감자탕  or neckbone soup as I know it.
However when I googled it, Wikipedia says it is 'pork bone soup'.  SO, I guess maybe it can be made with any type of pork bones?  Who knows.  All I know is it is good and if you like Korean food then you should try this.

A while back I wrote about this Bulgogi and Squid place.
The  Gamjatang place is RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET.
(In Hannam)

Take note:  The orange sign says 감자탕
Go in that alley.

When it dead ends take a left you will see this:

This is the restaurant.
Check out the menu, they even have it highlighted with red around what you need to order.
감자탕 = 6,000 won.

When you order 감자탕, you get this:
Neckbone soup - pork neck bone, vegetables, green onions, hot peppers (although this was not very spicy at all), potatoes and wild sesame seeds.  You will need to eat this with chopsticks and a spoon.  Chopsticks to pick the very tender meat out with, a spoon to eat the delicious broth.

The first time I went we ordered it in a larger size with noodles.  I liked this better, but I'm not sure how to order this.  I'm going to take the picture in next time to show them unless someone on here can tell me what it is.  Super and we added rice at the end when there was only a small amount of broth left to make it even more scrumptious. 

To drive here from post:
Exit Commissary gate - turn left
Stay right - Turn right onto Itaewon Street 
Turn left on Daesagwan-ro - this street has a light. 
(You will be going through a street with many lights and lots of people walking - near Hannam Village)
At the light pretty far down just before you come to the big intersection (Daesagwan-ro)   turn left a - it's kind of a crazy light - I think it is just flashing, maybe not even a light at all - but more of a 4 way stop.
The restaurant is on your left just a few stores down.  
Park on the street.

Beondgi, or boiled silkworm is a popular Korean snack sold by street vendors across the land. You always know when you are approaching someone selling a nice boiling pot of silkworms as the smell is something you will not mistake for anything else.  In fact you may not even think the smell you are smelling is food. (Ummm, because it IS NOT - it's bugs, FREAKING BUGS!)

For years I have avoided putting one of these tasty treats in my mouth.  The smell alone is enough to make one cringe, and you guys know I will eat most anything, including yummy delicious (not) snake eggs in Cambodia. I like pushing myself to do things and most of the time I feel proud...I tried it, I did it!  I conquered the beast!
These silkworms though....they were a bigger beast than I was hoping for....

Crunchy on the outside and as you bite down they squirt.  They squirt NASTY bits of squishy slime that I can only imagine to be yellowish green in color into your cheeks.  The taste just resonates in your mouth, growing larger and louder by the millisecond.   It makes you want to gag and really makes you think that cutting out your tongue is a good idea.  It is that bad.  This is a taste that stays with you for hours.  Even makali can't cut that taste....

So, what are you waiting for?  Go out and find yourself a ajumma selling a big pot of beondegi  and have a taste.  Just make sure you have a big bottle of soju to wash it down with.

Oh, and just swallow, don't bite.

With love from Korea.

Welcome to Korea where temps don't get much higher than freezing on any given day from Dec-Feb.
Yesterday it was actually warm, 34 degrees F, but it started snowing early in the day and it didn't stop till sometime in the middle of the night.
If I had not made reservations for the show Miso it is possible that last night could have turned into a  'Dexter' night.
(We just started season 7 of Dexter, and OH MY GOODNESS.  I'm so rooting for Dexter.  Don't judge me.)
ANYWAY...back to MISO!
Of course had to catch an outside train.
The deck was covered.

We took line 2 to City Hall Station and went out exit 2 (don't listen to other blogs, they renumbered the exits -WHY?!?!), this is what we saw to our left:  

And this is what we saw to our right:
The Deoksugung Palace.
(Doesn't it look magical with all the snowflakes?)

To get to the Chongdong Theater you will need to turn right at the corner of the palace and follow the palace wall until it ends - at this point you will come to a 't' intersection - you will see The Seoul Museum of Art on your left  - and a street on your right - continue going straight for about another minute you will see the Chongdong Palace on your right:

How it works...you make a reservation on THIS WEBSITE. 
You do not get seat assignments until you arrive at the theater and pay for your tickets.  The box office opens 1 hour prior to the show. There are 2 shows a day 5 & 8PM, ever day EXCEPT Monday.

Hubby and got to the theater early, paid for our tickets and headed out for a little grub.  We stopped at the first place we found a little Korean hole in the wall. (We continued walking straight past the theater and it was the first restaurant on the right.)  The food was YUMMY!    We got some kind of spicy boiled chicken.  (You will see the menu on the next "not quite right" post.)  This entire pot was 23,000 won and it was more than we could eat.  If we had not been going to a show we would have ask for a to go box.

