Itaewon My Itaewon

For this month's Expat Diaries, I wanted to share a place Matt and I recently fell in love with. That place is Itaewon. {If you missed any of my past link ups, just click here.} 

Matt and I have had the opportunity to travel up to Itaewon twice in the last couple of weeks. {Many thanks to Korean holidays.} 

I had heard that Itaewon was the place to go if you wanted foreign food and a souvenir, but even knowing this Itaewon was NOT what I was expecting! 

When we got off the subway, I was so surprised to find this hipster like city within Seoul. I love everything about Itaewon! I was picturing a really dirty/ dodgy place where foreigners flocked to find the food of their home country. And while there are a lot of foreigners and there are tons of restaurant, it's one of the coolest places I've been too since moving to Korea. 

I am so happy we live so close to the city. I think this is such a blessing because I'm never too far from my Tex Mex! {This will really help when I'm feeling a bit homesick.} 

Speaking of food, let me show you what I mean: 

{For those that know me well, you will understand this picture perfectly. For those that are just getting to know me, I'll explain: 1. I am obsessed with Bubble Tea.... obsessed. 2. Ben's Cookies were in London and I would buy them all the time when I was living there. I am so happy Korea has a Ben's Cookies!} 

{I'm a sucker for anything with the word Ho in it, but this is hilarious... Ho Lee Chow - just say it a couple of times if you don't get it. :) Plus, you'll see a sign for an Indian restaurant next door.}

{We will definitely be stopping in here.} 

Okay, on to the food we actually ate. On both trips to Itaewon, we've gone knowing exactly what we wanted to eat. I am forever grateful to the expat bloggers who have shared their previous experiences in Itaewon. Both places we ate at were recommendations from Chelsea over at Lost in Travels! I am so glad we listened to her and ate where we did. 

On our first trip we ate dinner at Copacabana Grill. Matt had never gone to a Brazilian stake house, so I thought this would be a perfect place to try our first time in Itaewon. And I was right. This place was awesome. It was 30,000 won per plate, but for an endless supply of beef and salad bar- I would say fair price. I think back home the Brazilian stake houses are closer to $60. This place had such an awesome atmosphere. I loved everything about it, including them playing American top 40 type of music. 

{I love how Matt and the 'meat man' are smiling at each other. I don't know what this meat was, but it was my favorite. Hopefully it wasn't rabbit or something.} 

{They also had this grilled cinnamon sugar pineapple going around.... YUM... YUM... YUM!} 

Seriously, it was delicious. When we were walking around we saw a couple other Brazilian places, so we will probably try one of those just to see, but Copacabana was awesome. 

For our next trip, I again reached out to the twitter community asking Casey and Chelsea for good Mexican food recommendations. I was not let down! For this trip we tried Tomatillo's. It's kinda like a mix of Moe's and Chipotle. And it was amazing. 

{I got the Carne Asada quesadilla with a side of chips and guacamole, and Matt got the Barbacoa burrito. Everything was amazing.  We spent 30,000 won for this meal. I seriously wanted to go back for dinner.}

We have names of other restaurants to try, and I can't wait to go back and keep trying different places! 

Many thanks to those that gave us awesome food suggestions and if anyone has any others please share them! 

I see another visit to Itaewon in our near future for sure. 

{Link up by Postcards from Rachel and Lost in Travels}