Spring Come, Rain Fall - Antique CoCo

There was this restaurant making Japanese style food wonders in Hapjung Area, Seoul. I went there last spring with a co-worker to try their salmon and was swept away. I wanted to go again soon, but time passed and I never got the time. It's only a few month later that I ended up going with a friend. 

To knock my face on this. 

So apparently the place has closed down. I can't tell if they are planning on opening again, but it didn't say so I have my doubts. They were in a good spot, not too far from the station, and had a nice building with 2 floors, with very simple layout of cement and wood. The food was amazing and I had wanted to try their desert and coffee (I'd been full the first time so I hadn't).

I am so sad.

So we went to another place in the open underground area around the station, and walked around the area to a Chocolate store called Antique Coco (안티크코코). I never knew Hapjeong had so many nice places to see for window shopping. This is partly because I have only really been there in the evening or at night for that time with my coworker, and the recording of my friend's CD track Black Skies last year. Wow. Time flies.

As usual, my idea that "Seoul, the more you know the less you know". 

 So this place had wonders. They make their cakes - that look amazing, but were too much for us having already shared 3 full course plates between two people a few minutes previous to entering - and chocolates. 

The store was a tiny opening in the side of the building, with an inviting patio and storefront sign, but they also had the whole basement on one side, so there were lots of seated spots, and they had their indoor restroom (+1 on coffee shop chart yay!).

They had this black chocolate ball filled with sweet (but not crazy sweet) red wine of which you could drink from with a straw and then break down the chocolate with a small heavy hammer (which we totally failed to do - the employee took three strong quick swings at it and broke it in 5 seconds...)

You can see on the picture how the chocolate on the inside has been dyed with the wine. It was not gooey at all, as I had slightly feared, but just soft and fragrant. It was even better than the wine, who by the way had been really well chosen to match the chocolate. They told me the name of the wine but I fail to remember it. They apparently usually had 2 types of wine filling but they only had this one when we went.

F * Story

There is something weird going on with Koreans and their understanding of connotations of certain letters of the alphabet. 

That can make things like F-Story Café happen.

I have yet to find out what the F is supposed to stand for in the imagination of the coffee-shop owner, but so far it's still a mystery. Why in heaven would someone call one of the cutest coffee shop I've seen "F-Story"?

Flour-Story?

Four-Story?

Flower-Story? (maybe)

Fine-Story?

They have a room in the garden patio space outside where people can have a meeting in the nice surrounding, and it's called the F-Room. 

THAT my friends is pushing it to the next level. Get your own private F-Room in our nice F-Cafe. Let the imagination do the rest. I love Korea.

Whatever the English looks like, the coffee shop is a work of art. It's got a super tiny entrance that one could fail to notice, and it leads to a cute bricked alley with trees and flowers. At the end of the alley there's a fenced patio with a small greenhouse-like-room that people can use as their tables. That is... if you are okay with passing through the huge - but sweet as honey - golden retriever they have there. 

The decoration feels like a little Europe kind of setting. Bunch of countryside stuff hung everywhere and mismatched tables. They have a menu written on the wall outside for people who eat there.

The coffee shop itself looks like a western style house. I can't decide what kind of European style it reminds me of. But it's lovely.

Inside is another story. The place is filled with antiques and glasswares from the depression - my parents love those so I happen to be acquainted with the style. And it feels like an old house, probably copied of old European houses but then, I get a bit of the same feeling I'd have visiting old Quebec houses when I get in there.  

They have their own restroom so another plus for F-Story. I love it when coffee shops have their own toilets, because they are cleaner, have soap and toilet paper. Yay for F-Story.

As for their coffee well. Can't have everything. I have been going there for coffee the two times I went so I don't know about the other drinks, but their coffee is so-so. My friend, who is a picky eater and coffee-drinker, gores there for their fresh juice and home-made deserts. I will have to try them some other time :)

Namdaemoon Restaurant

A few weeks back I went around Namdaemun with an big sis who works around my workplace. She had a job interview in this restaurant/coffee shop near the area, where she had been recommended as manager. While the job was not what she expected and she didn't press on to have the job, the restaurant was a surprise. The street on which it was was just around Deokso palace where I had been a year ago with my parents, but has somehow always missed walking into. Full of coffee shops and small one-of-a-kind restaurants, it made me want to wander about in the area. I also found that there is an Art Museum and a Traditional Theatre Center there too. 

