Foreign Food

The ability to cook for oneself tends to abandon most ESL teachers in their time in Korea; eating out is just far too cheap. Chances are, therefore, when you do find yourself in the kitchen the last thing you want is more kimchi and rice cakes - comfort food is the order of the day. Foreign food can be fairly hard to come by, particularly in terms of good dairy products, but most Homeplus shops will stock some of your favourites from home - at a price. UK cereals will set you back around 7000 won, a box of shortbread 5,000 while things like generic pasta sauce will be double what you pay at home.

As such, trips to specialist shops become a fairly regular necessity. Regrettably Suwon's offerings, from what we have seen, are sparse; Indian restaurants have small but well stocked embeded shops, while some supermarkets will have underwhelming sections dedicated to imported food. Unsurprisingly, meanwhile, Byeongjeom is even less equipped for foreigners. Indeed this sign, near the train station, sums up the ramshackle nature of the area's miniscule "international district" rather nicely:

Most seem to favour Costco for comfort food shopping trips. The size of a small country, the fact that visits to these institutions (there are several scattered throughout Seoul) generally come on weekends and public holidays for ESL teachers means it's not a particularly pleasant shopping experience - on thes days they are as overpopulated as Korea itself. And to be honest, the result is not worth the effort. A couple of mammoth blocks of cheese and some frozen food, drinks and sweets from home, the fact you have to buy in bulk can be a problem. It's barely worth the effort.

Our shopping trolley after a trip to Costco. Highlights include a block of cheese, chewing gum, diced tomatoes, basil and Junior Mints.

It came as a relief, therefore, to finally find the Foreign Food Market in Itaewon a couple of weeks ago. Market is perhaps too grandiose a term for this humble little business, but it's a decent-sized shop with a reasonable selection of treats from across the World. Its biggest selling point is its ease of use, and there's little doubting it represents a far less traumatic experience than a visit to Costco. Furthermore they also do free deliveries to anywhere in Korea, all you have to do is email.

The shop frontage and some of the stock displayed outside.

If you don't know where you are going, finding the shop can be difficult. Your best bet is to depart Itaewon station at exit 4 and walk in the direction away from the unmissable Hamilton Hotel. Three minutes down the road you should take a right, roughly across the road from Kraze Burger, and walk a further two minutes. On your left you will pass a place mysteriously-titled Foreign Restaurant as well as an Ethiopan restaurant and you should come across the piles of foreign goodies lying outside. The place itself isn't spectacular - you're not going to uncover crates of Irn Bru and dods of haggis - but a big block of good cheese will set you back 12,000 won, while things like butter, pasta and spices are reasonably priced and in good selection. Indeed it doesn't just cater for the abundance of American GIs who frequent this area - you will find tons of Middle Eastern and African goodies ensuring the bases for the majority of Seoul's expat communities are covered.

The mart is also situated right next door to What The Book?, unquestionably the best English language book shop in the city. Another good reason to choose here over Costco.

What The Book? boasts a good selection of foreign magazines and books.

A couple of people have also recommended buying food online at various websites. G Market is spoken of quite highly but as of yet we haven't tried it. We'll report back when we do.