I tried a few of their single origin pour-over coffees and an espresso, both of which tasted promising. They were still trying different blends and roasts when I visited so I can’t really comment that much, but I’m posting the cafe here because I got the sense that this would be a good place as they settle in, and it’d be fun to visit and watch it evolve. So, here’re a few pictures, a map, and an invitation to tell me what you thought about your visit in the comments!

Map Below.

View Belief in a larger map

When I first visited La Caffe quite a few months ago, it turned out that the Slayer isn’t set up for daily use in the cafe. Instead, there’s a three group Faema E61 paired with what looks like Mazzer Robur and Major grinders that have been thoughtfully equipped with sunshades on the hoppers, hiding the beans from the afternoon sun. (Some of my photos are from the first visit, where there was also a Versalab grinder hiding in the back…).

The espresso was unique and stood out from many that I’ve tried in Korea. The taste brought to mind lemon and salt, which may not sound nice but it was balanced and pleasant with a chocolatey finish and perhaps a hint of aromatic spices. I really enjoyed it and ordered two. The cappuccino seemed prepared a bit more to cater for mainstream tastes, but I’m sure if you’re picky you could ask for something more traditional.

The second time I visited I was happily surprised to meet owner Brandon J.H. Bang, along with an invitation to go up and see the Slayer. He has an enviable workshop, full of espresso machines under various stages of repair or modification, along with a few vintage pieces (like the La Marzocco GS2 pictured below) apparently being restored and/or customized with new internals. There’s also a vintage roaster (if you happen to know the model, please let me know in the comments).

I was treated to a shot of La Caffe’s espresso blend pulled on his modified La Marzocco Linea, followed by the same dose/grind/portafilter on the Slayer with a custom pressure profile. The LM shot tasted like two distinct layers of flavor, like I had taken a bite of an orange, and then a milk chocolate bar; nothing to complain about there, tasted great. But then came the Slayer shot, which was much more integrated, smooth, and rich, like a tangy sweet orange chocolate mousse. It was one of the best espressos I’ve had, without exaggerating. Pressure profiling lets the barista bring out different flavors by finessing the water pressure to highlight desired characteristics of each origin or blend. In the hands of a talented and focused barista that can mean an excellent coffee!

While I can’t promise you a similar experience, I can say the coffee at the restaurant is quite good and the food was also nice, it’s worth a visit. It is a bit out of the way, but do stop by if you’re in the area.

Map and directions below.

Exit Wangsimni station #9. Walk straight out the exit and follow the road as it curves. Walk for a couple minutes until you see a small road on your left, and turn left there. Then you walk straight on that road until you hit a small parking lot, which you cut through and then turn right and walk up the curving past a building with a ton of signs on it. It’ll be on your left.

Yeah, it’s not easy to get to. Here’s a link to Daum.net’s map, which can do road-view if you need more recon before heading out.

View La Caffe in a larger map

The Syphon Project from Jacob Forrest on Vimeo.

Cool video of Siphon coffee.

MK2 is a cool looking spot in the neighborhood to the west of Gyeongbokgung palace. The decor is made up of mostly mid-century modern furniture, and they have a Faema E61 espresso machine on which they churn out a pretty decent espresso.

It seems like a really chilled out place to relax and study, do some work, or meet a friend. Very quiet when I visited. The neighborhood has a lot of little trendy cafes, design studios, a used bookstore, etc. Seems like a lot of development is going on around this area, worth checking out more places.

Click here for map and directions.

Head to Gyeongbokgung station, exit 3. Walk straight and make a right down one of the side streets; it’ll be on your left. I can’t recall exactly, I might have placed the map marker on the wrong one. If it’s not that first side street, then it’s the second one further north.

View MK2 Cafe in a larger map

]]> http://frshgrnd.com/2010/08/mk2-cafe/feed/ 0 http://frshgrnd.com/2010/08/pardon-the-mess/ http://frshgrnd.com/2010/08/pardon-the-mess/#comments Fri, 20 Aug 2010 21:23:41 +0000 admin http://frshgrnd.com/?p=742 So, my blogs got infected by some exploit that’s currently ravaging WordPress based blogs. I had to do a lot of maintenance to get things back to normal and decided to try a new theme in the process.