It was my first day trying to wear heels since my car accident and it was also the first day I hung out with my friend that she didn't wear heels. Bad timing. I was a giant, she was a tiny fairy. Oh well.

** Taking a 2 seconds to swear loudly in my apartment because we lost our second baseball game in a row playing SK - was watching as I was writing **

The restaurant where my friend had her interview was FILLED with all sort of different kind of china from cheap and pretty to expensive tea ware. They had this English tea collection overflowing with flowers that you get for $500 apiece - I always forget the brand, bad bad me - and tons of Wedgwood, including my favourite collection, the strawberries.

The food was really good. Portions that were not too big and the pizza made with a pâte feuilleté that made it feel like a desert honey gorgonzola cheese-pizza. They served the meals with a soup and a salad, and had decent choice of wine. My friend does not drink much wine so I just took a cup, but it was a good dry red like I like them.

As you can see, the light was not best for picture-taking, and I only realized too late I had done a good job of blurring that one. Oh well. The pasta was good, but to be completely honest I liked the pasta in Dongtan much better.

Rouyn

Man it's been a long time.

It's almost sad that the last time I've written was when I saw the worst movie of 2014. The should totally not have been worth writing about cuz eh? Writing a review, even bad, is still publicity. Might entice people to actually go watch it to defy my warnings.

Did you go see it after reading that entry?

Yes?

Yah. Sorry man gotta believe me next time.

A lot has been going on lately. And then not that much. 

I have been busier and still had managed to blog about randies (randomness + goodies) meanwhile. But this time I just feel crazy tired by so much stuff.

By the way. The Pope is in Korea. Hi Pope :)

♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥

So I went to Canada for a trip that lasted as long as hi I'm there. Bye see you next time.

I did get to get a glimpse of lots of people I hadn't met in a long time and saw my new born niece ♥ and my 5 years old princess when I visited my brother at the summer house they rented.

Me in my amazing backyard, chilling with a cucumber that my mom grew. And no it was not meant to sound dirty. :) I just love the food my parents grow in their gardens.

So on the 8th of September last year, I became a good friend's baby's godmother <3 and it was the first time I got to see her. It was brief but they had dressed her up in the Hanbok I sent her as a baby shower gift. She is sooooooo cute! But she is not going to be a girly girl if I'm ever right about gut feelings. She will be driving a F1 car. I have rarely seen a baby enjoy speedy baby cart racing and being turned upside down as she did. Doesn't she look like she's 2 years old? She's only 10 months old. I was so surprised when I saw her.

I mean it was not hard to be flabbergasted by the size of her after seeing my brother's 2nd daughter (guess who is the fairy godmother?) who was only 14 days out.

My flight took some 30 hours back and forth, plus 12 hours ride back and forth by car to my hometown. Thats more or less 45 hours if I include the flights layovers and delays.  So two full days of transportation.  And 4 days home. Not much. But enough for lots of hugs and love.

The only positive point about such a short trip is that I got to enjoy only the best of everything, and didn't do it long enough so I'd be unwilling to come back to work in Korea. My best friend came back from Montreal with me so I got to spend a lot of time with her. I had missed her a lot.

Me, rocking up the Nexen jersey in a French-Speaking 45,000 inhabitant town in Quebec.

Since it was not my first time in Asia, when I came to Korea I was not expecting such a big culture shock, and I was right. However, I was really surprised by the amount of small coffee shops, all looking tiny and neat, with each their own cuteness to them. 

All with free wifi.

I love Korea.

I was thinking how boring it would be when I'd get back to Quebec eventually, and get to have to restrict myself to a single coffee shop per town I visited...

But then again, life is never so stable as to never change, so back in Quebec for my quick vacation, we went through a city called Mont-Laurier, that is a city that basically lives off people taking the high way between region towns like mine and the metropolis, as it is situated right by it, and there it was, a coffee shop. A flower by the trash. A coffee shop by a dirty noisy highway. 

And not just a coffee shop. 

