, it's a very, very light wasabi. It's like a sour, light wasabi with some, I think soy sauce. Oh yeah. I love little fish, and oh, I can feel that kind of like buttery texture in my chopsticks from this fish. I'm gonna get some of that wasabi. It's very, very light, so you can eat quite a bit of it. And put that onto my rice. That is so good. The fish is so unbelievably smoky flavored. And then they know how to grill it so well so it's not overdone. It's still juicy, it's flaky. It's not dried out at all. Yeah. I love mackerel too. This one is maybe the driest of all the fish, but at the same time, you can actually taste those omega fats kind of coming out as you take a bite. I don't know if I can choose a favorite fish. They're all delicious, but they all have a slightly different texture and feel to them. I want an area. We couldn't resist ordering some kimchi jjigae, which is kimchi stew. Got some kimchi, there's some pork in here, and some tofu. You can taste that pickled flavor. Oh man, kimchi jjigae is a wondrous dish. Oh yeah. And it's just a little bit spicy. And then the kimchi, and there might be some onions and some green onions and maybe some leek in there. They're so soft and just sort of disintegrate in your mouth. It's wonderful, as is the fish. Fish in all forms is something I love, but grilled fish plus all the kimchi's and the different sides, that was just an absolute winner of a meal. This entire alley is filled with grilled fish restaurants and looks like chicken hot pot restaurants. And I had no idea which restaurant to choose, so we just chose that one. And that was an incredible meal. I am still dreaming about how good that fish meal was that we just ate, but we are now in the heart of Dangdaemun Shopping District. There is both street shopping and there's a lot of malls around this area as well. This entire shopping district is known for its very long hours. Some of the shops in the malls are open until 5 a.m. or 4 a.m., and some are even open 24 hours. So if you ever have a craving to go shopping at 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. and buy some new clothes, Dangdaemun is the spot. It's been a long but wonderful day. And at the beginning of the day, I actually had no idea what we were doing, but it sort of turned into a one-day Seoul travel and food guide all in one. If you had one day in Seoul, today was a pretty good day, I would say. I'm gonna end the video right now. Thank you all very much for watching. Please remember to give it a thumbs up if you enjoyed it. Also, leave a comment below and make sure you subscribe for lots more food and travel videos, and I will see you on the next video. Appa, appa, appa, appa, appa.