One big change – I’m increasing the photo size throughout the site, so for a while all the old posts will look weird until I get around to changing the source files and re-formatting the posts. (And if I end up being too busy to bother with fixing the old posts, I hope you’ll forgive me :)

Pardon the mess, hopefully things will be more stable from here on out.

]]> http://frshgrnd.com/2010/08/pardon-the-mess/feed/ 2 http://frshgrnd.com/2010/08/kt-olleh-square-cafe/ http://frshgrnd.com/2010/08/kt-olleh-square-cafe/#comments Tue, 17 Aug 2010 10:34:11 +0000 admin http://frshgrnd.com/?p=715

Korea Telecom has built quite a nice little cafe in their first floor show room, amid all the office buildings and historical attractions at Gwanghwamun station near Gyeongbokgung palace. One would expect that a cafe in an electronics showroom would be little more than a gimmick to draw in more potential customers, but I was surprised at the level of investment and quality attained. They are using a Synesso espresso machine, paired with what looked like a Mazzer Robur, and a Ditting grinder for preparing pour-over hand-drip single origin coffees roasted by one of Korea’s big specialty coffee companies, Tera Rosa Coffee. (I tried visiting Tera Rosa while visiting the east coast of Korea, but got knocked out by food poisoning…don’t go to fish markets in the summer time).

The espressos I’ve tried there were generally good, if a bit on the over-extracted side. But still quite forgivable and enjoyable. The hand-drip pour-over coffee I tried was also well prepared and tasted really nice, with delicate origin notes showcasing the quality of the bean and the roaster.

Don’t be put off by the corporate surroundings and the majority of clientele in business attire, this is a bona fide specialty cafe worth a visit if you’re in the area! The outdoor terrace and inside decor is also pretty nice for hanging out. It’s bright and airy, and the constant flow of people gives it a nice atmosphere. I think the back wall of the cafe is actually made of dirt with plants growing out of it too… weird, but cool.

Click here for map and directions.

Head to Gwanghwamun station, go out exit 2 and turn around, you’ll see it in the giant KT building.

View KT Olleh Square Cafe in a larger map

]]> http://frshgrnd.com/2010/08/kt-olleh-square-cafe/feed/ 0 http://frshgrnd.com/2010/08/summer-update/ http://frshgrnd.com/2010/08/summer-update/#comments Wed, 11 Aug 2010 05:12:40 +0000 admin http://frshgrnd.com/?p=713 Just got back to Seoul from a 5 day trip to Tokyo, and now I have two days to pack up and move to Sweden for graduate school. I’ll be doing the Masters in Applied Cultural Analysis at Lund University and the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. I’m looking forward to meeting new people and exploring the coffee world from my new home in Malmo, though I will miss Korea and everyone here that I’ve been lucky enough to meet over the past two years.

Posting here will be pretty light for a while as I move and settle in, but I have a number of reviews remaining from Seoul, plus around 6 cafes to post from my amazing time in Tokyo. Look forward to that!

Also, it’s come to my attention that Google thinks this site has malware or something. I think that’s a mistake and I’m trying to figure out what to do about it. If you’ve noticed anything feel free to contact me and let me know.

]]> http://frshgrnd.com/2010/08/summer-update/feed/ 1 http://frshgrnd.com/2010/08/dalmont-cafe/ http://frshgrnd.com/2010/08/dalmont-cafe/#comments Sun, 08 Aug 2010 03:31:53 +0000 admin http://frshgrnd.com/?p=703

Dalmont is a nice looking cafe and restaurant next to Hakdong station. I’ve lived right around the corner from it for the past year and popped in many times for one of their tasty shrimp or salami sandwiches. Their coffee has been hit or miss for me in the past with an amazing double ristretto one time, and demitasses full of over extracted coffee on other occasions. However, I believe they’re under new management (or something) now and focusing more on proper coffee preparation given that most of the staff changed over the past month and the recent coffees I’ve tried have been more consistent.

