No Pork, No Problem: Eating Halal Abroad During Korea My Exchange Program
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This post was originally published on July 2016 and republished with no edits made on Jan 2025.
Because I went on this Exchange Program under the Ministry of Youth and Sports hence all my food is pork-free and is as halal as possible. Hopefully, vegetarians and muslims find this post useful (because Vijay and Mathana are vegetarians and they survived for 10 days).
Restaurant: Nature Kitchen (Ja Yeon Yul Gok 자연별곡 )
Traditional Korean Food, Buffet style. Some food were too spicy for me but the rest is so so good. They even have variety of tea leaves to choose from. Apparently there's a few branches around Korea so just head to the nearest one.
#Tips Make sure you can finish the food that you take because Koreans takefood wastage very seriously. If they see your plate is not cleared, they will not take your plates away.
Food: Bibimbap
Also I didn't know there're steps to eating Bibimbap until this very day. 1) pour some soup over the rice 2) break the egg 3) mix it all up 4) ENJOY
Unfortunately most Korean Restaurant in KK don't provide soup.
Snacks (Street Food)
1. Foot Long Ice-Cream
Honestly, other that it's a "foot-long" there's nothing special about it. Taste was okay, I tried the green tea flavor so it obviously tasted like one and well since it was summer, the ice-cream melted faster than I can finish it. So it was really just a between ice cream licking and dripping, not a very pretty scene.
2. Meat balls (Beef)
I found this at Insadong, tons of hawker stalls there. I really really wanted to try it but I didn't get to cause I was too full. I heard the review say it's pretty good tho.
3. Fruity Ice-Cream
There's a bunch of fruit-like ice cream and I picked this one. It's actually made with real fruits and yogurt, none of those ice and flavored essences nonsense. It's not cheap and it's not exceptionally good, I might try some other fruit tho. I didn't really like the yogurty part, a bit too sour for me.
4. Korean Fish Cake
Tons of snacks for long journey. Korea has this "pit-stops" whereby people can go to the loo, get some snacks or just shop around before continuing their journey.
5. Shikae
Traditional sweet Korean rice drink, probably one of the most Korean drink you can find. It's actually pretty good since I was just expecting a bland rice taste.
6. Squid
BUT not just any squid, it's squid cooked on hot black stones! Saw this at Itaewon and definitely on the must-go-back-to-eat-this-thing list.
7. Guguma Okay, pretty self-explanatory (see picture below). I think you probably can find it at 7-11 or whatever 24 hour shop. I dont even like sweet potato but this is really really really good.
8. Jipangi Traditional corn snack filled with soft-serve ice cream. I didn't get to try when I was in Korea cause we were heading for dinner when I came across this.
9. Julmokbap
This thing is SOOOO good! Especially this brand, not that I've tried other brand before but the 2 flavors that appa (he is my foster dad) bought; tuna kimchi cheese and beef bulgogi is to die for. I regretted not buying a bunch of these back and eat in on my flight but then again the custom will probably confiscate it.
Conclusion: 2 words, MUST HAVE.
Restaurant: Seoul Ga On (설가온)
It was like a step into the past, so wowed by the whole experience. We ate here after meeting with the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, so it was really nice to be able to ask them questions on issues related to women and youth of Korea.
Address: 81-3, Sejongno, Jongno-gu, Seoul, South Korea
