MIND BLOWING Korea CHEAP EATS & HIDDEN GEMS in Seoul | UNDER $3!

Whoa, tonkatsu for $3? How is McDonald's in business in this country? This is what I've been eating for breakfast most of the days I've been here. When I'm too lazy or it's too cold to go out, Magic Spoon cereal is pretty much what I eat. And of course a big shout out and thank you to Magic Spoon for sponsoring this video and supporting this channel. And today I'm eating this cereal with fresh blueberry milk. And to go along with my blueberry milk, I am eating the blueberry and the new flavor, the peanut butter Magic Spoon cereal. And I've told you guys, cereal is one of my biggest food weaknesses. I don't know if you saw my last breakfast buffet video. I just can't walk by cereal without getting a bowl. And I've actually gotten a lot of messages from you guys saying how much you love this cereal. That makes me very, very happy. I don't want to recommend stuff that doesn't taste good. Also this thing, no sugar, 11 grams of protein, 3 grams of net carbs and 110 calories per serving. It's gluten-free, grain-free, soy-free, no GMO, low carbon. Also for those of you who are on keto, it's keto friendly. But seriously, I don't know how you guys do it without noodles and dumplings. Couldn't last a day. They got awesome flavors like cocoa, fruity, frosty, blueberry, and they got the new flavors, which I have here, peanut butter and cinnamon. One of my new year resolutions as I get older is definitely to be more healthy and this will for sure help. So if you want to give it a try, use my promo code dumpling. You're going to get $5 off or go to magicspoon.com dumpling. Hey, it's me. It's Mike. I call this scooter head. This happens when you ride across the river and strong winds are blowing. Here's the plan for today with Krista. This is the area that's close to a lot of universities. So there's a lot of cheap eats around here. Oh, this looks good. Hot spicy chicken and cheese king is the best. Oh, let's do the cheese king. All right. This is smelling great. All for about $3 right now when the scallions are bursting with juice. So you get that and the juiciness from the chicken. It's spicy, a little sweet, very cheesy. $3 skewer. Not only is it ginormous in size, huge flavor. A plus, A plus must go. It's one of the best $3 I've ever spent. So this is, this is Korean donuts, sweet rice donuts, sweet potato donuts. Let's get this one. Three for $2. Sweet potato donuts. There's nothing in here, but just like chewy rice. It's so good. It's like a mochi donut. It's super crispy on the outside. Know what this tastes like? They sell this sweet potato ball at Taiwanese night markets. It's like a jumbo denser version of that. Supreme though. So if you step outside of this main street here and you hit this alley right here, look at this. Wow. All these little stores here, they're all serving super cheap, but really nice quality looking meals. Wow. Everything about 4,000 won, about $3. Tonkatsu for $3? That whole thing? No. How is McDonald's in business in this country? They just come here and get this? Oh yeah. Let's go. Whole tray of food, about $2.50. First, you gotta crush your sesame. Put some sauce on your salad. Look at this. Perfectly cooked. Crispy golden crust. Glistening meat in the middle. The outside is perfectly light and airy and crunchy. Just the most marvelous little subtle crunch. And I learned from what's wrong with Secretary Kim that this is the best part right here. From that guy she went on a blind date with that wouldn't give her a piece of his katsu. Like, come on. Come on, man. If you take someone out on a date and they want a piece of your katsu, you give it to them. Even if it's this piece, the best piece, according to him. I think I was onto something. That is the best piece. That's definitely the most crispy piece and probably the fattiest piece. On top of that, you get some miso soup, serving of rice, kimchi. I mean look, this is not going to be as tender as like a $15 piece of katsu. But at the price point, I'll come back to this place every single day. I just realized this is cheaper than that stew I just got. And it's pretty fulfilling. I mean, you finish all this, most people will be pretty full. Marvelous, Martin. Thanks so much, Krista. Oh, great place. Great place. Just making our way down to the next shop in this alley. The 4,000 Won. What is this? This is incredible. Look what we got for about $3 each. Spicy pork stew, just giant scallions on top, slices of onions, chili covered thin cuts of pork, soaking in this delicious spicy broth. And this, and this, that's gonna make a beautiful couple. And then the other one, kimchi stew with, oh my goodness, that is tender. Kimchi stew with this just ginormous cuts of, oh my god. Oh, oh, I didn't even use that much force. This thing has just fallen apart. This thing must have been stewed for a long, long time. Just breaking apart upon the slightest little squeeze from my chopsticks. And just chunks of kimchi here. And that's why they give you the scissors. But let's try the spicy pork first. That is a tender, spicy, delicious flavor filled by the pork. A lot of the pieces you can see here have a good mix of fat and lean meats. No wonder this thing essentially dissolves as soon as it hits your tongue. Little sweet, tons of heat, huge chili flavor absented by the fat from the pork that's slowly rendered into this broth. So I gotta take a sip of this broth. Oh, that's so good. My rice saw me do that, it got really jealous. It wants some too. Scoop of that, add a piece of pork onto the spoon, a little bit of sprouts, radish, and get it ready for liftoff. Not only is this good, it's so inexpensive and it's true what they say. At least for me, when things are cheaper, it just tastes