Rotiboy, the Son of Papa Roti

Saturday, December 20, I met Trav and Laura at their hotel at about 1:30. Trav really wanted to go get some waffles he had seen advertised, so we headed over to a tiny little café just off of Insadong-gil. He wasn’t quite sure where he had seen the sign, but I was pretty sure that I had seen it too and it was pretty easy to find. Trav and I shared a waffle and Laura had a club sandwich. We all drank coffee. This was first cup of coffee we had this day.

After lunch, we decided to try to find Dongdaemun market. Sally and I had failed when we tried couple of weeks ago but this time I though I had it down. We got off the subway at Dongdaemun and got to the same place where Sally and I had been. We walked around a bit and didn’t find the market. We did, however, find the restaurant outfitters market, blocks of stores dedicated to restaurant wares, like tables, chares, water coolers, dishes, industrial sized pots and pans, stoves, sinks, and everything you would need to open a restaurant in Korea. Some of the wares were new and some were used.

We also found a large food market, it was like the size of a Costco, but outdoor, kind of, and full of only food. Fish, spices, fruit, meat, tea, you name it; it was there. This also included a large number of street food vendors. We didn’t get any street food though. We continued to walk around, getting colder and colder. Finally we decided to go for coffee, again. We went into a small café that ripped off Starbucks’ colour scheme. It was a nice little place and the drink I had was pretty good if I recall correctly.

Tasha laughed very hard when I told her that I had again failed at finding Dongdamun market. She says it is easy. I don’t the market exists or it is not what I am picturing and all the guides have different explanations of the market. I think this is a mythical market and nobody wants to admit that they actually have no idea where it is because that would make them lose face.

After coffee we headed over to Myong-dong to find a place to eat supper. I was craving pasta and in my heart I was sort of hoping to find the place I had been to with Sally, Park, and Park’s girlfriend my first weekend in Seoul. However, in my head, I knew there was no chance of that, but I though maybe we could find an Italian restaurant somewhere in there.

Myong-dong in the evening is crazy. It is literally packed with people. I thought that because it was a colder night, it would be less busy then the first time I was there. I was wrong. It was stupid. Also, I’m not sure if it crowd control or if they are just on training exercises, but in the area, there were troops of policemen, young handsome policemen. They are impossible to take seriously because they look like they’re 12 and are adorable. Even those in riot gear are super cute, not scary at all.

We waded through crowds searching for a restaurant that looked good and that wasn’t totally full, and that was wasn’t floor seating only. We finally decided on a third floor Chinese restaurant. We walked up the first stairs that looked like they would get us there. We came in the back entrance. We were sat at a nice table in a kind of private corner; we could kind of see out the window. Windows are always covered with stuff, so even when there might be a good view, you can’t see out the windows, which is kind of a bummer.

Apparently, Chinese restaurants are fancy restaurants. At least all the Chinese restaurants that I have been in while in Korea, have always felt fancy, more up scale. However, most of the dishes are fairly inexpensive, like around 6000 won and if you look at the other diners, they are not necessarily dressed up extra fancy. It is just the décor and the servers that look fancy. Strange. In Canada Chinese restaurants are always kitschy and kind of ugly. The uglier, the more delicious the food. Right? Anyone been to Ken’s on Ellice?

Trav and I tried to order a meal that came with a couple of courses, but the server came back and told us it was for lunch only. We had to pick again. I think I had some sort of stir-fry. I don’t really remember, but it was delicious. Laura had something that was really good too, pork dumplings maybe? It was like two weeks ago.

After supper, we walked around a bit more. We decided to go for dessert. We wondered around looking a for a place. Finally I spotted a Rotiboy chain. Warm buns filled with butter, or bean paste, or other delicious things. They are truly disgusting, but truly delicious. I previously mentioned Papa Roti in a previous post; Rotiboy is the same thing, just a different chain. The place was packed and they were out of one of their popular buns. We ordered three different buns so that we could share and taste all of them. We also all ordered coffees. It was the day of the coffee shops.

After Rotiboy, we were pretty tired and ready to go home. We went back to our respective beds.