Food in Seoul: Groceries Vs. Eating Out

To go grocery shopping at Korean Tesco (Homeplus) or just go out and have a lovely meal cooked for you?

One of the many things that we exchange students need to consider before studying abroad is the host university's country's food and drink culture. Exchange students probably do not have to worry as much when they're travelling to Western countries such as Canada, USA and Australia, but for places like South Korea I would highly recommend checking out what they have to offer.

Korean food is carb-y, meat-y, and most importantly spicy!

Unfortunately in Korea, almost everything has meat in it. So no it is not vegetarian friendly.
Whenever I was with a vegetarian friend it always took us longer to find places to eat at because the menus tends to be filled with meat dishes. Even the most vegetarian friendly looking dish can have a tiny bit of meat in it.
There are 2 vegan restuarants in Seoul (Loving Hut), but travelling to them is just inconvenient. However, they do sell vegan and vegetarian produce at the store, though very limited amounts at high costs. Vegetarians are better off hitting grocery stores for veg and cooking at home.

Also, if you're Muslim, finding Halal meat is even more of a chore. Having spoken to a friend who is a Muslim exchangee, she tends to eat in and cook for herself as opposed to eating out.
When I ventured Itaewon once I saw some stores stating that they sold Halal meat. However, I didn't check the prices.

Traditional Korean food in Insadong! Spice levels were mild, a few of the side dishes weren't spicy!

Spice haters don't suffer as much since approximately a third of Korean cuisine is not spicy at all. There is always something on the menu that isn't spicy, or if you're unsure you can ask. Note that anything covered in red basically mean it's been cooked in gochujang or some spicy sauce, so I would advise you to avoid those.

As a non-picky eater with nothing to hold me back, I can eat in and out freely.

I will publish another post soon on drinks and drinking culture in Korea. This post's focus shall be on food.

Groceries

Surprisingly groceries in general in Seoul tend to cost more than England , especially in supermarkets like Emart and Homeplus. This is why many students here could be found shopping in privately owned grocery marts frequently, it's just relatively cheaper.
In Anam there are around 3 marts near the KU accommodation area. The one closest to the accommodation, along the walk up, offers amazingly discounted ice cream. There's a 70% discount sticker on the ice cream freezer box, and everything inside is pretty much around 500₩ or less than 1,000₩. Always get your ice cream here after a hard day of work.

Fruit in Korea is relatively more expensive if not the same prices in England. The cheapst batch of pre-packaged apples I could find prices at around 50p per apple. Bananas here cost more than England. In England you can get 7 pieces for less than £1, here 7 can cost a bit more than £1 depending on the weight and size of the bunch. Oranges at convenience stores like GS25 were almost 3,000₩ for 3 pre-packaged oranges, so that's around 50-60p each. The grapes here tend to be sold in multiple bunches. You can find a box of 3-4 bunches for 10,000₩, 2 for 5,000₩, and 1 for around 2,500₩. Unfortunately the grapes here taste artificially sweet, well at least the purple ones do. If you ever tried grape juice packaged in Chinese/Japanese/Korean bottles it is basically what the grapes taste like here. Also, I have yet to see any vendor selling seedless grapes.
Vegetables are relatively cheaper than fruit in Korea, again more expensive than England if not the same price. A pack of 3 aubergines in Homeplus around around 2,700₩ (£1.50), young pumpkin at a super cheap price of 900₩ (50p), enoki mushrooms less than 900₩ (50p-), spinach around 2,400₩ (1.40), pack of large tomatoes (3-4) at 2,300₩ (£1.30).
After talking to a few people about the fruit and vegetable prices here in Korea, one said fruit is expensive because most of it is imported. Another one supplied that the goverment puts a lot of tax on fruit and veg produce for some bizarre reason - then again his English wasn't that good so I may have to ask again in future for him to clarify.

Meat is expensive in supermarkets, you're just better off eating meat in restaurants.

Go for the discounted stuff!

Rice can be sold in raw grain bags or packaged in microwaveable plastic 'bowls'. If your accommodation doesn't have a rice cooker just settle with the microwaveable ones. Ottogi offers better value microwaveable rice since you get a lot (around 300g?) per 'bowl'. 
Bread is sweet here. It is incredibly hard to find savoury bread. Even sliced bread is sweet. The breads and bakery you buy from the bakery section/shelves in convenience stores are sweet as well. You can't escape! I have seen Homeplus sell baguette at 1,700₩ (pricier than England), I haven;t bought it yet though so I have no idea if that's sweet as well. I hope it isn't.

