[Food] Honey Bowl @ Hongdae

The week with the BF also has new food!! This time it’s my first brunch encounter in Seoul and some nice cheap comfort food recommendation in another post~!

Honey Bowl @ Hongdae

We were googling some nice brunch places after waking up late and found that this is one of the very few brunch places mentioned in Seoul. So we dropped by to find out if it’s really good as the reviews say!

We ordered the banana cream cheese pancakes and an eggs benedict. The pancakes were about 8,000 won if I remember correctly, and the eggs benedict was 13,000 won.

The pancakes came in first and looked like the picture above. You can imagine our disappointment, I guess, because it looked kinda effortless. Then again we knew walking into Honey Bowl that it was a no frills kinda brunch place, and they don’t really try to act all classy and stuff. But still, for 8000 won I guess we hoped for something that looks more appealing and/or a little bigger…? Haha.

Nevertheless, the pancake was delicious 🙂 A lot smallre than we had expected for the price, but the cream cheese and banana combination was fabulous!!

The eggs benedict was served a little smaller on the portion as well for its price, but tasted good 🙂 I’ve tasted better ones in Singapore though, and for a lower price, so i have to admit I wasn’t wow’ed or impressed. But that’s because I have very good comparisons that I based my judgement on~ that and Korean food is so cheap and tasty everywhere so it was hard to appreciate this brunch when I’ve been living here for so long xD

Look at how the yolk runs though… i live for runny egg yolks

How to get to Honey Bowl: Exit at Line 6 Sangsu Station exit 1, and walk along the road until you see a street you can turn right into. There will be lots of shops and small lanes don’t get too confused haha, keep walking straight and you’ll see Honey Bowl on your left.

[Cafe Hopping] Brit’s Farm @ Hongdae

Today was a lazy week, as you can see I only covered ground on one cafe .___.

Nevertheless, it was a super worthy cafe, loved it! It was on Wednesday, our typical cafe hopping day, and I decided to bring Jasmine to this cafe we saw the other day called Brit’s Farm, it looked super pretty and I wasn’t disappointed!

Brit’s farm directly opposite tthe entrance of Hongik University!!

For nice warm days~

Really really love the decor!!

Attempt at artistic shot

Smoking area~

   

Okay this is really one of my favorite cafe finds in Seoul ❤ Power plugs and wifi availble too!!

The drinks weren’t expensive too, around 4500won. I expected it to be kinda like Namu Cafe aorund 6000won, but I guess because this is opposite a university after all.

How to get to Brit’s Farm: From Hongik Univ Exit 9, head straight until you see a T-junction, then turn left. You will pass Caffe Inbus on the way which I talked about as well haha, and keep on walking until you see the entrance of Hongik Univ. Brit’s cafe will be directly opposite the entrance.

College Life in Seoul: Week 9

This week’s features (separate posts):
Cafes – Cafe Boiing Pot Hoho Myoll, Namu Cafe, Cafe May
Food – 맛있는 순두부 (Masshineun Soondubu), 착한돼지 (Chakhan Dwaeji)

Other misc. happenings

So I’m thinking of doing this new featured in this post thing before the beginning of this post, so for people who stumble upon my blog wanting to find some nice places to eat or smth, but not wanting to get through my entire post to see if I mentioned the place at all, I’ll leave a simple list at the top featuring the places mentioned in the post. You can technically tell from the tags at the top of the post but they’re only at the top cuz of my layout so i’ll still do the list thingy haha. I’m still thinking of the best way to streamline my posts so bear with me till then! I’m thinking of separating my Korean blog and possibly my personal blog as well and keep this a solely Korean-travel focused blog, so yes please please bear with me until I have time to sort this all out haha! And like Korean exam is coming so it’s scary

