Insadong: Tea & Dinner

Been here for a couple of times before. But, never been to any olden-day-dabang where Korean traditional tea is served in its original form. (well, sort of). OK, I wouldn't have been here as well, had I not been one of the liaison officer or 'a sort of volunteer' in Korea-ASEAN culture forum held last month in February, 2012. I got to take the delegates from Malaysia and Indonesia and accompany them to have or chip into the Korean dishes. 

That's why: dinner and tea at Insadong seemed an appropriate  option at that time: considering the distance from where the delegates were staying. 

Ok. first stop: dinner at a Korean restaurant where all Korean dishes imaginable or at least edible by the Muslim delegates of both countries were on display for them to enjoy. 

*****

Then off we went to a nearby tea-shop, a very rustically designed one. The nuance of old time Korea was somewhat splendidly preserved as perched on the ornaments and interior of the the tea-shop(?).

We did have a great time there.

Oh, did I mention the snack or gwaja, too? They were (too) also of traditional in style. 

Korean gwaja or snacks

We bought some of these Korean snacks that we did not know before.Ghana coco pie, corn chips, butter coconut chips, PEPERO J, cereal, strawberry cereal chips, and many others not visible there.

We can eat most of them. Most of them? Yes....because the particular coco pie was not something that we can eat since it contains gelatin from pig. So, it was a good thing that we knew it now. Some of our friends did not know it before so before consuming any gwaja, we should check the ingridients contained in the product. I was lucky to be able to read Hangeul otherwise it would hard to imagine what to eat here. The good thing about most gwaja in Korea was that (although...sadly speaking—they are mostly written in Korean alphabet ‘hangeul’)they provide ample information of what the ingredients were. In fact, most of them even show where they come from. Nice, right? So, the next time we buy something (any food) we’d always make sure that no pig or pork or any gelatin-like ingredients were inside or contained in them. I do hope that this information would be of help for others, too. Especially for any Muslims who concern about the halal labeling of the food—which is a rare case, yet.