2018's First Meal

2018! I still alive, breathing, and healthy which I pretty grateful enough for that. 2017 has been quite hard for me, maybe the hardest time I ever had before. But, I don't want to remember the bad thing and I want to say thank you to God for everything for right now while praying in this 2018, and for the next, I'll always be happy, be able to enjoy foods 3 times per day, have a home as shelter to keep me warm and surround by lovely friends & families. I'll just pray for a simple thing whose making me always be strong and grateful to face the world.

Okay, enough for sad stories and let's start my story about My 2018's First Meal from Butterfinger Pancakes / 버터피핑거 팬게익 located in Gangnam Area. 2018's First day, the weather didn't really cold compare 2 days before, the Gangnam Area which usually packed with people not really crowded, made my step lighter than usual. I met my closest friends and straight away to Butterfinger Pancakes because of we all starving and ready to savor our first meal in 2018.

Because the food selections are very "western," Butterfinger Pancakes quite popular with Korean and foreigners who have lived in Korea. When we arrived there, we need to wait around 10 minutes for the table and I can see a lot of foreigners inside the restaurant. The restaurant interior looks American old breakfast cafe, with tall chair and table, and cashier desk with an American restaurant theme.

After we got our table, we are rushing to pick the foods, varied menu choices made us very excited and every menu seems delicious, but in the end, we decided to pick 1 sweet food and 1 salty food (I went there with 2 friends). We ordered Split Decision Plate and Triple-Berry Pancakes with Ice Cream.

Okay, finally the Split Decision Plate served at our table. It was my very first meal in 2018 so I'm pretty excited for that. Split Decision Plate was amazing, on the menu they wrote "Can't make up your mind? Then. We'll decide for you!! You'll get a bit of everything!!" And that's really good decision when we the menu was served. Eggs, Pancakes, French Toast, Breakfast Sausage, White Sausage, Grilled Ham Steak, Bacon Stripes, Seasonal Potatoes are completed served on the same Plate, Split Decision Plate. Like they said, I've got everything! It was a perfect combination of the delicate pancakes, perfect french toast, combined with the tasty and salty Sausages. The Seasonal Potatoes were my favorite, it was smooth and tasteful. Split Decision Plate was like typical American breakfast and that was a perfect fit for my taste. The price quite high, but it is worth compared with the taste and you absolutely can share with friends (I have small belly, it was like impossible to eat that by myself).

Price: 22,800₩

The Triple-Berry Pancakes served beautifully includes Cranberry and Blueberry Pancakes covered with house-made Raspberry Cream and Vanilla Ice Cream. It was another perfection! After filling my tongue with salty taste the Triple-Berry Pancakes was the perfect choice to wash our mouth with sweet and little sour taste. The pancakes, of course, awesome, they soft and sweet while the Cranberry and Blueberry give a bit sour taste, the combination was perfect! The house-mode Raspberry Cream was soothing and delicious, I felt like eating yogurt, the texture was soft and very well matched with the Pancakes. And within a minute the Triple-Berry Pancakes was gone!

Price: 12,800₩

Butterfinger Pancakes now being my list "The Restaurant I need to come again." I feel like it was a really good choice to start my first day of 2018. The food was great and I like the interior as well, the price not really cheap, but the food's taste was great so I think it was worth and you can share with friends as well.

How to get there:

Butterfinger Pancakes Gangnam / 버터핑거팬케익 강남점

13, Gangnam-daero 61-gil, Seocho-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea 06615 / 서울 서초구 강남대로61길 13

Telp: 02-352-5740

Working Hours: 07.00AM - 03.00AM KST

Seoul Subway Line 2 to Gangnam Station exit 10

When I woke up on my January's first day morning, I just put my hand together and pray for the good thing in my life, I'm praying for an ordinary life full of happiness.

Nobody wakes up thinking, "My world will explode today." "My world will change." Nobody thinks that. But, sometimes, it happens. Sometimes, we wake up, we face our fears. We take them by the hand. And we stand there, waiting, hoping, ready for anything.

I want to make my 2018 being a good year for me because 2017 has been the hardest year I ever had in my life. I just will continue life positively and gratefully.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2018.

I hope life treats you kind.

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Blooms On Your Cake

Finally, I can touch my blog again after every crazy busy day in my life. I really want to escape to somewhere just alone and don't want to think about what's going to happen next. I just want a life with a peaceful mind, just one day.

Okay, then I wanted to take you throwback to the last Summer Holiday when I tried to keep my mind peaceful with do activities which fun for me and help me to forget about hard things.

Did you remember I ever write about Flower Cafe on my last post? Actually, I really want to learn how to make that flower so I pretty curious about that until I open my Airbnb application to looking a new experience I can try. When I open my Airbnb I found "Blooms on your cake. Making flower rice using White Bean Paste." And I just very interesting with that and without any mind, I registered this activity.

Finally, after waiting for 1 month the day is coming. I went to an area called Seongbukdong (성북동), this area is one of the areas in Korea, which still dense with Korean Traditional things, the building and the house still stay with the Traditional concept. After taking a long way to get here, I'm arriving at the front of the place. The house was very beautiful and clean, everything very well organized.

