The One With Aldacron

Every time that I go back to the States, I’m often amazed by the amount of food served at some restaurants. On this last trip, the wife and I visited a BBQ place for lunch. They gave us so much that we ate it for dinner also and were stuffed after both meals. We took [...]

I knew of two Taco Bell locations in Seoul in the early 90s, but they were gone by ’94. I guess Korea wasn’t ready for it. In ’99, a Taco Bell opened up on the main US army base in Seoul about a month before I quit the part-time job that gave me base access. [...]

Since my grandmother used to make them for me from scratch when I was a kid, I’ve been addicted to cheesecake. Fortunately, it’s not too difficult to find good cheesecake in Seoul. By the slice, several restaurants offer it on the dessert menu. Outback has, IMO, the best (much better than Bennigan’s). But if you [...]

One of the things about being an expat that can really get you down is not being able to easily acquire the things you take for granted in your native land. For expats in Korea, if you have access to one of the many US military installations, or know someone who does, that goes a [...]

I have spent every Thanksgiving since 1991 in Korea. Every year I tell myself that I’ll go home for Turkey-day next year. Something always manages to keep me here. It’s not all that bad, though. I miss the family a bit more every year, but I actually have lost my craving for Thanksgiving dinner. Years [...]

Saturday night I attended a gathering of friends in Itaewon for a few hours. One of them I hadn’t seen in over 4 years (great to see you again Sam!). I kept the beers to a minimum and made it home quite early and quite sober. It was a good time all around and we [...]

There are so many American franchises that I had never heard of before showing up in Korea these days. One of them is On the Border. It opened some time late last year. I just went there for the first time last week. It’s spectacular. Either that, or I just haven’t had any good TexMex [...]

Street vendors can be found on sidewalks and in busy alleyways throughout Seoul. They sell food and a variety of items. Some of the snack vendors are seasonal. One of my favorite winter snacks is kyeran bbang, literally translated to English as ‘egg bread’. I first tried one of these little delights five years ago [...]

A place I sometimes drop by when I have time to kill before a class is the Kopitiam Kaya Toast shop located next to Cheonggye stream in central Seoul. Kopitiam shops can be found all over Singapore and Malaysia. In Seoul, the one by Cheonggye stream is the only one I’ve seen. And I just [...]

Aside from family, the thing I miss the most from home is food. There are plenty of western food chains here in Korea: Subway, McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC, Popeye’s, Outback, Bennigans, TGIF, and Sizzler to name a few. Others have opened for a time and eventually gone out of business: Wendy’s, Taco Bell, Ponderosa and [...]