YouTuber "Rätt Rätt" brings you the right kind of food

Having lived as an expat in South Korea for over six years, I often miss the kind of Swedish food from back home that you cannot find abroad. Be it the fermented herring "surströmming" (which has been banned on airplanes due to the risk of the cans of fermented herring exploding in mid-air from the built-up gas pressure), or Kalles Kaviar (a sandwich topping made from salted cod roe, spices, sugar and oil) or Janssons Frestelse (a casserole made mainly from potatoes and fish), Swedish food is sorely missed particularly during Christmas, which is the time of the year that Swedes living abroad miss home the most.

Except for Skyping with the family back home, the only consolation I have managed to find is watching Swedish food YouTubers. In my view, there are two big ones in Sweden, namely "Rätt Rätt" by Amir Kheirmand and "Matgeek" by Johan Hedberg. In "Rätt Rätt", the viewers get videos about cooking tips, recipes, good utensils to use, Black Friday purchase tips, Christmas gift competitions (what a paradox that this post is part of one!) and grocery blind test. Amir manages to deliver comedy while at the same time providing useful information for anyone who likes cooking or loves to eat (that makes approx. all of us!)

To check it out, click https://www.youtube.com/user/rattratt and smash that Subscribe-button immediately! Also check out one of the most recent videos about the Christmas competitions at https://youtu.be/kR_ut-v2Rzo

Craft beer and pizza at The Booth

Many pizza slices have been served to numerous party people on many a late nights. Most people who have ever stayed out till the morning hours in Hongdae’s clubs and drinking places, are already very familiar with The Booth and its pizza-providing sister company Monster Pizza.

We had the great joy of visiting The Booth in one of the alleys in Noksapyeong. The pizzas are provided by Monster Pizza and taste good as ever. Still, the real gem of The Booth Noksapyeong is their craft beer. Their input in the crafting process both in Denmark and South Korea, their meticulous shipping-regulations for how the craft beer is supposed to be brought all the way to Noksapyeong, and finally the enthusiasm of the owner and the staff all contribute to create an amazing pizza joint.

Some of their beers are brewed in collaboration with their Danish partner Mikkeller in Denmark. The other part is brewed in South Korea in the Pangyo area. The people behind The Booth have come up with some of the craft beer recipes in collaboration with their partners to create flavors that go well with their pizzas. The transport-rules are very minute. At no point in the transportation-process does the beer reach above refrigerator-temperatures. The Booth calls this “The Cold Chain”.  Even the beer batches that are shipped all the way from Denmark to Seoul still adhere to these rules. This is all to ensure that the customer at The Booth will get the best beer possible. The manager tastes every keg of beer to see if there is the smallest of flavor discrepancies and would toss the whole keg if any such taste flaw is detected.

The pizzas come in about three different flavors and both sauces and grated cheese can be found at every table, so that you can fill up to your heart’s content. My personal favorite is the basic peperoni pizza, since I have gotten pretty tired of all the Korean-style take-out pizzas with sometimes close to 20 toppings on one. The Booth keeps the ingredient quantity down and instead focuses on the quality of every dish and drink they serve.

The beer selection varies from week to week and sometimes even daily. The beers on tap are also different from store to store in the six spots that The Booth exists in. It is up to the store manager to decide what beers suit the location, the clientele, the weather etc. They are kind enough to update the tap list daily online, so you can check which store serves which beer on a particular day and head straight there!

The Booth was initially founded by three people. Two of them later came to marry each other. Out of these three, interestingly one was a Korean medicine practitioner and one was a write for The Economist. They identified both a lack of craft beers in Korea and a premonition that a craft beer trend would start sooner or later.

The ambiance is very laid back with two different rooms to eat in. The walls are decorated with graffiti, and the keen eye might find bicycle equipment and clothes hung to one part of the wall. The Booth actually runs a bicycle club that anyone from any skill level can join.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theboothbrewing/?fref=ts

Website: http://www.thebooth.co.kr

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theboothbrewing/

Locations: Noksapyeong, Gangnam x2, Konkuk University, Samseong station, Itaewon station

Opening Hours:

Monday: 12:00pm ~ 1:00am

Tuesday: 12:00pm ~ 1:00am

Wednesday: 12:00pm ~ 1:00am

Thursday: 12:00pm ~ 1:00am

Friday: 12:00pm ~ 2:00am

Saturday: 12:00pm~ 2:00am

Sunday: 12:00pm ~ 12:00am

Concert with Waikiki Brothers band and guitarist Hun Choi

Hearing the name ”Waikiki Band” might bring up colorful images of hoola-hoola skirts, dormant volcanoes that might start spewing lava in any second, and ukulele-players performing their own version of “Somewhere over the rainbow”. Well, don’t judge a book by its name.

Waikiki Brothers is both a band and a movie. Actually, many Koreans know the movie but do not know that there is still an active band with the same name. The band is led by professional guitarist Hun Choi with a career of over 35 years as a guitarist. When he does not perform or produce music, he also helps up and coming amateur bands by rearranging difficult music pieces to better suit the skills of particular bands. Sometimes he even joins them for the occasional, spontaneous performance.

The particular performance I visited was a very well-prepared part of a concert series spanning about one month. Arranged by Emu Artspace, in cooperation with National Geographic, this concert series is called “회식” (“Afterwork”) and encourages people who work in the Gwanghwamun area to enjoy a relaxed evening with their coworkers without falling into the mainstream trap of “dinner – drinking place – karaoke room”.