A nice one, that can probably make Korean coffee shops jealous. Wooden structures everywhere, coffee roasting machines in sight, chocolate covered coffee bean jars. And to add to the special, a place where you can paint on ceramic wares and figurines. In Korea, it'd be the perfect spot for couples to make couple samezies of cups and the like, in Quebec, I think it's more of a family thing. 

Still.

I was positively surprised. I should not look down on Quebec. It can do nice things out of nowhere :)

Coffee Shops are not just places for Couples and the Lonely...

... they are places for the unexpected.

Who said that hanging out in coffee shops keeps lonely people lonely?

...hm.


....


Probably me.


Well I was wrong and now I am pretty smug about it.

I met this amazing girl at a coffee shop I like to go to during weekdays. It was a day where I had been expecting to get lots of work done cuz my foot didn't allow me to go to the pool outing with my kindies. I had planned on using the time to prepare my final exams, but in the end I came to school and bumped my nose on a locked door: no one had told me that there would be no one until 2h30pm that day. Had I known I'd have planned something else to do. But there I was, already around the school, slightly annoyed and with lots of time on my hands.

I went to buy lettersets and sat at a coffee shop I like around my school. I will need to blog about that place, it's really nice and I always end up there at least once a week...

I started doing my things and the girls working there, a cute girl with a short brown hairdo, always smiling, that looked 22 years old. We exchanged a few sentences and I thought that would just be the usual as when I get to coffee shops in general.

- Long time no see! I was just wondering where you had been!

- Ah, yes, I was in a car accident so I couldn't come around...

- Oh my, are you okay now? 

- Yes, I was very lucky!

- That's a relief!

- It's really fascinating how you can speak Korean so well!

- Thank you, I worked really hard for it.

...

That is usually it. Korean curiosity usually ends with the usual gossip they will be able to tell their later customers: you know, we have this beautiful *cough* foreigner who comes to this coffee shop and she speaks Korean! Maybe next time you come you will see her.

So after the usual exchange I went back to my letter writing. 

But she didn't stop.

We ended up talking about really random things. No one else was in the coffee shop, and the boss had not yet come so she didn't mind talking as she was prepping the coffee shop. I only got two short letters done but it didn't matter: I had a new friend. On an unexpected long weekday morning. 

On the following weekend, we went to  eat at my Pancake place in Mokdong...

 I say my pancake place because apparently, even for people who have always lived in Mokdong, no one seems to know about the place I discovered while looking for a coffee shop to chill at.

... hang out in Hongdae walked around and shopped a bit, but I tried more random stuff than I ended  up buying. 

Yes.

The loser cap really completes my style. I have always known I have talent for fashion...

It is that day that I finally got to understand why Korean love to drink so much that alcoholism is only seen as a bad drinking habit. Apparently "THE LIVER IS EVIL IT MUST BE PUNISHED". So that is their very efficient way to get at it. 

Never knew Korean were so thorough in applying rules...

Me totally stealing my unni's ice cream cone for the picture. I don't like the messiness of ice cream cones, while they are much prettier to use in pictures, so I had opted for the other style (you can see my ice cream on the side). Those were ... man what's the word. It's not ice cream. It's.... damn it. I forgot the word.

OH gelato! That's it.

They were amazing. I don't like ice cream because it just tastes like an overdose of cold milk that is overly sweet. Gelato feel more like a bite of cold amazingness of the actual fruit/flavor you chose. If you get a strawberry gelato, it feels like there is only that one ingredient in it, no other taste, no overwhelming sweetness. Doesn't taste artificial. 

Now I have no clue whether gelato actually have artificial flavour or not. I'm just talking about taste here.

Regardless, we had amazing stuff at the store. I had grapefruit and yogurt gelato, she had blueberry and milk tea. I wouldn't be able to tell which combination was best, both were amazing. I just have a soft spot for grapefruit.

Just beside the Pancake place there is the impressive SBS building and a nice park, both of which I walk around during my lunch hour at work every week, or on my way to Mokdong stadium. I never dared going inside, thinking that outsiders were not allowed, but I was wrong. The first floor has a small coffee shop and anyone can go in when they want. 

The building has an impressive structure in an out. Majestic bit bright empty spaces with lots of light (and probably lots of work to keep clean...). God it would be amazing to work there.

Ending this entry with a picture of the HI I'M IN YOUR FACE building of the Hello Kitty coffee in Hongdae.