Star Time Mandu

A new mandu pocha--not really restaurant, not actually a covered wagon--opened in my neighborhood about a month ago, and I finally passed by at a time I was hungry and headed home.



For those unfamiliar, 만두 mandu are Korean stuffed dumplings, steamed usually, but sometimes fried. They come stuffed with a huge variety of ingredients, as you can see from the store sign: beef, pork, squid, fish paste, kimchi, potato salad, vegetables, spicy vegetables, noodles, etc, etc.



The name means "Star Time" or similar, and that's a cute little mandu offering to cook himself for you. I posted on this topic, suicide food, yonks ago, here and here.)

I had one order of galbi mandu, rib meat, and one of large shrimp, both quite tasty, as always served with soy sauce and radish kimchi. Remember to pull the tail bit off the shrimp!

Dinner in Dangsan

Had dinner with pal Adam by Dangsan station, junction of lines 2 and 9 that I traverse pretty regularly. As you can see above, the air quality was, um, good, and 0-차​ at the CU was immediately outside exit 4.
The 'four for man won (10,000 W)' has somehow spurred on a myriad of smaller Korean breweries, and gotten the chaebol into the game.


Here's the excellent spot we selected for dinner, between exits 2 and 3, which serves both pork and beef.


I've posted a couple hundred pictures of Korean BBQ, but I just love the thick samgyupsal, which gets crispy on the outside but stays juicy inside. And check out the panchan, egg custard out-of-shot:


Here's the 'Wall of Fame' of celebrity diners, and the outside ashtray, helpfully located just beneath the 'No Smoking' sign:


And finally a shot of the amazingly well-marbled, melt-in-your-mouth 꽃살 kkotsal, "flower meat", which was a bit pricy at 18,000 W per serving, one serving shown.

My Street Market

Some random pictures of my local street market, just a couple blocks straight out exit #6 Deungchon Sta. on line 9. Fruit and veg, of course, and seafood, lots of seafood:


The shrimp kept jumping out of the box:


What got me taking pictures was this machine, which I've never seen before, extruding some kind of sesame seed snack:


Lots of other snack choices, and foods:


Coffee shops are everywhere in Seoul nowadays.
Of course, you can buy just about anything in the street. I have bought several plants from the flower shop over the years:


Finally, empty stalls, a sad sign of these Covid times: