Seoul Bakery - perfect for a quick Korean meal in Central London

Seoul Bakery is perfect if you're looking for a tasty yet good value Korean meal in Central London.

It's certainly not the best Korean restaurant in London - far from it.  Situated in Saint Giles High Street, it's not even the best Korean restaurant along that road, which happens to have four or five Korean restaurants along it.  But that's not a problem because Seoul Bakery does not pretend to be the best.  It's small and it's cramped, but it's forgiven because it's fast and it gets the job done.

I ordered the 'rapokki' - essentially tapokki plus ramen noodles, served with a boiled egg and fish cake.  This cost £5.50, so no surprise that the ramen were of the instant kind.  But considering I was here for a quick and cheap lunch, it was fine.

I topped myself up with some tuna gimbap, filled with vegetables and pickle.  Gimbap can be described as Korean sushi, though the fillings tend to be quite different to their Japanese equivalents.

Meanwhile, the girlfriend ordered the janchi guksu, a wheat noodle soup in a clear and light broth.  The soup could have done with a slight dash of soy sauce, but that's no problem - better than finding it too salty, for sure.

Like I say, don't expect anything fancy at this place, and don't even bother if you're going as a large group.  But if you're out alone or as a couple and you're in need of Korean food at fast food prices, this is one to consider.

Closest Tube: Tottenham Court Road

Bibimbap (Charlotte St): Why this is the place to go if you're after a tasty, quick and good value meal in London

Bibimbap restaurant in Charlotte Street, London, is a fantastic little Korean eatery specialising in - you guessed it - bibimbap.

What is bibimbap?

It means 'mixed rice' in Korean and is a popular dish in the Asian country.  It's best to visualise this, so this is how my fillet beef bibimbap (with optional egg) at +Bibimbap Charlotte St looked like:

Fillet beef bibimbap with rice and vegetables inside a hot stone bowl, plus an optional egg.  

Their menu features a decent choice of different bibimbaps (10 in total), each one full of delicious rice and toppings inside a very hot stone bowl.  Vegetarian bibimbaps are available, as well as ones with chicken and pork.  Other Korean side dishes are on the menu too, including favourites such as seafood pancake and kimchi.

To eat it is simple: as soon as it arrives, begin mixing all the ingredients together inside the hot bowl.  The trick is to regularly mix everything, otherwise the rice can become dry and overcooked at the bottom.  (And in case you're wondering,  only the fillet beef bibimbap has raw meat, the others are pre-cooked).

How my bibimbap looked after I gave it a good stir.

Bibimbap is wonderfully tasty, quick, healthy and affordable - most dishes are under £10.  If that floats your boat - and it should - give the Bibimbap chain a go - there's one in Soho too ( +Bibimbap Soho ).

The interior in Bibimbap is relaxed, informal and cosy.  Korean popular culture is very apparent with many posters from films and musicians on the walls.  

Kalbi Korean BBQ - delicious meats and a social cooking experience

One of my friends recommended Kalbi Korean BBQ restaurant to me several months ago.  This was the first time I've had Korean BBQ since I went to South Korea last year, so I was really looking forward to it.  Would Kalbi be any good or would I leave disappointed, having had the real thing in Korea?

In short, I really enjoyed the meal at Kalbi and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys their meat and Korean cuisine.  Non-BBQ dishes are available too, including - perhaps oddly - Japanese sushi (not Korean gimbap).  But the BBQ is what I wanted.

Korean BBQ.

For the BBQ, the girlfriend and I ordered the galbi beef (middle), bulgogi beef (right), mushrooms and sweet potato.  A waiter cooks the ingredients in the BBQ embedded into our table - Korean style!  

The BBQ'd items were wrapped within ssam - a combination of round lettuce, chilli, garlic, cucumber and carrot, and then dipped into Korean ssamjang sauce, which tasted excellent.  We also had a bowl of steamed rice each.

The food was washed down with makgeolli - a milky alcoholic drink. 

We also ordered a side dish of japchae, one of favourite noodle dishes (though I am still not a fan of green peppers!).

Japchae.

The one disappointment compared to my experience in South Korea was that in Korea we essentially had an unlimited supply of ssam for seemingly one price and banchan such as kimchi was complimentary for every table.  In contrast, Kalbi charged extra for this - though from experience I would say that eating out in the UK is a lot more expensive than in South Korea.

Overall Kalbi was a really positive experience and I would certainly be keen to go again in the future - perhaps to try out their BBQ buffet menu (essentially all-you-can-eat BBQ meat within 90 minutes).

Closest Tube: Farringdon, Chancery Lane.

Han: a Korean bar in New Malden, London

As mentioned in an earlier post, New Malden is the UK's capital of Korean cuisine. But it doesn't just stop at food; there's a Korean bar called Han along the High Street too.

Han is strictly a restaurant, karaoke venue and bar - so I wouldn't be doing it justice by simply calling it a bar. It has a full food menu and six karaoke rooms, for example. But during my last visit to Han, I didn't eat or (sadly) do karaoke, so it was very much a bar for me.

They serve Hite, apparently the top-selling beer in South Korea, so no surprises here. I'm no beer expert, but it tastes fine to me - nothing particularly bad or good about it.

Most of our group (including me) were driving, so we stuck to the soft drinks after that. Han excelled in this department - check out my Passionate Cooler virgin cocktail! It certainly tasted as good as it looked.

This is what we all had (and seemingly in height order): Ice Tea Soju (alcoholic), Apple Mojito (virgin cocktail), Passionate Cooler (virgin cocktail) and a Crapple (virgin cocktail). All took a while to arrive, but the staff are friendly and the guy with the long hair who greeted us - possibly the manager - is very hospitable, so we didn't mind. Plus my friends all liked their drinks.

The full drinks menu can be found here.

Next time I really want to try Han's food menu and, if I can persuade my friends, sample one of the karaoke rooms! Looking forward to it already.

Closest station: New Malden
Address: 1 High Street, New Malden, London, KT3 4DQ

PS I found a picture of the interior on their website; this is what I mean by the exposed wood...

Source: Han

New Malden: UK's capital of Korean cuisine

It's said that New Malden in south-west London has the highest population of Koreans in Europe. So this should make it a good place to find decent Korean food outside of Korea, right? Definitely.

The truth is, I've been to New Malden many times, as I love Korean food. This was partly why I went to South Korea last year, as mentioned in a previous blog post.

Along New Malden High Street, you never have to walk far before you find another Korean restaurant or supermarket. Our target this time was Yami.

We ordered a soup full of kimchi, tofu, mushrooms, pork and sausages. It was easily big enough to share between three people, along with accompanying rice and other side dishes. It's a great communal way to eat - very social - but this perhaps wasn't the best Korean soup I've ever had. It was still good, but I definitely prefer beef in my Korean soup - I'll know that for next time.

I love Korean pancake, so much so that I think I order it every time I go to a Korean restaurant. Here's our a seafood pancake (haemul pajeon) and kimchi pancake (kimchijeon).

Korean food features many side dishes as part of the whole experience. So here we have Chinese cabbage kimchi, sliced potato, carrots and cucumber. It's not as spicy as it looks!

My vegetarian friend ordered this dish consisting of tofu, vegetables, rice and Korean glass noodles. It might not look very exciting, but I'm told it was extremely tasty. Seeing as everything else was pretty good, I'm inclined to believe her.

Closest station: New Malden
Address: 69 High Street, New Malden, KT3 4BT