The weather is the hottest its been in almost 20 years in Seoul. What can you do? Where can you go? Because sweating your pits in this smothering heat melts your bb cream away and leaves you crankier than being on your menses days.
I'll tell you where! Head to DTower in Gwanghwamun! It is the blocky building next to Gyobo building. You will know what building it is right away by the swarm of folks like you who are retreating to stay cool and eat at hip restaurants - they will congregate around the building because the first floor also has some cool cafes and little eateries that's attracting people like magnet. No doubt it's a cool space.
DTower to describe is a mall of well established restaurants. I mean this as in - you wait to be seated kind of restaurants. There are a few big chains there, but there are also the unique cool tasty ones that we have yet stepped foot in.
If you want to be safe, you can head to "power plant" - an area where you wait to be seated to choose from mini stalls(restaurants) of eats, like Manimal(bbq). The beer selection is also decent. It's like entering a special club, not a dance club, but "food club". The music blasted to ear drums sensitive mode and the temperature is cold(even for summer). It feels like you're at a hip club, but you are also chomping down on those Manimal ribs while you're trying to listen to what your friend is saying behind the loud music. Not family friendly unless you've trained your young ones to listen to metal and electronic music.
My husband is fond of Manimal. I am not. This was my first time trying their chicken bbq and much to my hyped up anticipation that it would be good as my husband says it would be, all is lost when I bite into the rather dry salty not unique in taste chicken piece.
The salad, cranberry sauce and cuts of pork was better than the bbq. I took solace in the salad. That's more of the type of food I prefer anyway. More veggies than meat. I appreciated my husbands enthusiasm for the food, but perhaps it was the elevation in expectation that proved it harder to be worth the price (foreign foods in Korea is so expensive than it should be).
