Seoul "Soul" Food Days 1 & 2: Sam Gye Tang & Han Jeong Shik

The next series of posts will be about my recent vacation to Korea.  As I was organizing photos I realized that out of the 600+ pictures I took, 500+ of them were of food, so I decided to recap the vacation through a food diary.
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The plane ride to Seoul from San Francisco was pretty rough.  On top of riding in an old and uncomfortable plane (it didn't even have personal TVs!), the food was terrible AND they only served us twice!  They didn't hand out any snacks whatsoever!  Everyone knows that a hungry Tiff is not a fun Tiff, so after arriving the first thing we did was go eat!

Sam gye tang in the restaurant two blocks away from our hostel in Sinchon.  Usually the chicken soup is a clearer yellow color.  We each ordered half a chicken which ended up being just the right amount of food.  The one that I ordered had extra medicinal ingredients (dates and the like added into the broth), hence the redder color.  It was really good soul food after a long flight and gave us energy to shop in Edae.

The next day we decided to feast like kings in Insadong and ordered a 50,000 won han jeong shik.  The information center recommended a place called Ji Hwa Ja (지화자) so we went there.  I wonder if we went to the right store though because later a Google search showed a different location for the same restaurant name (http://visitkorea.or.kr/enu/SI/SI_EN_3_1_1_1.jsp?cid=932560).  I was disappointed that the food didn't all come out at once and that the plating wasn't like what you see in Dae Jang Geum, but it was delicious.  I've never had such good chap chae in my life.  Below is just a tidbit of all the food that came out.

You can't drop by Insadong without getting traditional Korean tea, so after some shopping and the Ssamzigil, we went searching for a place.  A Visa guidebook led us to this hole-in-the-wall tea shop (which also ended up being not the original shop we were searching for; obviously we're great with maps/directions)

The dduk snack was salty, not sweet which I did not expect.  The tea I ordered, a plum tea seasoned with cinnamon had a sour and tart taste that I liked because it cleansed my palette after the humongous lunch and is supposedly good for digestion.  The teahouse was in a traditional Korean house, so the atmosphere was nice and relaxing and a cool "cultural" experience.