better. The big chunk of pork. I like it better. Yours cannot do this justice. And they're using the aged kimchi. This is aged kimchi? Yeah. This kimchi, I was gonna say, is remarkable. First of all, it's soaked all that great broth in here already. So you just put it on your rice, have a little rice with it. There's a perfect balance between bursting out juice and a slight bit of crunch. And the pork, especially the fatty pieces right here. That piece right there, when I put it in my mouth, I didn't even chew it. I just kind of squeezed it with my tongue to the roof of my mouth, and that thing just obliterated. Oh, Krista is showing me a trick. This one, and then with some pork. With some pork, with some sprouts. Yes. And then one big mouthful. This girl knows how to eat. That's why we hang out a lot. All right, we'll try out the Krista method. Pork, kimchi. I'm kind of wondering how places like this in the last place we went to, how does that even make money? This is like three dollars of just amazing food. Amazing food. Crunchy sprouts with melty pork with that kind of like a in-between texture of the kimchi. This is like some of the best kimchi soup you ever put in your mouth. I come to this alley like every day. Me as a student, I will come here like at least three times a week. Oh yeah, this is so worth it. I mean, you can get a day's worth of great food for under ten dollars. And there's no tax, and there's no tip here. So the price is exactly what you're paying. Oh, that's another place with some of the best cheap eats you can find in Seoul for a 2,000 won sandwich. And a two dollar shrimp burger, which is actually pretty decent. Oh, come and get the thigh burger. Oh, love the thigh burger. Oh, I like this area. It's so nice. Breaking news, we just discovered something. What does it say? All-you-can-eat pasta for 9,000 won. That's like eight dollars for all-you-can-eat pasta. Suck on it. Olive Garden, your bottomless pasta bowl. Nine selections of pasta. Not cooked by a chain restaurant. All right, bad news. It's not open. We don't know why. We will update. We will update. Okay, so after some investigating, the pasta place hopefully will open again at five, which is about 15 minutes from now. But before that, we're going to hit. So this place has bulgogi for 4,000 won, but there's this other place that has bulgogi and seolleongtang. Seolleongtang and also another kimchi soup for 5,000 won each. Everything is like 5,000 won, so four dollars. This is the place, and it looks like it has more space. This place, as soon as we walked in, even with my mask on, you just get pummeled by that crazy bone broth aroma. Smells so good. So good. We got seolleongtang and beef bulgogi. If you don't know what seolleongtang is, it's really popular Korean bone broth soup, and usually it's pretty creamy looking, and they typically don't add any salt in here. So you add your own. A little salt, a little pepper, just a little bit. Don't add too much. Just a tiny bit, okay? That's remarkable. When you first take a sip, yeah, it's going to be bland if they don't add too much salt in here, but you're supposed to kind of just salt to taste, but there's no mask in this quality bone broth. Every sip you take, you just feel it go all around your body. And there's the pieces of beef and noodles in here. I honestly feel like the noodles are kind of extra. I even think the pieces of beef are kind of extra. Yeah, I did just say that. For me, I just want the broth. That's really all I care about. And Krista got the bulgogi. I feel like the bulgogi actually goes pretty darn good with these noodles. Like I said on my off days, sometimes I just don't want to eat too much. I kind of just want to have some soup. This is what I think about in this place for four hours. That's amazing. Bulgogi's good too, by the way. Honestly, like I've been eating this thing for two weeks in quarantine, like every single meal. I'm okay not seeing it for a while. I mean I still enjoy it when it's put in front of me, especially fresh ones like this. But it's definitely not been one of my favorite foods after leaving quarantine. This is my favorite here, though. Make sure you add some pepper, especially when it's getting colder now. It's warming me right up. So that pasta place, it looks like it's still not open. But right next to them, this is a really famous shop, right? Yes. And then for a pasta, it's also $4. Woohoo! $4 pasta. Let's go try it. Oh, three dishes for $21? Oh, that's a great deal. Wow, nothing's really expensive here. So this is the clam pasta only for $4.50 around. Soy chicken pasta for about $5. Spicy cream pasta for about $6. This is the tomato pasta for about $4. So this pasta is around $5. And at first glance, they seared the vegetables. There's some cucumbers in here, scallions, eggplants. Also besides this, they seared the fatty beef as well. Oh, it smells so buttery. I haven't had Italian food where, I think in this case, it's definitely like a Italian-Korean fusion food. But I haven't had something like this in a long, long time. Guys, this is the real deal. This is definitely not an impasta. This is so, so absolutely delicious. Oh, I love every single thing about it. First of all, the pasta is perfect. Perfect al dente. Little bits of garlic on top. And not only is this cooked in butter, it's cooked in a little bit of bulgogi sauce. So it's a tiny bit sweet, but not at all overly done. The vegetables, including the roasted chilies and eggplant, are fresh and crunchy and juicy. It's almost like a stir-fried noodle because the sauce, it just barely coats the outside of the pasta. And every bite is so buttery and garlicky, and also with a huge umami burst. It's just joy to the world to all my senses. Seriously, five dollars. That's a