After multiple editing of this post, I’ve finally decided to separate my food and cafe posts for easier reference. It was a hard decision because i actually wanted to be able to summarize everything into one nice Week 9 post for example, but i do realize as well tat I don’t intend for my blog to remain private, i still hope it might help some people out there hoping to venture to Korea for exchange, or are in Korea for a while and need some food/cafe recommendations. So I’l keep it this way 🙂 From now on my CLIS posts will leave links to food/cafe for that week and also other misc. stuff that happens in that week, if anything is worth mentioning xD

This week was mid terms so it was just lots of mugging and stuff. Yeah because in Sogang you gotta study too, cuz passing mark is 60% and stuffs. I thought not being able to skip class was bad enough :<

And… that’s it LOL. It’s kinda a bummer realizing that when you separate food posts and stuff, you end up with virtually nothing else to write because your life revolves just around food and cafe ._____.

well.

I did go to Jeonju for a Hanok stay over the weekend though…

[Cafe Hopping] Cafe Boiling Pot & Namu Cafe @ Sinchon, Hoho Myoll Cafe @ Hongdae

Exam week!! So thus that equates to lots of cafe adventures~~~

Cafe Boiling Pot @ Sinchon 

The first cafe that we ventured into on Tuesday was Cafe Boiling Pot, recommended by Sheryl after I met her near the front gate and asked her to come with me to meet Zenn. As we had lots to study we didn’t want to venture too far so we stayed in Sinchon. This is a pretty good choice. It’s a little gem tucked away behind the church near Yonsei~

1st level!

 

Second level! It was a nice spot with power points too! Drinks range around 4500won for coffee.

How to get to Cafe Boiling Pot: Exit at Sinchon via Exit 3 and walk on until you see the church. Turn in before the church and keep a look out on the opposite side of the road, you’ll see the little red building tucked away behind another cafe called Cafe Cafe. Haha.

We spent the day studying and discussing our post-exam plans and it was quite sad because initially we had ambitious plans to go Gangnam etc but it eventually dissolved to just hanging out around Sinchon and Hongdae and Hapjeong… ohwells.

So yep after a gruelling Wednesday where I’m sure I screwed up Intl Business, we met to eat really cheap 8000won BBQ! LOVE PORK. After that nice BBQ buffet meal, we walked towards Hapjeong instead of taking the subway, to walk off the fats haha. On the way we passed by Hongdae and that side of Hongdae had soooooo many beautiful cafes including the cafe used for the filming set of Coffee Prince. Didn’t enter but i did make a mental note to visit this quiet side of Hongdae more often.

We finally found the cafe Sheryl recommended after aimless walking haha, it’s actually quite obvious if we looked up instead of focusing on the map!

Hoho Myoll Cafe @ Hongdae

This cafe which I like to dub as Caravan Cafe, is called Hoho Myoll.

Caravan cafe!! Haha. You could sit inside the caravan actually, it’s a table for four i think, but it was taken when we went in 😦

Such a pretty cafe!! Reminds me of Table A xD There was even a cat where we were seated LOL.

Pretty counter!

Caravan from the back~

View when we enter!

The drinks were a little more expensive than usual, at the 6000won range for an iced latte. I should really train myself to like espresso, i’m gonna save a lot of money that way because espresso is always the cheapest xD Then again growing to love latte is alr pretty money-saving, since previously i always drank mocha or some other sweet concoctions of coffee which are more expensive.

But it was a good place to go! The drawback for us i think was visiting at night, i have a feeling it would look very pretty and cosy in the day time! But it was still a nice ambience, darker than usual cafes and the perfect setting for the three of us to talk about sad stuffs and life. LOL. They actually had a note saying you have to ask permission to take photo, but i’m not sure… nobody told me off or anything so should be fine~

Hoho Myoll Address: 서울시 마포구 상수동 93-44 1F (93-44 Mapo-gu, Sangsu-dong, Seoul)

It’s a lot nearer to Sangsu but we navigated our way all the way from Sinchon so i guess i’m not helpful here. #notafoodbloggeratall

Namu Cafe

On Friday, since it was a holiday, I ventured out myself to Sinchon since I had some admin matters to settle. I got lazy to walk all the way into Sinchon so I just popped by Namu Cafe at Sinchon xD

It seems almost customary for cafes in Seoul to have two storeys ahahaha. So yeah Namu was also two storeys and I scooted to the second floor and was delighted to see it empty! Cafes in Korea also has little smoking corners which is the area behind the glass wall in that picture.