After taking a long way to get here, I'm arriving at the front of the place. The house was very beautiful and clean, everything very well organized.This home itself is a guest house called I'm Green Guest House, Yon Woo and Ki Tae couple are I'm Green House owner, both of them very friendly and nice. If you want to spend your holiday in Korea, I greatly recommend I'm Green House as your accommodation. You can take a see more information on this link - I'm Green House

After introducing myself, we finally get started to make the White Paste Bean flower. The First lesson was to make Rose flowers. As for your information, all the tools have been ready to use and you don't need to prepare anything from home. Okay, here we go, follow me!

After introducing myself, we finally get started to make the White Paste Bean flower. The First lesson was to make Rose flowers. As for your information, all the tools have been ready to use and you don't need to prepare anything from home. Okay, here we go, follow me!

ROSE FLOWER:

1. Put some the 앙금 (White Bean Paste) to a bowl, then pick your own color! Because I love purple so I picked purple as the main color. And stir that until the color mixes well. Because we are going to be created some gradation, we put white color White Bean Paste after the purple one.

2. After all the colors were ready, place the purple color bean paste and right after that the white color bean paste in a piping bag with tip.

3. Let's be ready to make a rose flower, first, you need to make a strong pillar with the bean paste, just hold the tip at the top of like flat circle shape (I don't know the name). Make sure it was strong enough, and you can freely push that with your hand to make that firm and strong.

4. After that, let's start to make the rose petal one by one, you need to round the petal around 1/3 of the pillar and keep repeating that. To make a good shape of a petal, you must start every petal from the middle of the last petal.

5. And the flower DONE! If you see it looks very easy, but actually didn't. You really need to be patient, careful, and thoroughly to make the petal.

After done with 3 Rose flowers, it's time to make the rice cake! It was simpler than I thought!

RICE CAKE:

1. Grind the rice flour. Pour water into the rice flour and rub it until there wouldn't be any lumps.

2. Sift the rice flour using a sieve 2 times.

3. Add the sugar and mix it well.

4. Fill the half of the silicone cups with rice flour, then add 1 teaspoon of jam and fill the second half with rice flour rice to the top.

5. Boil water in the steamer pot, half of the steam pot amount of the water is enough. Put the steam pot plates with the rice cakes over the steam pot, and steam them for 25 minutes.

6. After the rice cakes are steamed turn off and wait for 5 minutes.

7. Replace the rice cakes from silicone cups into cupcake paper cups.

Because we need to wait for around 25 to make the rice cake steamed well. We back to make another flower. The step almost same with the rose flower, you just need to change the color of the bean paste and the shape of the tip. The different just after the pillar you need to make a hole in the middle of the flower to make some flower's stamens. And this time I picked a red color!

After that, the steamed rice cake seems to be done. And we ready to put the beautiful flower bean paste on the top of steamed rice cake.

The first one is the Rose flower, for this, we need all the rose flowers (3 flowers) to make one cupcake. First, we need to put glue (for food) and put one by one Rose Flowers on the top of Steamed Rice Cake, after that put you need to fill empty space between the flower with the green color of Bean Paste by using a piping bag with a leaf tip. For the finishing, you can put the white pearl in the top of the flowers. Beautiful, isn't it?

The second one is the other flower because the size of the flower was bigger than the rose flower, we just need to put just one flower on the top of steamed rice cake. And don't forget to put leaf as well. I really satisfied with both of my creation. :)

Done with all the rice cake making, we back to the kitchen to make some 팥빙수 / Red bean shaved ice, the ingredients you need to make are Red Bean, Frozen Milk, Mochi, Dry Almond. If you want to put another topping you can put topping like Jelly or something like that. And put all the ingredients in the cup of big glass and pour creamy milk on top of that, then our beautiful bean paste flower.

After all done, Mr. Kitae already prepared Flower Tea for us. We beautiful table setting, we ready to enjoy our Red bean shaved ice and Flower Tea. The flower tea has very beautiful purple color, this Tea made by drying Purple Globe Flower. When you put the Globe Flower inside the hot water the color carefully got out and made beautiful magenta color. The color was a perfect match with my red bean paste flower. We enjoy the tea and shaved ice while talking each other.

If you want to try the same experience with me please click this link "Blooms On Your Cake."

How to get there:

I'm Green Guest House / 아임그린

4, Seongbuk-ro 23na-gil, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea 02879 / 서울시 성북구 성북동 217-25

Direct Airbnb link CLICK HERE

Transportation information:

1. Seoul Subway Line 4 to Hansung Univ. Station (한성대입구역) gets out to exit 6

2. Transfer to green mini bus No. 3 (pass 7 stations; 15min.)

3. Take off Yangssi shop (양씨가게)

4. I'M GREEN house is very close to the station (1min.)

For me, that day was the first time I met with Mrs. Yon Woo and Mr. Kitae, they really nice couple and their home were wonderful, someday if I have planned to stay for a while in Seoul (I live in another part of South Korea) I definitely will be staying in their place.

It was a great experience for me, meet someone new, learn something new, and found my another talent to make rice cake and white bean paste flower.

Cheers for new friends and new experience!

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