            After dinner we met up with our great friends to get our Korean culture on at the Chongdong palace!
Miso is a love story set up in the Joseon Dynasty  - girl loves boy, another boy loves girl, girl goes to jail and is beaten because she loves the wrong boy - love prevails in the end!  The costumes are traditional, colorful and beautiful! The choreography was fantastic, the lighting great, the orchestra was spot on. There was laughter, crying and everything in between! There was Korean traditional dancing & opera style singing!  Just fun, fun, fun! Overall I think we all had a great time at Miso and would recommend it to anyone above the age of 12.  

After the show it was snowing EVEN MORE!  Here we are in front of the ice skating rink at City Hall. We considered skating, but the line was FOREVER long - we decided in the end that we will go during the day and take the kids...

To all my Facebook friends, remember a couple of weeks ago I posted this:  "Out of all the things I ate on our date last night, the pig intestines were the best."?  Well this is the blog you guys have been waiting for.  (And I'm sure you have been waiting on pins and needles, right? :)

It was hours before date night and I had planned NOTHING.  NADA.  ZILCH.  So I turned to my trusty friend Google, who never disappoints, and came up with the Gwangjang Market.  Gwangjang Market was the nation's FIRST market and I have NEVER been.  WHAT?!?!  Anyway, back to the nation's first market - it is the oldest (duhh) covered market and it is bustling!  The market sells mostly textiles, traditional Korean clothing (if you need a Hombak this is the place to go!), herbal medicines and vintage clothing and is only open during the day from  9AM-6PM. Since we arrived after 6PM we didn't get to see much of the selling in action, but from what I have read this is an area that not many tourist visit and it is very old school Korean.  But what we went for wasn't the shopping.  We went for the food.  Korean street food, oh baby!  There is nothing quite like Korean street food!

We started our journey out at the first little store we could find for a little brewsky.  And this guy below, well he just cracked us up.  I wish I would have gotten a picture from the front.  He was having a ball, invited us into his store and just danced around like a total dork without a care in the world.  He was awesome.

Our friend B always adds another level of entertainment to our date nights.  The little Korean lady had to come over and help him get this shirt on as she shook her head in laughter.  Don't worry, he bought the shirt. 

Continueing  down that first alley of Gwangjang Market we happened upon this:

As we continued on our journey I knew we were getting close.   I had read that the spider like market had the good food stalls in the center of the market and as we walked the aroma was growing stronger with each step we took.  We started seeing a few vendors of herbal medicine and then gifts that they were packaging for Chusok.  And then the mother load of food stalls, we knew we had arrived!   If this had been my first stop in Korea I would have probably turned around and ran the other direction begging to return to the states, but alas it wasn't my first stop and I was (somewhat) excited to try a few new things! 

As you can see there are TONS of fun things going on in this market!

We finally found a stall that didn't look too intimidating.  It was a bibimbap buffet style booth, but it still had some of the 'good stuff'.  We sat down and started preparing our bibimbap and started talking to his local Korean couple. This young girl is the one that helped us on our food adventure.  She said she LOVES sundae and insisted that we try it, and so we did.

Sundae is that sausage roll looking thing below. Basically it is pig intestine stuffed with noodles and blood.
We also had a little the pig feet (jokbal)...

We followed everything down with a bit of makkoli, an alcoholic beverage made from a mixture of wheat and rice, which gives this Korean goodness it's a milky, off-white color, and sweetness....

Sundae wasn't bad at all, in fact I ate Hubby's as well as my own.
True story.
And jokbal aka - pig feet (pictured) tasted like, well pig. No big thang there.

The next item to tickle our tastebuds was deep fried pig skin (I don't know the Korean word for this tasty treat), but hey if I can do sundae I can do pig skin, right?  I'll just put it this way; I would rather eat an entire plate of sundae than to eat this chewy substance again.  It wasn't terrible, but I don't ever feel the need to eat it again.

Next up on our list of luscious lickables was this:

It doesn't look that bad now does it?  I'm not exactly sure what it is, but you are supposed to eat it warm.  The local Koreans that we were hanging with told us it was, are you ready for this?  Pig cartilage, from knees and elbows.  I tried looking it up and I am finding that it is another style of pig skin.  Either way this was by far my least favorite dish.  I couldn't spit it out as that would have been rude, so it was followed down by an entire bottle of Makkali (OK, not really, but it sounded good.)  This is one Korean dish that will not be passing through my lips ever again.  I would rather eat a plate of deep fried pig skin before eating this delicacy again.   

After that things just got interesting.  This guy all dressed in white with his spray painted motorcycle and boots, horn blaring came driving through this market where it is hard to even walk around!  How he got his motorcycle through these alleys are beyond me.  You could tell the people working the stalls were not very happy with him. 

Once our bellies were full we head out and took a stroll down the Cheonggyecheon Stream where we happened upon a young singer performing. 

