Insadong Korea Town

Insadong in Seoul is one of the memorable tourists attractions. With its one stop attraction, tourists get to enjoy its traditional cultures from its craft works, galleries, food as well as korean merchandise.

Let's look forward to a unique dining experience in a setting identical to the popular Korean Street Insadong in Resort World Sentosa!

Insadong Korea Town

Likewise in RWS (Resort World Singapore), this 6000 Square Feet of capacity of over 3000 diners is specialised with Korean Food and offers over 200 types of authentic Korean, Korean-Chines, Korean-Japanese and Korean-Western Cuisine with a variety street food from their kiosk.

Food Supplies were air flown directly from Korea and the kitchen is manned by a team of chef expertise handling authentic korean recipes.

Entrance

Welcome by the colorful lanterns of the walkway entrance with several self service kiosks line up in a row. These artificial intelligence machines had brought advancement to our dining experience where diners can get to view all 200 over dishes in the system and pay directly.

Order Here

The machine will then churn out a ordering chit for consumers to go over to the respective kitchen counters for collection.

Cashier

Drinks and desserts counters are easily accessible as they are located directly on the left as we entered the Korea Town.

Drinks/Desserts Collect Section

Being proud of their own culture, almost 99% of the furnishings were shipped directly from korea including the titles, food kiosk as well as lattice. Not only that the Insadong Korean Town project group like architect and contractors were all handled by Korean.

Interior

Interestingly, besides the Authentic Korean Cuisine that we have all known, Korean cuisine does have their fusion with chinese, Japanese as well as western food. Thus I would say that Insadong is all well prepared to fix the majority tastebuds even with the different kinds of tourists coming from different parts of the world. A look over to the kitchen-linked counters will simply tell us more.

Collection Counters

Distinctively korean style, diners not only get to savour the korean yummies in an authentic korean settings, they also experience their culture of having food / snacks from the kiosks. Let's walk over to the kiosks and check them out!

Dining Interior

Apparently, the guys from the roasted meat kiosk is busying cutting up the food into presentable portions.

Assistant at work

While at the other side of the kiosks, the assistant is preparing the ribs for the orders.

Ribs

While at the other kiosks, preparation of Tappoki is done.

Assistant preparing food

Snacks like these were also part of the kiosk.

Snacks from the streets in Korea

Consumables are also on sale, do get them from the merchandise.

Merchandise

Finally after rounds of recce in the Korea Town, I settled down with a cup of Iced Honey Citron Tea from Insadong Korea Town to welcome our tummy to the start of Korean Feast!

Iced Honey Citron Tea

The first dish that keeps the ball rolling was none other than this korean Staple, Toppoki. Carbo based, its a dish that fills up the stomach fast. Unlike the traditional chinese rice cakes that comes in flat forms, these korean Rice cake are in tubes form lavished in their spicy sweet sauce with sesame seeds.

Toppoki  (Korean Rice Cake)

Next on our table was the Kimchi Pancake, a hearty snack or appetizer to koreans. Im always amazed by the use of Kimchi in their meal from being an appetizer or side to even in making pancakes. Mixing the multipurpose kimchi with flour and egg, the koreans have it whipped up as another dish on the table. Every piece was rather weighty and soft with a crunchy touch on the pancake's circumference.

Kimchi Pancake

I'm always overwhelmed by their refillable sides and appetizers which filled up the entire dining table at a korean restaurant. Luckily what we were given comes in a tray of three with pickles, anchovies & kimchi.

Appetizers

Ginseng chicken Soup is one of my favourite dish from the Korean menu. After some sharings from the lady boss, I learnt that Ginseng Chicken Soup can consumed in 2 different style, the plain and the milky form. Traditionally, chicken was stuffed with soaked sweet glutinous rice, herbs like gingko nuts, chestnuts and ginseng were added to boil out its maximum flavours.

The chicken is served in whole as one serving. The gingseng flavoured meat is tender and tasty with the rich soup being rich and delicious.

