Enjoy mom's home cooking at Suji's

A freshly made ham sandwich from Suji's. 

    Suji's truly is a New York style restaurant that lives up to their motto "The next best thing to mom's home cooking." With one restaurant in Tokyo, and three locations in Korea, Suji's is building a very popular fan base.
   The Suji's located in Itaewon is well known for their all day brunch and sandwich menu. There is no other restaurant in Seoul where at 8 pm you can order an enormous country style pancake for 12,000 or eggs benedict for 15,000.  The deli at Suji's is just like an old fashioned New York style mom and pops sandwich place. The pastrami sandwich is always on the menu. But on Wednesday nights after 5pm you will receive an extra 100 grams of meat turning this already big monster into a massive 300 gram sky high sandwich. My mouth is watering just thinking about all of this fresh pastrami for 15,000! If you still weren't full after all that meat, you can take home some fresh meat from deli on the first floor.

    Of course the prices are a little steeper then going to Subway. But you are getting real sandwich meat here people! If  you've been in Korea for a while now, you know that the only lunch meat you can find at the grocery store is Spam or very processed ham. And in all reality, the prices are not that much more than a very nice Korean, Italian, or any other restaurant.
    All of Suji's food is made from scratch, and you can definitely tell that the cooks know what their doing. Sometimes I am surprised at how well this restaurant has mastered Western favorites such as shepard's pie, and meatloaf. If you ever get homesick while living in Seoul, Suji's is the place to go! The menu is pretty extensive, and also offers many pasta dishes such as parmigiano pasta with eggplant, and Mexican food such as chili cheese nachos. I swear that the salsa at Suji's is the closest thing to pico de gallo that you will find in all of Korea!

A really cute cartoon on the menu!

    Die hard Suji's lovers are a part of the restaurants VIP Club which gets them an extra 10% discount ever time they visit.
Some of these fanatics are pictured on the VIP section of Suji's Website. Make sure to reserve a table in advance at Suji's, especially on weekends. Even at three stories high, the restaurant gets packed with foreigners getting their home cooked fix.

    The service is some of the best I have seen in Korea, however it did take about 45 minutes before I was served on a Saturday evening. So plan to spend some time hanging out with friends and enjoying some cocktails before eating. Hats off to my student Kim who hooked my co-workers and I up with a Suji's VIP Card!

 
If you have any questions or comments about Suji's please leave them in the comment box below or email them to seoulfoodgirl@gmail.com.

Gingerbread men come to life at Bangsan Baking District in Seoul

    Have you been looking for baking ingredients in Seoul? This can be a huge challenge considering most apartments here come with a washing machine in the kitchen in place of an oven! I recently had the urge to start baking home made cookies and cupcakes in my little toaster oven. So I set out on a mission to find all of the ingredients I needed at the Bangsan Baking District.
   This district is not as big as I thought it would be from looking online at other blogs. But this is still a great place to visit to get supplies and ingredients.  There are many small shops which sell baking supplies ranging from shortening, chocolate, organic whole grain flour, to pancake mix. They have pretty much everything, however I was still unable to find vanilla. This is one item that I had my family send me along with other goodies.

    One of the cutest little stores in the district is called "Bake &." While a majority of the shops are closed on Sundays, Bake & is open for devout baking fanatics.  Here I was able to find great baking products and even brands that are reputable at health food stores back home in California! One of my favorite purchases was the Bob's Red Mill Whole Wheat Flour. The prices are pretty reasonable at this store. I bought the whole wheat flour, dark chocolate pieces, and baking powder pictured above for about 7,000 won.
    Hopefully you will enjoy visiting this quaint area by the Cheonggyecheon Stream. This district is an older part of Seoul, so don't expect many modern restaurants and shops around this area. The district is comparable to a wholesale marketplace.

Directions to the Bangsan Baking District:

    These directions are really simple, there is no way that you can get lost! Take line 1 to the Jongno 5 ga station and leave exit #7, Walk strait to the Cheonggyecheon Stream about 2 minutes. Turn right on the road immediately after the stream. On your first left you will see the sign pictured to the left. Walk in a little and you will see many of the baking shops.

 

    If you have any questions or comments about the Bangsan Baking District please leave them in the comment box below or email them to seoulfoodgirl@gmail.com