PLANT in Itaewon

By Kristen

It has been a little over 2 weeks since I have arrived in Seoul, although it feels alternatively like I’ve only just arrived here and like I have been here for ages! I have to be honest in writing that I still feel homesick at times and that adjusting is a little more difficult when I realize that I’ll be staying in Seoul for a longer time period than just a vacation. I just began Korean language classes and may potentially audit a course with my faculty advisor at Ewha so I think the routine of being a student will help me to feel more settled. Of course, my partner and his family have been so supportive as well and I feel so lucky to have them because otherwise I would be even more of a nervous wreck than I already am! I supposed I should move on to the food though…this time, I am profiling a restaurant that I ate at over the summer with a friend. The restaurant’s name is PLANT and it is located in Itaewon, an area of Seoul that is particularly known for being foreigner-friendly. I knew of the restaurant through the owner’s food blog, Alien’s Day Out, which I had been following for a while! The restaurant is entirely vegan and while I normally am not drawn to vegan restaurants, the food porn on the blog has had me hooked. After a year of being tortured by those amazing photographs, I finally had the opportunity to go to the restaurant and try it. The restaurant is super cute with comfortable cushions on the back wall and despite its small size, it is super cozy and just the embodiment of cute. The chef and blogger’s specialty is desserts, but I found myself drawn more to the savory dishes, but that is solely because I am just now a cake or heavy dessert person. Which is not to say that these desserts weren’t amazing, because they definitely were! It’s just that I would always pick amazing savory foods over amazing desserts! In any case, the food here was simply amazing and definitely lived up to my expectations! We began with some drinks:

Soy milk tea (right) and strawberry lemonade (right)

My lactose-intolerant body was very happy for the soy milk tea. The strawberry lemonade was perfect for a hot and humid Seoul summer. As for the food, this is where I was really blown away. Between my friend and I, we ordered as much of the menu as possible and seeing that there are two savory choices that rotate every day, we got both:

Vegan burrito

Lentil burger salad

I have to admit that my mind is a little fuzzy and I cannot remember what was inside the burrito, but I did manage to take a photograph of the innards: I was blown away by both the burrito and the salad, but between the two, I think the salad stole the day for me. The lentil burger was smothered with a sauce that tasted very similar to a barbecue sauce and it was so rich that I felt as if I was eating a meat burger. I wanted more burgers despite being stuffed. The dressing was amazing as well: it tasted like a Caesar dressing and the little pieces of tofu(?) had the texture of foie gras terrine – smooth, rich, buttery, and just melts in the mouth. YUM. And on top of that, crusty bread. The non-vegan in me craved some butter and salt on top of the bread, but I was happy noshing on the bread on its own. Even though I was full after the feast, we could not skip out on desserts, especially since I have been tantalized by so many photographs of delicious desserts. We had two slices of cake: dark chocolate peanut butter cake and hummingbird cake, which consists of pineapple, banana, and coconut. YUM YUM YUM. I am not a chocolate cake person but I enjoyed this cake, especially that peanut butter frosting. If I could, I would eat an entire jar of it. As for the hummingbird cake, the fruitiness fit my style more and I love the dried bits of fruit inside.

Dark chocolate peanut butter cake

Hummingbird cake

The food was so good that we got some little snacks to take out! We ended up noshing on them a few hours later while lounging on the top of Namsan Tower! My favorite were the Mexican Hot Chocolate Snickerdoodles – it ended up being the most popular among me, my friend, and my partner. The coconut chews were a close second and they tasted like coconut macaroons. The pomegranate cranberry cookie bites received mix reviews, but I liked the tartness of the little cookie. The gluten free lemon drops were not liked by my friend and partner – the taste was described as “weird,” but I still enjoyed them, although I would agree that the Mexican Hot Chocolate Snickerdoodles stole the show. They were perfect though to sustain us after our trek to Namsan through the rain.