They offer all ten of their coffees as single origin espresso based drinks. To do this, they have a bank of ten grinders behind the bar that must take a lot of effort to keep tuned for optimum extraction. When the coffee is good, it’s really good. Their beans are supplied
and roasted by Coffea, home of the current Korean barista champion, Ahn Jae Hyeuk. I’ve only tried the Brazil Cerrado and the Ethiopia Yirgacheffe for my espressos, both were enjoyable and the Brazil was especially nice as a double ristretto, with rich texture, tangy acidity and sweet milk chocolate notes.

The past few times I’ve ordered coffee there I’ve been served a nice, well prepared standard double. I should also mention that their food is pretty good as well. With the new staff and management I’m not sure how the menu might change, but I’ve always liked their shrimp sandwich (Gamberoni) and their burgers are pretty good as well.

If you’re in the Hakdong neighborhood and need a nice spot for lunch and a coffee, this is the place I’ve gone to most often.

Directions & Map below.
Go to Hakdong station on line 7, exit 10. Turn left at the exit and walk straight for a minute, it’ll be on your left.

View Dalmont Cafe in a larger map

My friend Sammie showed me the way to this cafe out near Sookmyung Women’s University. It’s a nice looking cafe, with a spacious and eclectic interior full of National Geographic style photography (the theme is Madagascar after all), photo gear, photo books, and random curios. I guess the owner is a photographer who visited Madagascar and kinda liked it. There’s lots of seating inside and it seems like a nice place to meet friends or study, with plenty of room to find a quiet corner to yourself, or a large table to accommodate a big group. (The photos below only show one side of the cafe).

They don’t offer any single origin coffees, or hand drip – though I saw a few drippers & servers behind the bar so maybe they did at some point or will in the future. They do offer the standard range of espresso drinks and flavored stuff, prepared on what looked like a Nuova Simonelli Appia (which, incidentally, must have good distribution here as it’s common in a lot of cafes).

The double espresso I tried looked nice, tasted pleasant, but the flavor wasn’t anything I’d go out of my way for. Just a solid enjoyable shot and a nice atmosphere. I tried a cappuccino as well and found it satisfying. In the photo if it looks a bit on the foamy side, it was. They make a rather “dry” style layered cappuccino with thick, fine foam on top, rather than the velvety, incorporated micro-foam that many specialty coffee people find preferable. But it wasn’t scalded and the foam had a nice, fine meringue texture. I had no complaints and enjoyed it.

Anyways, it’s solid coffee and a nice spot, check it out if you’re in that area. The space also apparently doubles as a photo studio or gallery and has lectures and classes. Check out their website for more information.

Click here for directions.
Take line 6 to Hyochang Park station and get out at exit #2. Turn around and go the opposite direction from the exit and take a right up the street. It’ll be on your right hand side after a short walk.

View Madagascar in a larger map

Click here to continue reading!

In order to offer such an extensive range of single origin coffees as espresso, I was curious to see how they would grind the beans, given that espresso is a finicky product that requires a lot of fine tuning. It turns out that they run the different SO beans through a single Ditting bulk grinder off to the side. Probably not the best way to do that, but the result was okay – pleasant to drink but nothing special. Some other cafes going the route of offering extensive single origin espressos use a bank of dedicated grinders for each origin, which seems labor intensive, and liable to stale the coffee sitting in hoppers for rather longer periods of time. But that’s a topic for another post.

On to the drinks at Lugo. Given its mall setting and in-shop roasting, my expectations weren’t too high. I had their espresso blend and a Brazil single origin espresso. Both were above average and enjoyable, if unspectacular. Not exactly a cafe I’d go out of my way to visit given its distance from central Seoul, but if you find yourself shopping or seeing a movie at Garden 5, or if you happen to live out near this area and need a cafe to call home, you could do much worse. Give it a try and let me know in the comments how your visit was.

Directions:

It’s located in the Garden 5 shopping mall at Jangji station, on line 8 in Songpa-gu, out in the suburbs of Seoul.