Korean Ginseng Chicken Soup - $28

Don't be surprise if you see these delicate Xiao Long Baos on a korean Menu.

Xiao Long Bao - $8.50  (6pcs) / $11.50 (10pcs)

These Xiao Long Bao are rather delicate and comes with thin Bao Skin, it requires some skillful chopstick skins if not you will get to see the soup bursting out from it.

XLB

Enjoying bossam involves in wrapping lettuce with the delicious boiled pork with various items like kimchi, cut green chilli and garlic pieces then add a little bean paste or chilli for taste. The meat is boiled in a flavourful brine until it turned tender and sliced into pieces.

Bossam - $15 / $25 (Small / Large)

Though it is a simple korean dish, I would say the moist meat taste is rich, subtly flavored and yummy!

Boiled Pork Wrap

Having Xiao Long Baos in Kimchi soup has never come across my mind and I was startled by how creative the koreans are! If the soup is not spicy enough, additional chilli is given to suit your taste buds.

Xiao Long Bao in Kimchi Soup - $13

I was enlightened by the style of how Soju was served. About 1/4 of the watermelon was cut off and flesh from the watermelon was already blended into juice. Furthermore, the big watermelon was set to chill in the bowl of ice.

Watermelon Soju - $30

A big scoop of shaved ice was then poured in together with Korean Soju and set to stir.

Watermelon

And Ta-Da, Watermelon soju was then served into this gold colored aluminium cups.

Watermelon Soju

Pumpkin Spaghetti brought another surprise on the table. I have not try anything korean with fusion of western thus I' was rather eager to try out the dish.Initially I thought the spaghetti was salted egg yolk based due to that its creamy sauce was in bright attractive yellow. Strangely, a pleasant combination indeed. I'm not a pasta fan but I find this superb.

Pumpkin Spaghetti - $14

Remember to keep some of the Beef Bulgogi Baked Rice for the next dish.

Beef Bulgogi Baked Rice - $15

It is common to see 2 koreans sharing such a big portion. Usually we will share among 4 or more with a similar size of Bulgogi Hotpot. The Bulgogi hotpot somehow reminds me of Mookata from the Thai Cuisine as there are similarities from the pot used - bulging in the middle of the pot.

Heaps of vegetables like enoki, carrots, mushrooms, onions, lettuce were part of the mountain with its peak filled by marinated beef.

Mushroom Beef Bulgogi Hotpot - $36 + $4 (Meat of your choice)

With the help of Chef Emily (Korean) expertise, every item was cooked evenly. This involve constant stirring and cutting of the items at right temperature to retain the juiciness of the food.

Chef Emily on the Job

And viola! These are the end product from the mountainous level of food. Beef Bolgogi can be eaten directly from the pot or to be consumed with the baked rice above.

After cooking

The red bean pancakes are not forgotten! Simply love the golden brown fragrant sight with sesame seeds topped the dish. Red Bean Fillings are semi-sweet.

Red Bean Pancake - $7.80

Of all the waits and finally we had hit the desserts items. Presenting the JCone (in korean "jipangyi") - a common corn snack in korea that comes in a Letter J Shape injected with vanilla ice cream.

JCone - $6

Last but not least, the mixed fruit ice. Such colorful desserts gave a happy ending to the meal, always. With a scoop of vanilla ice cream and cherry topped the shaved ice, its another temptation we could not resist even though we are full from the meal, we still kept "another stomach" for such desserts!

Mixed Fruit Ice- $11

Insadong Korea Town is an eye opener to me. It really give me a close feel on how Korea has changed since my last visit to Seoul about 10 years back.

Rating: 3 / 5

Insadong Korean Town
Location: Resorts World Sentosa, 26 Sentosa Gateway (Waterfront) #01-30/31/32/33 Singapore 098138
Operating Hours: 11.00am - 10pm Daily (including Manna Cafe)
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