Out of Norm Travels - Wonderful Experience during O'ngo Night Dining Tour - Seoul, Korea

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I had a beautiful evening joining fellow foodies (and alcoholics) on the O'ngo Night Dining Tour organised by O'ngo Food Communications. My guide Amy was new but peppered her tour guiding with little walks around town area and showing us snippets of Korean life such as where to get the dog meat (if you are into such things), customary way of drinking different types of Korean wine (rice wine, filtered rice wine, plum wine and beer with coke and shoju). 

We started the evening binge with traditional Korean BBQ with pork pancreas along the back alley of Seoul. That got my attention as i usually eat that with beef or normal parts of the pork. Worth a try and a super Sumptuous start to the tour nevertheless since Amy paired the BBQ meal with beer with coke and shoju which we had to down in 1 gulp. My Hong Kong companion commented that it reminded her of the old 'Tai Pai Dong' or street food stalls in old Hong Kong. Indeed she was spot on for that. 

After a short walk, we landed at a place that sells traditional cooked Royal food called Toppoki. It was paired with sweet plum wine (my Favorite). We had 2 tables so we got the Royal dish and the spicy seafood dish. I found the Royal dish a tad bit too sweet (favored by Royalty which thought that sweating when eating spicy food was not courtly like) and the seafood dish mouth numbingly spicy. 

Next stop was some distance away at the back alley of Insadong where we had mackerel paired with filtered rice wine. 

We had the chance to get into some drinking games that involved counting and was easy to play -
Saying numbers and forfeit when someone says it together with you. 

Last stop was a pancake stop at market Dongdaemun station where we had the famous fried pancake with rice wine in a metal bowl. No need for niceties (like bowing down head and eyes when holding the glass with 2 hands when being served with the wine and covering your mouth and facing the side when  drinking it) when drinking with the metal bowl (anything goes for that). 

All in all a good USD88 well spent for the tour. 

Some photos to share on this food adventure! 
 
Collage of various dishes during the Night Dining Tour



Dog Meat Restaurant (back alley)

Food stall at Market Cooking Deep fried Korean Pancake

Till the next time, onto the world and beyond!

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