After lunch in Myeong-dong, we headed to Seoul Station, where we would take the KTX train to Busan. Busan is the second largest city in South Korea and is the fifth largest seaport in the world! It’s famous for the beaches and seafood! If you want to travel to Busan from Seoul, you can get the KR Pass as a foreigner. You can get unlimited travel from 1 to 10 days, depending on the pass you buy. It’s a much cheaper deal. For us, we purchased the 3 day unlimited pass, and used it for a round trip. You also get a discount if you’re younger than 25 or are traveling with more than 2 people. Purchase it online before you go, and you can select any time after your reservation date. It took around 2 hours to arrive, but since we left Seoul late, we arrived early evening. We stayed in the Haeundae area, which is famous for the beach. We walked around the area and found a bunch of bars. We ended up looking for fried chicken, since we always see it in Korean dramas. The restaurant was called Mubanna Chondak and is a chain restaurant in Busan.
Kimchi and Tofu
It was really difficult to communicate in Busan, since they seemed to know less English. The server was still very friendly and tried his best to recommend us food. After ordering, he brought us complimentary appetizers. There was a size of kimchi, which I found spicier than usual. There was also tofu with sesame seeds on it. The tofu really has no flavour, but K loved it.
Spicy Octopus
Next, we tried the Spicy Octopus. It came on a grill on top of a hot pot stove. There were around 10 tiny octopi! After one bite, we all realized how spicy it was! Super spicy! Not to the point where I couldn’t feel my taste buds anymore, but one where I wanted to keep drinking water. The octopus was so tender though! The sauce was also really delicious. A definite recommend!
Boneless Chicken in Chili Pepper Paste Sauce
The server recommended us to get the Boneless Chicken in Chili Pepper Paste Sauce. He said it’s one of the more popular dishes. Again, it’s in a chili pepper paste sauce, so very spicy. Definitely not as spicy as the octopus though. It’s a mix of chicken that isn’t fried or battered, and is mixed with rice cake, corn, peas and comes with a side of noodles. You’re supposed to mix the noodles with the chicken, which I found quite interesting. We loved the rice cake mixed in and wish there was more. Sadly, we were looking for fried chicken, so we were a bit disappointed that we didn’t have the real fried chicken we always see. He also ended up putting down 2 orders of this, as he couldn’t understand what we wanted. Oh well. Tons of leftover though!
The chicken also comes with a cabbage salad that is topped with ketchup and mayo. This was definitely needed as our food was quite spicy!
Steamed Egg
Lastly, we also got a Steamed Egg, which is filled with green onions. Not bad, and was something to help calm our palettes down.
Overall, the food was actually pretty good here! It’s quite casual and almost seems like a fast food restaurant. I believe you can also choose the spice level for the food. We had asked for mild, but it’s still pretty spicy… I guess Koreans can really take their spice!