Korean Style Croquettes

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MMMMM Deep fried anything… okay, before we start this FAPFAP, do you guise know what croquettes are? Because we only discovered them in Korea and we assumed that they were French because of the name, but they may not actually be French. French readers! Do you have croquettes in France? Other country readers! Do you too? Let us know where you are from if you do have them. I’m sure we have them in Toronto, they’re just not readily available at the many bakeries I’ve personally been too. Anyhoo, we are judging theses croquettes based on our experiences of Korean croquettes only, so I’d really love to hear input from anyone who has tried the croquettes in both Korea and in other parts of the world!

So this little shop called Chilly-Cha-Cha we stumbled upon just by chance when we decided to wander down a street in Hongdae we had never gone down. That is really the best way to get to know any area in Korea, just go for a walk and see where it leads you. There tend to be amazing coffee shops and restaurants hidden down the randomest alleyway. Just when you think a street is totally residential and void of all shops, you’ll stumble upon an orange glow and soon discover some random adorable coffee shop filled with customers happily sipping their secret coffee. SO MANY SECRET LOCATIONS! Hongdae is really filled with locations like this because it has so many alleys that extend off the main street (aka Parking Lot Street). Most people just stick to the sparkly main road or wander only a few restaurants away from the main street. WELL WANDER!!! I COMMAND YOU TO WANDER DO YOU HEAR ME! < ----Go back and read this in an echoey playlist mode voice...

Really not much else for me to talk about in this post because the video really embodied all our warm feels for the food. Simon and I disagree about our favourite choices, but really, all of them are quite yummy. Except you scary mystery meat. UUMMMMM… what was I going to say...OH! I know! I took a picture of the menu for you because it's totally in Korean (maybe one of the downsides to wandering off the tourist path) but don't worry, I translated it for you as best as I could. But what about mystery croquette? I rely on you, faithful readers, to let us know what it was we ate! Was Simon right with liver or was I right with fishcakey filling? Oh and if you visit the shop, let them know two crazy foreigns who made a video and ate eight croquettes sent them there, they'll know what you're talking about. :D

Here is their business card with directions: Hapjeong station is the bottom left corner, and Sangsu Station (the one that we started from in our video) is in the bottom right corner. We took Sangsu Station, exit 1 and just walked straight until we hit the Dunkin Donuts on the corner, and we hung a right onto Parking Lot Street. Then head on an angle towards the Family Mart (the first street on your left) and walk down that about 2 minutes until you see Chilly-Cha-Cha on the corner.

Croquette card

The menu: we translated just half, the rest of the menu had ddukkbokki, u-dong noodle soup, and drinks!

And, of course, we’ve got some extra scenes. We try to solicit a street kitty to sit and eat with us. But the kitty is an anti-social jerk! Why aren’t Korean street cats friendly? Street cats in Toronto: I pet so many of them back in the day! In Korea, though, they all run away. Not a single one wants to be nice. Ah. That’s a topic for another video.