Damn the bright sunlight and phone camera

This cafe tho was also a little on the pricey side, 6000won for this delicious looking latte. It’s not really a cafe for you to quietly do work at one side though, it’s more of a hangout cafe and i did notice the crowds were a little on the older side due to the price. Nevertheless a beautiful place!

How to get to Cafe Namu: 

I got hungry after that tho and i needed a power point to charge my lappie so i decided to visit Coffee Break. Yes I’ve talked about Coffee Break a lot of times and i haven’t taken enough photos to do it justice, so the post about Coffee Break will come later! It has two storeys and now i only have photo to the first I really love this branch tho, cuz of convenience and affordable menu.

Although I can’t talk about Coffee Break, I can re-talk about Cafe May though!! I think I mentioned Cafe May a long time ago when school first started, basically it’s a cafe inside school campus that sells really really really cheap coffee. Like literally. I could get a latte for 1900 won which is less than $3. In Korea standards it’s unbeatable. haha. It also has this really delicious yogurt ice-blended drink collection for 2,300 won, $3ish. Haha when I told Jasmine bout it she was resentful because that day she bought a yogurt drink outside fro 6,000 won ahahaha.

I didn’t shoot the menu but you can see a little of the extended menu from this pic. Those slightly more pricey drinks are new introductions, and even then they are still cheap!

Interior. Sorry for bad photos, using phone camera all the way haha. It’s not a big space but still nice to actually sit down in between classes with friends and chat. However Cafe May is more of a takeout cafe, queues are usually really long in between classes but they also serve really fast! I always can’t resist buying the yogurt drink on the way to Korean classes xD And to add on, today when I’m typing this i actually left my wallet at Cafe May earlier today without realizing it but when I went back 2 hours later they kept my wallet and i mean i’m being biased here, probably a good Samaritan returned it to the counter, but i was just so happy to get back my wallet that my love for Cafe May grew tenfold and it was already pretty strong previously. HAHA.

Cafe May isn’t really a valid recommendation on this list because it’s not really a public place, but if you’re visiting Sogang or something you should drop by this cafe 🙂

[Cafe Hopping] MY MUG @ Hongdae

Wednesday, the cafe hopping day! We wandered around Hongdae, Jas and I,  trying to find Ding Dong Cafe which is an adventure-themed cafe. Had to ask for help to and this guy from a hipster male clothes store went all the way to help us, calling the store, asking around etc. I think the shop closed down :< so we backtracked and went to a cafe that caught our eye previously called My Mug, which I wrote about in a separate post prior to this one~~

SO super cute!!

Charger points!

😀

MY MUG Address: 서룰시 마포구 서교동 331-9 지층 우측 ‘마이머그’ 

College Life in Seoul: Week 7

Featured in this week (separate post):
Cafe – Ann House

Okay so Week 7 was mostly with the parents! But they left on Saturday so I thought I should complete my rigorous life updates by updating Saturday and Sunday haha!

So anyways, Karin’s friend was over for that week and wanted to go club, and I was telling her Saturday I can after my parents leave! It wasn’t meant to be intentional that the moment they leave i go crey crazy LOL, it just so happened that way…

So that night, we all headed to Hongdae to go to a popular club called NB2. Apparently it’s a club set up by YG Ent. so it was really popular. And there’s also NB1 and another club that you can go into if you have NB2 ticket. It’s kinda like the Zouk of Hongdae haha. Ticket was a little under $20 with one free drink. I’ve been to cheaper but there was no event or anything that night so yep no special prices!!