Hun Choi is reaching his late 50s but his vitality on stage easily compares to anyone 20 or 30 years younger than him. The band played a repertoire of Creedence Clearwater Revival, Eagles, Carlos Santana, Dire Straits, some Korean songs and much more. Hun Choi on acoustic and electric guitar, accompanied by four other band members on keyboard, drums, bass and acoustic guitar, the band really brought the basement location to the roof with their energy.

As a non-Korean who has basically zero interest in Korean stars and K-pop, it is always encouraging to see that Korea actually still has artists who play music that forms an alternative to the constant K-pop being blasted in restaurants and make-up stores. The building has a concert venue in the basement, a Mediterranean restaurant on the first floor, and a movie theatre on the second floor. It’s nestled in the area between Gyeongbokkgung station and Gwanghwamun station, just behind Seoul Museum of History.

Future dates: August 24 and August 31

Price: 50,000W (includes dinner and one drink)

Max. capacity: 100 people

Tickets: ticket.interpark.com

Tel: 02-730-5604

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/emuartspace/

Website: http://www.emuartspace.com/

D Museum: Inside Heatherwick Studio

For the first time in Korea, the internationally renowned Heatherwick Studio get their own exhibition. The studio has been led by Thomas Heatherwick since 1994 and today houses 180 architects and designers from numerous fields, such as urban planning, product design, furniture and art. The exhibition showcases the products, concept designs and fulfilled urban projects that span the world from the UK, through the Middle East, to China and beyond.

The first part of the exhibition goes through the thinking process behind every project at Heatherwick Studio. The second part dissects the manufacturing and how these projects come to earthly and material form. Lastly, the third part shows how the projects convey a story to the viewer of joy, awe, pleasure or calmness.

Did I say ”lastly”? Well, that is what I was thinking when I came across the ultimate room in the exhibition, namely the ”Spin-hula” installation. Filled with parents and their children spinning around, these chairs spin freely around without the person falling off. The ”Spun Chair” from 2010 sports a balanced form that is comfortable both to sit and lean back in.

The exhibition conveys the London-based studio’s projects’ scale and ambition. The designs revolve around themes such as texture, topography and movement. ”Inside Heatherwick Studio” is made possible through a cooperation between D Museum and the British Council as part of the ”New British Inventors” campaign that puts the spotlight on pioneering British designers.

Paternoster Vents, London, UK, 2000

Two 8.4m tall steel sculpural vents that work to cool an electricity sub-station. Less bulky than the large, single structure that was first planned.

Rolling Bridge, London, UK, 2004

This kinetic bridge functions both as a sculpture in its folded state, and a place of pedestrian crossing in its unfolded state. The footbridge unfurls in around 3 minutes.

Garden Bridge, London, UK, est. 2018

A much larger footbridge is estimated to be completed in 2018. The footbridge across the River Thames will link the two banks of the 300m-wide river, provide a garden for London’s inhabitants and a new panorama spot of the city.

Olympic Cauldron, London, UK, 2012

Every Olympic opening ceremony is rounded off with the lighting of the Olympic fire. The UK broke some conventions with this centrepiece of the opening ceremony, positioned in the middle of the ground instead of up high above the spectators which has been the norm in past Olympic games. Every participating country was represented by one copper piece, making it a total of 204 pieces. The scattered pieces were lit on fire and then the 204 small fires gathered into one big fire, representing the Olympic spirit.

Opening hours: Tues – Sun 10AM-6PM

Fri, Sat: 10AM-8PM

Final admission 30 min. before closing.

Closed on Mondays and Chuseok.

Audio guide available via the D Museum app. Rental earphones included in the museum admission price.

Free tour guides: Tues – Sun from 11AM to 5PM at the start of every hour.

Exhibition period: 16 June – 23 October 2016

Alley & Alley in the Alley

Korea is the king of fusion food. Well, there are some wacky combinations originating from Korea and Koreans are not afraid to try new ideas and push the limits of the menus. Kimchi tacos, kimchi chocolate, ramyeon burgers are just some of the inventions that involve Korean food mixed with something more foreign.

 

One such food that gained some traction a few years back was the combination of eating ddeokbokki with pizza. Luckily they are still eaten separately, and I have yet to see ddeokbokki ON an actual pizza.

골목에 골목 (Alley in the Alley) takes the concept a small step further. They do not only serve this combination on their menu, they have also developed the specific dishes a bit further. Most popular on the menu are the cream ddeokbokki and 인절미 pizza. The latter is a sweet injeolmi brown rice cake powder sprinkled on a thin bread crust with condensed milk, sugar and some kind of stringy cheese.

The ddeokbokki comes with a few fried mandus swimming in the creamy sauce, pieces of rice cake, something that looks like “spaghetti seasoning” (chili, parsley etc.) and your regular onions etc. Not only those it have regular ramyeon, it also contains a little bit of what looks like regular pasta.

The creamy ddeokbokki goes well with the crunchy pizza, baked in a stone oven right in front of your eyes. I have to admit I was skeptical towards rice cake pizza, but it works out really well! Luckily there was no tomato sauce on the pizza, since the pizza is more of a sweet pizza type rather than savory.

The set goes for about 8,000W per person and includes one choice of ddeokbokki, one choice of pizza, one jumokbap (“fist rice”, a ball of rice you get to mix yourself with other ingredients) and homemade gelato ice-cream! We tried both the yoghurt ice-cream and green tea ice-cream, and they are both legit. Before eating I was thinking “What stops restaurants from lying and saying it’s made in the restaurant when it just might have been store-bought?” But taking a bite, I realized how uncalled for my question had been.

골목에 골목

Tel: (02)468-9166

Address: 서울시 광진구 화양동 11-39 2층. Right in the middle of the Konkuk restaurant area, in an alley on the 2^nd floor.

Open days: Every day of the year except 1 day off on Seollal and Chuseok respectively.