no-brainer. And you can trust me on that, guys, because I'm really good at no-brainers. Krista has a gluten allergy, but she still insists on eating noodles sometimes, which I'm really proud of you for trying, pushing through. So I told her she has to try this pasta. How good is that? I would risk my life. I would risk my body today for this. It's really good. It's really good, right? This thing is insanely good. It's unlike any pasta concoction I've ever had. It's like an east meets west pasta. It's amazing. Round of applause for Krista's pasta. Well look at the size of that macaroon. This is a regular size macaroon, and that's his daddy. One final meal. So this place, two different types of noodles. I'm gonna try the mapo tofu here. There's soup dumpling here. I'm gonna try that out. And slices of beef looks good. And spicy clams. This is definitely not part of the cheap eats tour anymore. This is just, I miss home. I miss good Chinese food. So far, this place is smelling like home. Beef noodle soup. You can see the noodles are dao xiao mian, knife-cut noodles. These are indigenous noodles from the province of Shanxi, and they taste good whether in soup or not. Oh, that's surprisingly amazing. Sometimes you gotta prepare yourself a little bit. When you know a good hit of chili is coming, and when you don't, it's gonna creep up on you. It's gonna creep up right in your throat. And this thing, they loaded it up with heat. And also, wow, this rich beefy broth. That tastes like home. That tastes like home. This is the best broth I had today. I mean, I love the Korean bone soup, but this is home for me. This is where the heart is. This gets me right here. In Korean words, super chewy. And the beef flavor has 100% invaded and has taken over the noodles. Look at this big piece of beef. Oh, it's so tender. And it's great because it has the little bits of tendon in here as well. Let's move on to the dry, dry noodles. This is the youpo mian. So what they do is they take the chilies and the garlic and the scallions, and they drop hot oil on it. Okay, there's minced meat underneath that as well. Wow, that's something new. Didn't expect. Sprouts, and then underneath all that, hand-cut noodles. Basically, the dry version of the beef noodle soup I just had. It's actually pretty darn good. Usually, the youpo mian is made with the biangbiang noodles, the wider noodles. But here, because the daoxiao mian, the knife-cut noodles, are so thick, they serve as a really great vehicle for anything with tons of flavor. You can taste where the oil flash-fried the chilies and the scallions. So this dish is not only about the texture and the flavor, it's also about the aroma. And as Obi Wan Kenobi once said, the aroma is strong within this one. Is that what he said? Same thing. I got this, this is jiangyou rou. This is one of my favorite things in the world. And you dip it in this chili sauce. It's okay. Not much flavor here. Soup dumpling. Quite a big amount of soup. Flavor is kind of okay though. That, that soup dumpling, that's a super average soup dumpling. The top of it was really thick. I mean, it's soupy, but the soup wasn't really flavorful. And it's kind of salty. Not my favorite. This looks amazing though. Spicy sautéed clams. Oh my goodness. Oh, this is great. You eat that with some rice, because that is way too saucy and flavorful to put straight into your mouth. For me, any excuse to eat rice, I'm gonna take it. And this thing, whoa, perfect with rice. This is a must-try dish if you come here. Super spicy, but the clams are just, oh, very fresh. Superb flavor. This is great. Whenever I see this dish on the menu, I just gotta try it. Mapa tofu is one of my favorite dishes in the world. That's good mapa tofu. That's really good mapa tofu. Oh yeah. Tofu itself is so soaked and soft. Tons of peppercorn, tons of heat. Very thick sauce that just goes perfectly with the rice. Little bits of minced meat and fermented beans in here. This and the mapa tofu from Panda Express. Best mapa tofu I had in South Korea. Yes, Panda Express. Your mapa tofu is amazing. This restaurant in general though, really, really good. If you come here, get the noodles. Beef noodle soup, I think it's better than the dry noodles. Clams are amazing. Get the tofu, stay away from the soup dumplings. The mapa tofu. It's so good. Are you dying? It's so spicy. Is it worth dying? Yes. To take that bite? The mapa tofu we're dying for. That's why we're friends. I would die for food. Dying from food is an honor. Don't actually die though. Don't actually die. Rice macaroon. I think it's permanently stuck to the back of my teeth. It's good, just a lot of it's stuck to the back of my teeth. That cafe we went to, go there and get the earl grey cake. It's like having the best tea ever. I don't even like earl grey usually, you know. Sound like such a, you know, like a British auntie kind of tea, you know. Earl grey with some biscuits. Sorry, I can't do a British accent. But in cake and in ice cream. Fabulous. That's good curry cake with a little carrot on top. But I feel like my favorite curry cake in South Korea is still one from Billy Angel. I think that's the best curry cake in South Korea. That was great. It was really good. So my favorite I think is the $2, $2.50 katsu. Yeah, me too. That's just the value of it. It's so crunchy as well. Alright, well thank you so much. I would never have found this place without you. So you've been in school here for like a few years? Yeah, I've been studying here for like one and a half years. So you know where all the cheap eats are? Yeah. As a student, you go for the best value. And sometimes the best value is the best food. Yes. Really. But appreciate your help again today. Till we eat again. Till we eat again. See you later.