I didn’t took any pictures unfortunately because my battery was flat and stuff that night. But like NB2 was so so so crowded, and it’s even worse than Singapore, the ratio of guys to girls is about 5:2 so the guys are literally like predators. I mean in comparison Singapore is already pretty decent, but i guess i wasn’t surprised since i was warned many times that Korean clubs are kinda really wild.

In the end it was the two guys trying to protect all of us girls LOL. We stayed in the second floor where we had a good view over the first floor. It’s pretty cool, there was this row of people at the front in front of the DJ who were doing mambo dances HAHAHA. So literally like if the song goes ‘have a good time’ they would do a thumbs up sign and point to their wrist like there’s a watch there. Oh god. I laughed so much and we were following and silently judging. Well it beats people awkwardly bobbing on the spot like people do in clubs in Singapore. At least now they have moves to follow. When they’re not grinding people that is.

We also visited the other two clubs which were SUPER DUPER EMPTY LOL. They’re like abandoned clubs D: Seems like NB2 is the only club people really care about so the whole ticket package thing that seemed attractive didn’t matter to anyone lol they just wanted entry to NB2.

So that was it for a crazy Saturday.

The next day of course I woke up late and met Zenn to plan our travels and to study at like 3pm+ where neither of us had breakfast or lunch. It’s normal.

We went to Cafe Bene which is a branch cafe here in Korea. Local brand, i think. Nua’ed and bitched for a long time before planning a few things and maybe got a little bit of work done. Then we headed over to our ultimate favorite Soondubu restaurant 맛있는 순두부 gosh i’ve been to this restaurant so many times i’ve lost count. It’s really awesome!!

I’ve written a post about it here

Usually for me i just crack two eggs into the tofu soup, put seaweed with the rice and eat it with the soup, tofu and other liao depending on what i chose that day, while the eggs cook. They usually cook to a little before half-boiled state, where the whites are not totally formed yet. Then I break apart one of the eggs in the soup, grab more rice and seaweed, and take the other egg out to mix with my rice. ❤ I eat the side dishes separately but I’ve seen Koreans mix all the side dishes into their rice, put seaweed in and crack a raw egg in. It’s like bibimbap kind of?? Then they eat together with the soup. After they finish the soup, they go for second servings of rice, side dishes and eggs, eating the makeshift bibimbap without any soup. The dish is easily delicious even without the soup! I totally understand why Koreans love this place.

Gawd i love Korean food so much T.T

After that we decided we haven’t studied enough so off we went to search for some other place. We accidentally stumbled upon this place called Ann House, which i wrote about in another post (link at the top of post)!

That’s all for the week! Super busy week! Till next update~

[Cafe Hopping] Cafe Are & Caffe Inbus @ Hongdae

Cafe Are

First cafe I’m going to talk about is Cafe Are~~ It’s this really nice cafe hidden underground in the streets of Hongdae that we accidentally stumbled upon. It’s a little like a study cafe with individual corners for people to study or read one of their books, complete with individual study lamps and power plugs, as well as areas for people to sit and chat around.

 

Sat down and picked one of the books to read to practice my Korean but didn’t get very far LOL.

I didn’t actually look out for directions because i was chatting with the rest sorry T___T But i searched and there were some Korean bloggers that linked Cafe Are’s naver site here. I don’t have the directions but I saw the address so I’ll just leave it here, you can copy paste it and navigate if you are keen on dropping by!

Cafe Are Address: 서울특별시 마포구 동교동 162-14, B1 층

Caffe Inbus

On Wednesday, I went with Jas for our regular cafe hopping and as we were walking we found this cafe called Caffe Inbus!

Pretty fake mini bus!

The hidden gem corner that we studied in~ If you’re asking ‘mich you on exchange study wat’ i usually revise my Korean~ It’s the only thing I’m willing to mug for~

Specializing in hand made bread so we decided to try it! 😀

How to get to Caffe Inbus: Go from Hongik Univ. exit 9 and walk straight until you see a junction, then turn left and walk in. Caffe Inbus will be on your right on the opposite side of the road.