FIVE: Comfort Foods from my Neighborhood

The best thing about Bundang is I can go on for days without cooking and still survive. No, make that thrive. My neighborhood has a slew of groceries, restaurants, pojangmacha (streetfood stalls), pizza shops and french-inspired bakeries with reasonable prices that there is no excuse for me to go hungry at all.

These are the top five eats from my neighborhood ☺

EGG TARTS from Paris Baguette. Paris Baguette is an ubiquitous Parisian-inspired chain of bakeshop in Korea. They sell French inspired treats –baguettes, choix, beautiful petit cakes plus a slew of Korean-adapted goodies. While all their products are consistently good, this is my absolute favorite treat from Paris Baguette.

Egg Tart: A buttery-salty crust enclosing a soft, wiggly delicious, creamy mound of eggy goodness with a slightly burnt top lending a sort of faint bittersweet burnt sugar counterpoint to the custardy flavor of the filling. Yum-O! In the Philippines, I remember there's a Lord Stowe Bakery, the Macau-based chain specializing in eggtarts, in Market, Market! at the Bonifacio Global City.

TWIGIM from my neighborhood Pojangmacha. Korea, if you do not yet know, is a haven for streetfood. Fried, boiled, barbequed, baked,sweet, salty, spicy and yucky(they sell roasted silkworm larvae by the cupful!). One can get by from soup to desserts just by eating at streetfood stalls (known here as pojangmacha).

My neighborhood pojangmacha sells yummy Twigim:

Twigim is the Korean Streetfood version of the Japanese Tempura. These are batter-dipped goodies made of veggies, mandu, squid, shrimp, sweet potato, sweet pumpkin, kimbap etc. Basically most food can be turned into Twigim! Just dip them in batter then fry! Twigim is to be dipped in light soy sauce (like tempura!).

My favorite twigim are the shrimp, sweet potato and sweet pumpkin variants. A pack of five freshly fried assorted twigims is only about 100 pesos here. Not bad for a cheap snack or even a light dinner fare.

Imagine a thin shell of bittesweet chocolate enrobing a hazelnut flavored milk ganache with a candied hazelnut in the middle. That’s how a GIANDUJA CHOCOLATE COROLLE from Jacquot tastes like. Sweet and small, a perfect and not too guilt-causing indulgence.

A box of these Jacquot Chocolate set is priced regularly at about 800 pesos for 12 Corolles. Too pricey even for good chocolates. But once in a while, the grocery carrying these gems slashes the price in half and places a few Jacquot boxes on the sale counter. I, the inveterate bargain hunter, regularly checks the Sale Bin for these☺

RICE FLOUR DONUTS from Mister Donut Korea.Totally different from the soft, light as air donuts from KK, Dunkin and Doughnut Plant. I want my donut chewy, glutinous, and oh so delicious. Pictured below is the regular Rice Ring Donut.

It is made of rice flour, thus the slightly chewy consistency and that unmistakable, yummy cereal-y flavor. Plain, slightly sweet and very comforting. Think mochi, made into a sweet donut form. This is my donut of choice.

OKONOMIYAKI from the food hall at the neighborhood mall. If you are a takoyaki addict like me, then you will most probably love this. Okonomiyaki is a Japanese savoury pancake filled with veggies, pork strips, squid and seafood bits genererously topped with a sweet brown sauce, bonito flakes, green bits of nori, and mayonnaise.

There is that flavour profile – a starchy yet light pancake feel, the savoury flavours of vegetables, the tang of the seafood and the pork strips, and the salty fish flavours from the bonito flakes all tempered by slashes of creaminess from the mayo. A full order of this from the shop near my flat just about fills me up for dinner.


Sure, these are not the healthiest food on earth, but that is the point of comfort foods, right? Something you eat irregardless of calories because they taste and make you feel good ☺