McPherson - ZenKimchi Seoul Restaurant Expat Guide 2015

Seoul has one of the highest restaurants per capita in the world. Competition is deadly. By the time a restaurant guide goes to print, some restaurants are gone. A year after publication, and over thirty percent are gone. Whats sad is that many of the good ones die out while the mediocre ones survive. I still cant figure out the reason for this.

Im sure there are many factors. Not enough people know about a place. The landlord hikes the rent. Inconvenient location. Management isnt good with the finances. A tragedy happens in the owners family.

We hope to remedy a lot with this guide. The restaurants included here come from our own experiences at ZenKimchi and are crowd-sourced from our active Facebook groups Restaurant Buzz Seoul, Pizza Lovers Seoul, Mexican Food Lovers Seoul, Korean Food Lovers Seoul, Sandwich Lovers Seoul, and Booze Lovers Seoul. Todd Sample has been kind enough to allow use of Burger Lovers Seoul as well. Included are not only reviews but real comments. Candid comments. Unfiltered, though edited for legibility.

Those can be the most informative, and I think the most entertaining. The guides content comes from expats and English speaking Koreans living in the Seoul metropolitan area. The scope of the area in this guide is anywhere the Seoul subway system touches, making a vast area even more vast. It takes into account the reality that a lot of people live outside of Seoul, and going into Seoul is just as inconvenient to them as it is for a Seoulite to travel out to there. Honestly, I have commuted to Seoul daily from the satellite cities, and its not so bad. So dont let that stop you from trying a good place.

The restaurant turnover is the biggest challenge. We hope to update this guide on a regular basis to keep up with whats going on in the industry. For the 2015 guide, we cut off entries on January 30th. Any restaurants or comments posted after that will have to wait until the next update. There are over 400 restaurants in here, and were a lean operation. No matter how meticulous weve been, mistakes likely exist.

If you find any glaring errors or if a restaurant has gone out of business please inform us at info@zenkimchi.com. Why an Expat Guide? Why not? Admittedly, this guide isnt heavy on Korean restaurants despite being in a Korean city. It stems from Seouls new cosmopolitanism. Good Korean restaurants are easy to stumble upon. For a city of its size, its been startlingly skimpy on international restaurants, and many of them dont meet international standards. This is rapidly changing.

With more Koreans traveling and living overseas and with more foreigners coming to Korea, there is a higher demand for better quality, more authentic international restaurants. There are plenty of guides on Korean restaurants, and we hope to have more Korean restaurants in future guides. A longtime veteran expat advised me, A restaurant that hangs signs showing its TV appearance is likely going to be a disappointment. Never trust the Korean TV shows for restaurant recommendations, especially international restaurants. Sometimes they hit the mark, but most of the time they dont. The problem I find with some guides is that they dont highlight what the average visitor would like, Korean or international.

They highlight what their editors want you to like. They showcase restaurants that they think are good quality but are more like cheap imitations of the real thing. The purpose of this guide is to showcase the restaurants that are the real thing. There is a high demand for authenticity in the expat community as well as quality. There is little tolerance for cheap gimmicks or food that is blanded down or sweetened up for domestic consumption. So many times we have seen lines out the doors for, frankly, shitty restaurants, while great restaurants whither and die because they didnt dole out payola to the right TV show.

This guide is a volley against the powers of mediocrity. How to use this guide The entries themselves are in alphabetical order. The index is useful if you are looking for restaurants in a specific area, or if youre looking for a special type of cuisine.

When we feel it may be helpful, we include the Hangeul name as well. Price $ - Relatively cheap. Would make a good lunch stop. $$ - Moderately priced. $$$ - Quite expensive, even by Seoul standards. The prices are relative to the type of operation the entry is.

Paying W15,000 at a steak restaurant would be sinfully cheap. Paying W15,000 at a kimbap diner is more on the high end. These are general guidelines, and theres no hard science behind these values. These are guesstimations based on the type of establishment is in the entry. Dollar signs ($) are used only because theyre more universally recognized. 2 - Mediocre. 2 - Mediocre.

Not great, but dont discount it. Its not bad either. 3 - Quite, quite good. You likely wont be disappointed. 4 - Expat darling. The general consensus is that this is an exceptional establishment.

These ratings, like the prices, are guesstimations based on contributor comments. Keep in mind that a 2 is not necessarily a bad rating. I go to 2-rated restaurants often and leave satisfied. Restaurants that get a 3 instead of a 4 likely did so because of a couple negative comments or because the value didnt match the experience. Getting a 4 is tough and earns an establishment membership in the 4 Club. Keywords Rather than getting into the sticky realm of food types, we just used general keywords to describe the restaurants.

If you have some better keyword suggestions, contact us at info@zenkimchi.com. Website (Clickable) If the restaurant has a web presence we include it here. Websites usually have that extra information youre looking for like opening hours, menus, and special promotions. Click on the link, and you can view it in your browser. Address (Clickable) Click on the address. It will open Google Maps and show you precisely where the restaurant is.

Nifty, huh? In this edition we only have the Romanized addresses. Weve tested most of these addresses, and they work well with Google Maps. If you have trouble with finding an address in a GPS sytem, remove the floor number or any extraneous bits. The main parts you need are the main number and the dong or daero. We originally planned to divide the map into special zones. Yet in compiling information we found that the gu districts tended to match the zones we had outlined.