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.
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.
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.
Lugo is a well appointed cafe in the huge Garden 5 shopping mall, complete with their own roaster in shop, La Cimbali and Ditting espresso set up, as well as kit for hand drip. Combining the two main Korean cafe trends, they offer all their coffees (around ~10 single origins) as either espresso shots or as pour over cups.
I’ve been keeping an eye out for good coffee on the northeast side of Seoul, but so far I’d only been able to find Star City’s Star Kitchen and Lotte Mall’s Cantata kiosk, which are above average, but nothing to go out of your way for. Then I came across a post at Jihye Chang’s blog about Choi Ga Cafe, a coffee shop and roaster around Konkuk University, and dropped by after work to check it out.
When I got that big box of Intelligentsia coffee, I also got several ounces of tea to try out. I didn’t have a tea pot, so I started looking for something nice. I like the Bee House ceramic tea pots a lot, but I wanted a clear design that lets you see the color of the tea brewing. I looked at a bunch of designs and eventually bought this Sama tea pot.
Now I usually look for simplicity in design, partly for aesthetics but also because minimalism means fewer breakable parts and easier cleaning. At first I thought the Sama tea pot was over-designed, but after using it I’m happy with it – it works easily and the self-contained brew chamber makes setting the tea aside for repeated brews fast and clean. It looks more fussy than it really is, the water release button is very simple in design and doesn’t feel like it will cause problems or gum up down the road. It is a bit more difficult to clean than a basic tea pot would be, though.
