Seoul - Cafe Noriter (카페 노리터)

"stahp sleeping kid, you've slept for 10 years."

If I told Min and Ying few years down the road, "I'll meet you guys at the same cafe at Edae, same booth.." I'm pretty sure we will all gather back at the same place. Cafe Noriter is definitely the best place to hang out with your friends at around the Edae area be it after school, after work, or after a long day of shopping.

Twice I went back, I had their Ice Lemon Peach tea which was a good refresher and thirst quencher on a sunny day, especially when you have went too long without water. Other than that, please do not order any Lattes when you go to Korea as THEY TASTE HORRIBLE. Like no matter where you go, the lattes are horrible. Even though the Goguma Latte (sweet potato) at Cafe Noriter goes really well with oreo biscuits, still it tastes horrible on its own.

I mean, if you still want to try their lattes, you can go ahead..... I guess? :X

What made me fall in love with Cafe Noriter was not the cute barista at the counter, but the adorable little booths separated by a block of wood. They have different designs for each booth, and there's even one where it is housed in a treehouse setting. Super cute.

Please note that it would be good if you visited Cafe Noriter with shoes that are easy to take off as they do not allow shoes in the fully carpeted booths. For girls who are wearing short skirts or dresses, no worries, they have fur towels(?)/rugs(?) for you to lay over your skirt when you sit down.

I honestly wished there were cafes of such concepts in Singapore though.... sigh. I'll be back to try some of their desserts and this shall be my top hangout place in Seoul from now on. :)

Cafe Noriter

Ewha Women's University Exit 1

Walk straight down and turn right on the first turning when you see a huge MISSHA store.

Keep walking straight down and Cafe Noriter will be on your left. (it is on the second level)

Seoul - Chef Guksu (셰프의 국수전)

On our second day in Seoul, we had nowhere planned for lunch. After walking through the roads and alleyways of the road leading up to Ewha Women University, we stumbled upon this restaurant which seemed to be highly raved by TV with like banners and all outside its shop and ta-dah, it was Chef's Guksu.

Well since it was highly raved by Korean TV, it should have some standards. Min was also craving for some soupy stuff, so we went in (we were the first customers for the day) and were ushered to our seats. We ordered the signature Chef's Guksu and also Mandoo Guksu. Guksu is a native Korean term for noodles or a noodle dish. Mandoo is the Korean version of dumplings or gyozas. It is HUGEASS. 

Since we weren't really that hungry, the three of us ordered two bowls of noodles and a potato croquette to share and man.... look at the size of the bowls.

I was such a huge fan of Chef's Guksu's soup! It went really well with every single ingredient in the soup (beansprouts, spring onion, odeon, egg, beef, noodlesduh). I don't really like it when soup bases seem heavy, like too much milk was added or something? But this was just right. Not too light on the texture but just right on the taste. I just kept drinking the soup until I was literally half full from soup...... UGH SO GOOD.

The Mandoo Guksu's noodles were peach coloured, but that doesn't mean it was made from peaches, no. I still have no idea what is it made of and none of us had good language abilities to ask the chef what is the noodles made of :/ However the soup for the mandoo guksu tasted more like instant noodle soup? :/ Especially with the beaten egg inside, it just makes it seem more like it. The only good thing there I thought was the mandoos I guess. I'm a fan of dumplings so any dumpling would taste good to me. 

The potato croquette was so so? I did not really like the sauce as it was too tomato-ish. It would be good if it had more spices inside though.

Chef's Guksu was 6000won, around SGD 8.

King Dumpling Guksu (Mandoo Guksu) was 6500won, which is around SGD 9.

They are also famous for their flame broiled sushi series, will be back to try that!

Overall, for such a huge portion of food, I think the price is really worth it. Though the food is pretty average, if you are looking for something filling yet you have a tight pursestrings, come to Chef's Guksu for a meal! Their branches are everywhere in Seoul :)

Chef's Guksu
Ewha Women's University Station Exit 3
Walk straight and turn right at the second alley.
Restaurant will be on your left.

Eat Well Travel Often

Travelling without parental supervision is weirdly therapeutic yet scary at the same time as you have to deal with journeying hiccups sometimes with a bunch of equally-as-inexperienced-travelling-without-parents friends or even alone.

I would describe those 16, or 15.5 days spent in Korea as time well spent to getting to know Korea better, and at the same time getting to know my trip buddies better. I mean like, when would you ever get a chance to stick to one another non-stop for more than two weeks, where you guys go everywhere together and live together under one roof in a really small apartment? Tolerating or accepting each other's hidden quirks (Min yelling at herself for her eye-makeup not showing) (Getting frightened by a clay-masked Ying) wasn't as easy as it seemed) but we still enjoyed each other's company very much.

