We hit the ground running in Myeongdong a little after 4pm and the plan was to visit YB Republique for a late lunch (or early dinner). But after spotting a O'Shake banner in the corner of my eye, our plan changed on the fly and instead we decided to have ourselves a frosty milkshake first.
Speaking of O'Shake, it's been a hot commodity in the social network and travel magazines of late. Their devil's shake has been featured everywhere from instagram, facebook to some of the most popular magazines in Hong Kong so for a milkshake lover like me, it would be difficult to pass up.
Located across the street from the once-popular Milky Bee Ice-Cream parlour, O'Shake can be found on the first floor of fashion boutique - Lapalette. This week, they are offering two devilish flavors in the series - nutella with pretzels and oreo with oreo cookies. These come in two sizes (tall: 6,900 won and regular: 3,900 won) and are one of the richest and heaviest shakes you can find on the streets of Seoul. They're well worth the detour if you ask me!!!
Every month, Seoul's highly competitive food scene sees a large number of restaurants and cafes come and go and on this trip, we couldn't help but notice the closed doors of Milky Bee Ice-Cream. We were talking about one of the busiest cafes in Myeongdong, with literally hundreds of people lining up for their rose-shaped ice-cream cones everyday. Now the lineups were gone and they were looking to shipping away their fridges too.....
Food Rating: 5/10
Price: ₩₩₩
Address: 11-26 Myeong-dong, Jung-gu, Seoul, South Korea
Closest Metro Station: Myeongdong
Tel: +82 02-3789-0125
Website: www.o-shake.com
For the third straight time, we decided to stay in Myeongdong for the obvious reason that we couldn't possibly find a more centralized location in Seoul to get around the city. But this time, we are picking a different hotel though, with Lotte L7 Hotel Myeongdong, newly opened on 12th January, 2016 getting the call.
I must say, I was mighty impressed the moment I stepped out of the airport shuttle bus into the hotel lobby. The simple design with a touch of comfort is exactly what I need. And I like their idea of sneaking something yellowish in there from a couple of signage to an occasional chair as yellow is often considered to be "the color of the mind and the intellect" and it's supposed to evoke positive psychological qualities like creating happiness, optimism and confidence.
In keeping the same design philosophy, the hotel boasts a lounge on the third floor with the pretty much the same color tone, and yes the occasional yellow.
The room is really well appointed. It's not considered spacious by any stretch of imagination but the simple design makes you feel right at home.
Other than a few design issues, I have no complaints about the bathroom although it could have been a little bigger or could have used a bit smaller toilet or shower room to give it more space.
We had a room directly facing the Myeongdong Cathedral which was very nice. The side streets underneath us were generally noise free at night so we had no problem opening the window for some much needed fresh air.
The location is perfect as it's only a stone's throw from the heart of Myeongdong and just a short 5-minute walk to the subway station and the airport shuttle bus stop. In all honesty, it's difficult to find anything that needs improvement here. Well, if I am being picky, there are two - (1) the air conditioning was locked to heater mode which didn't fair too well for us since it was around 15-20 degrees during our stay. So we had to open the window at night. (2) The pillow was a bit too soft for my liking. Would much prefer something a little more firm.
But other than those two minor issues, everything was near perfect.
Rating: ❤❤❤❤
Price: ₩₩₩
Address: 137 Toegye-ro Jung-gu, Seoul, South Korea
Closest Metro Station: Myeongdong
Tel: +82 2-6310-1000
Website: www.lottehotel.com/l7/myeongdong
Almost every one of my friends has been complaining about the lack of quality French bakery shops in Hong Kong the last couple of years so when we heard rumblings about the opening of Le Pain Quotidien in Wanchai, everyone was holding their breathe a little bit. Originated from Belgium, Le Pain Quotidien specializes in homemade bread, tartines, pastries and salad (made with organic ingredients) very much like my favorite French boulangerie Paul's Bakery. Not only was the Belgian bakery chain very successful in Europe (Netherlands, UK, France, Switzerland etc.), their worldwide expansion was also an impressive one having covering North America, South America, Middle East and now Asia (Japan, Hong Kong and India) with more than 220 branches in 17 different countries. This time around, they've teamed up with Dining Concepts, the city's F&B giant for their foray into Hong Kong (perhaps China is also in the works!?).
We were given the stop sign when we tried our luck to check out this place last time. They had this big "training" signage on back then but everything is in full swing now.
Of course, I wasted no time checking out their collection of bread and pastries at the counter.
I knew I had to try their éclair somehow. While these didn't look as sharp or cute as L'Eclair de Génie's colorful éclairs, they actually tasted pretty OK and definitely not as sweet as most éclairs in the market.
To the contrary, their lemon tart was a lot sweeter than I anticipated.
My first encounter with a Belgian hot chocolate was an interesting one.
I thought they've mistakenly brought me a large bowl of steamed milk but evidently not! Looks like I am supposed to pour the hot chocolate into the bowl of milk. Not exactly how I draw it up.
This was very light and foamy comparing to the typical French hot chocolate (Angelina!?)
Food Rating: 5/10
Price: $$$
Address: Shop G40-41, G/F, Lee Tung Avenue, 200 Queen's Road East, Wanchai, Hong Kong
Closest Metro Station: Wanchai
Tel: +852 2520-1801
Website: www.lepainquotidien.com.hk