We ended our night with a little night shopping in Dongdaemun where Hubby picked up some really hot glasses and I got myself a super cool old lady hat.  :)

                                            There is never a dull moment when living in Seoul! :)

I'm sure there are many ways to get to Gwangjang Market, we went by cab/subway -
Jongno-3-ga Station Exit 12. 
Walk straight for a few blocks, you will come to a bigger intersection, look to your right and you will see the entrance to the Gwangjang Market.
 Enter and walk down the alley for quite a while...you will start seeing food stalls, but don't stop until you hit the mother load and start seeing places to sit and eat.  You will know when you have arrived. 
Good luck and happy eating!! :)

This past week as I was looking at my Facebook account one of my Korean friends (that I met in Texas) was posting quite a bit, however I can never read her wall because it is all in Hangul.  It wasn't until she started posting pictures that I realized that she must be in Seoul!  I sent her a note to see if they had moved back.  They had not move back, however she is here visiting and having an art show in Insadong!  So Hubby, (most of) the kids and I headed to Insadong for our weekend adventure!

While waiting for the train Hubby *tries* to get a cup of 'ice coffee'. Instead he gets a cup of burning hot coffee....doesn't that snowflake on the machine make you think the coffee would be cold?  Us too.

For any of you newbies afraid of using the subway here in Seoul, don't be - most things are in Hangul and then in English.

I just love this shot of my sweet boy in this alley near Insadong.  Gives you a great idea of what Korea looks like.

These are cookies!!  They tasted kind of like sugarless Captain Crunch cereal!

After a bit of searching we found where Hyunsuk's art show was being held!  You can see her name on the colorful sigh on the left side of the picture! 

Us with Hyunsuk in front of one her pieces.

After lunch the kids wanted ice cream so we stopped at this street vendor.  He was very entertaining (but his ice cream - well - not so good, however the kids didn't seem to notice).

While we were getting ice cream a bird pooped on a lady standing next to us, and then another bird pooped on Hubby.  That is when the ice cream man gave Boy 2 a gun and told him to shoot the birds!  :o)

Insadong is filled with Koreans and foreigners from all over.  Insadong has tons of art galleries and shops. This is a place we take all guest that come to visit, as you can buy all your Korean souvenirs here and there are many entertaining street vendors.  Insadong host a ton of Tea houses, restaurants and pool halls. OH, and I saw a place for Doctor Fish here as well - SWEET!  

As we were heading back to the subway we stopped in a Chicken & Beer place to have a beer.....

And snacks. Boy 2 said these taste like cheese-less Cheetos. 

Until next time.....

Four years ago when my dear friend Diff took me to this restaurant I wasn't quite sure about it.  I was new to Korea, but was also up for new adventures so I went with it and boy am I glad I did!!  This restaurant may not be anything pretty to look at, but the FOOD, OMGosh, THE FOOD ~ D E L I C I O U S ! !  The Mackerel Lady Restaurant (I have no idea what the real name of this restaurant is) quickly became a favorite for Hubby and I.  We would meet for lunch here at least once a week and if we look into our family history books I'm pretty sure Hubby ate here at least 2-3 times each week, maybe more. 

I know, I know, not much to look at from the outside and most of you might run off screaming and never enter.  Poor you - that's all I can say. 

The inside.  If you sit at a table you don't have to take your shoes off.  If you sit on the floor you remove your shoes before stepping up to the floor tables.

I get to have lunch with two of my favorite people on earth!

The Mackerel Lady:  Isn't she precious?

Check it out, all of this for 6,000 WON!! (She increased her prices by 1,000 won from the last time I was here -but still totally worth it!)  And if you run out of any of the sides you get more - FOR FREE.

This is my favorite side dish she offers (Odeng, AKA - fish cakes), although all of her sides are YUMMY!

I prefer to put a wrap a little rice (bap) & mackerel (godeungeo) in seaweed paper (kim). The combination just melts in your mouth. (Thanks for teaching me the right way so many years ago Diff!)

Now the hard part.....directions.  This restaurant is in the Samgakji area. I am going to tell you how to get there from Dragon Hill Lodge Gate (forgive me; I haven't learn the gate numbers, as they all changed while I was gone...).  Exit DHL gate - when you get to the main road turn left.  Go all the way down past the Korean Ministry (on your left), all the way to the end of the War Memorial (on right).  You will be at a traffic light - make a left here.  Then make an immediate RIGHT (ally type street) You will see these trophy shops on your left:

Go to the first alley (Hangang-daero 62na-gil) and take a left. This is what it looks like:

The Mackerel Lady Restaurant is on the left.  You will see the sweet little old lady sitting out front grilling Mackerel - just walk in and find a place to sit.  If you go at lunch time she is typically very busy and you may have to wait OR you might actually get to sit in her house - which is a totally fun experience!  Have a seat (but don't forget to grab your water bottle and water cups before you sit!)  and the ladies working will bring food to you - there is no need to order as there is only one thing on the menu...  Get ready for a GREAT meal!