Coincedentally, around the same time of our grad trip, this Korean reality show named "Roommate" started airing on tv and Min kinda influenced everyone in the house to "watch it YOU MUST WATCH IT". I would say if you put a hidden camera in every corner of our apartment OUR VERSION WOULD BE MORE INTERESTING, kinda, if you would like to see me every morning hanging wet clothes from the washing machine and boiling water WHILE brushing my teeth. But I'm pretty sure we cook better than Nana and Hong Soo Hyun as we made many many many different variants of Instant Ramyun with seaweed, eggs, cheese, sausages, bacons. I mean we even made french toast and miyeok-guk (seaweed soup) for breakfast on separate occasions. And I'm proud to declare we have all evolved into domestic goddesses after this trip, and for Min, she has evolved into a "gourmet ramyun" chef. Please do go to her if you want a good bowl of ramyun.

I guess we all learnt a thing or two, if not many things, about ourselves after this trip. I wouldn't call this no-parental-supervision trip my trip of a lifetime as I'm still too young to declare such things. However it would definitely be one of my trips of a lifetime. Thanks, you korean wannabes, Min and Ying.

OH AND I WOULD LIKE TO COMMENT ABOUT THE AWESOME ICE CREAM COOKIE-LIKE THINGIES me and liying shared on the SQ flight there. The idea is so good, we could just share out the fats like that. Ok random.

Posts on all of our random happenings and places we visited coming up in a jiffy! :)

Stay hipsterrrific,
Ming.

Jara Petit Cheesecups

Matcha

Banoffee

 Lemon

Classic 

Cookies & Cream

(Pardon the substandard iPhone photos of these cheesecups that doesn't do it any justice because the boy took away my dslr for a whole weekend of event coverage so yes please bear with me! Well at least I'm showing you the unedited, raw form of us indulging in awesome desserts ^^)

Introducing my new favourite dessert away from the mainstream cupcakes: Cheesecups! They are slightly smaller than a cupcake and made of cheese instead of the usual flour, butter, eggs and sugar. The texture and Cheesecup base slightly reminds me of the No-bake Jelly Hearts I used to make when I had lots of time and cash on hand. However I don't know how but they made the cheese a little more fluffy and less tofu-like unlike the Jelly Heart.

All thanks to thesmartlocal.sg, I went into abject poverty this weekend after buying my second purchase from Jara Petit for a tea party for 3, but IT WAS SO WORTH IT. Their cheesecups are $3.30 for 1 and $27 for a box of 9. They do sell it in boxes of 3 for $9.50 too. 

Flavours offered: Classic, Blueberry, Lemon, Matcha, Banoffee, Cookies & Cream, Lavender, Durian, Strawberry. 

I had the classic, blueberry, banoffee, cookies & cream and lavender cheesecup before and out of all I think the Lavender cheesecup was the best, followed by the Blueberry flavoured one. I dislike durian so I made my friend Min finish that flavour up. 

Not sure why but I do not have a so-called comfort dessert as I enjoy sampling desserts that are made from "hipster" ingredients, like lavender and all the other funny berries/flowers. I'm not really a fan of the safe choices: Vanilla, Strawberry and Chocolate. I can tell you now my favourite ice-cream flavour is anything with raspberry in it. I just love raspberry. I raspberry all my ice-creams, if not I would not consider getting any ice-creams (unless there's another special flavour).

Hipster ice-cream eater.

Oh god I really side-tracked but anyway, I'm a great fan of lavender flavoured desserts, be it the Lavender flavoured ice-cream from Toa Payoh Creamier or Jara Petit's Lavender Cheesecups, I love it alllllllllllllllllll. But I felt the lavender really matched well with the cheese and makes the entire cheesecup even more fragrant in a non-sickening way. I mean, Lavender is used as a pot-pourri aka cupboard freshener so I doubt anyone can get sick of that scent yeah?

If you were wondering wha wha whaaaa izz "Banoffee", according to the website it is "Banana cheesecake with toffee sauce and a dollop of whipped cream" but I found that it looked and taste a little similar to Creme Brulee. The combination gives a really nice after-taste and this is the third flavour that I would recommend you to get after Lavender and Blueberry. 

My other friend Ying had the Lemon cheesecup and warning, the topping is pretty lemony aka sour. Min said that the Durian cheesecup was "soooooo gooooooood" she just went into food heaven and stopped eating anymore cheesecups after having the Matcha and decided that it was not as good as the Durian one.

Personal preferences I guess.

So well after summing it up I suppose my personal favourite would be the Lavender and Blueberry, Min's favourite would be the Durian and I think Ying enjoyed the Strawberry one. I really appreciated these cheesecups as they are not very ''gao'' and not too sweet except for the Classic flavoured one (which is just cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesy). However the downside is ITS PRICE, but you have to understand that cheese. is. not. cheap. And you have to pay more for good food that's totally deserving of its price!

Do support the friends Jia Hui and Cara ("Ja - ra") at:

Jara Petit Cheesecups

Dhoby Xchange
#B1-35
(Next to Just Acia, just keep walking down from Mr Bean straight, don't be lazy.)
www.jara-petit.com

Anyways in other news/updates,

I'm heading to Korea in close to 2 weeks time and...

MING IS HEADING TO UNI AT LAST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

I really hope that I can use what I learn at school to bring this lifestyle blog to greater heights. Praise the Lord!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!