Cheese and  and yogurt are pricey as well. A pack of 10 cheese slices is around 2,400₩, parmesan a lot more. The variety of cheese you can get here is small as well, you pretty much have a choice between processed cheese, grated cheddar, camembert, grated mozerella, and grated parmesan. Anything fancy you're going to have to hit Itaewon probably. 
Weirdly enough they do sell Activia yogurt here, a pack of 8 for around 3,500₩ when on promotion. The price is not too bad. But I have yet to see them sell big pots of yogurt for around £1 (2,000₩+).

Eating Out 

Chicken and beer places are open pretty much 24/7 or until
late. A chicken platter shared between 2 costs 16,000₩
Samtong Chicken: one of the best chicken Anam has to offer!

Eating out in Korea is relatively cheaper than eating out in England. Excluding fast food chains, in Korea you can get a decent Korean meal for around  3,000-10,000won (£1.70 - £5.80), whereas in England it costs 8,000-20,000₩ (£5 - £12+) or even more. 
Western food such as pizza, pasta, steak, and curry tends to be 10,000₩+, however Japanese food can be cheap at around 5,000₩ a meal. There are 2 Japanese stores down the main street of Anam near Olive Young and Watsons that offers such a bargain. There is also the pricier option of visiting Saboten for Japanese food where prices are 10,000₩+. In Anam, you can also get Indian curry, Koreanised-Chinese, Mexican , Brazillian, and Italian food.

In the long run I would say eating out can cost more than shopping for groceries and cooking for yourself. Because you eat out perhaps twice or thrice a day, you can end up spending up to or around 20,000₩, which yes it is dead cheap in comparison to eating out in England but definitely not cheaper than cooking for yourself in England. 
How much you can save by cooking for yourself in Korea depends on what you cook and eat. This is why I always aim to just purchase the much needed veg (which can be cheap) at local marts and aim to eat in at least once or twice a day. 

Pumpkin porridge with free banchan!
Bonjuk: rice porridge restaurant
Ate at Myeongdong, there is an Anam branch too.

Korean menus tend to offer a lot of carbs (rice) and meat (chicken and pork, with not so much vegetables unfortunately. However, you do get 'banchan' with almost every Korean meal that tends to come in tiny little dishes. Kimchi is the most common banchan offered from personal experience, which isn't bad considering Kimchi is one of the world's most healthiest food. You can also get 'namul' which is basically sliced or chopped vegetables steamed, marinated, or stir-fried seasoned with sesame oil, salt, vinegar, minced garlic, chopped green onions, dried chili peppers, and soy sauce.
If you're looking for a place that sells a plate of vegetables then good luck. I have yet to find somewhere that offers this. The most you can find that resembles green and healthy are salads. Salads aren't that common, but they do appear on some menus that tend to offer more Westernised food. Say, a sandwich shop. There's a chicken breast sandwich shop near the Hyundai Print store (located in front of KU's Politics and Economics building) that offers 3,500₩ chicken breast salad and 'diet' salad. The chances of you finding sweetcorn in this salad is 99%.

Le Gouter: coffee base pizza

Korea has a thing for sprinkling all their Western foods with sweetcorn. They also love offering sweet potato flavoured food and drinks. Here in Korea you can find a 'Sweet Potato Latte' in chain stores like EDIYA COFFEE - said to be the cheapest coffee shop chain store in Korea. You can also get sweet potato puree crust pizza as well as coffee and cream cheese. At Le Gouter - a pizza place located somewhere on the 2nd floor of a building in Anam, it offers the said coffee crust pizza. Also, if you present your KU ID card there you get money off!

So which?

In sum, Korean groceries and restaurants are cheaper than eating out in England. How much money you save depends on what you eat. So have a mix of both. 
Although you can save more money by buying cheap groceries and cooking for yourself in the long run, it wouldn't hurt to eat out once a day or a couple of times a week. You might as well seeing as eating out in Korea is relatively cheap in comparison to England. Furthermore, in England Korean food is expensive anyway. So take advantage of Korea's cheap traditional Korean food while you can! Try food that you've never heard of before, food that is not available in England, the bizarre sounding ones can actually be delicious!

So here are some recommended tips:

Anuok: God of Bingsu 18,000₩ (3 person seving)
You have got to try patbingsu in Korea, it's declious!
Next door to Anuok is a patbingsu place that sells it really
cheaply at no more than 4,000₩ per 1 person cup! They also
do ice cream and frozen yogurt.
These places are along the main street heading towards
KU's accommodation.

• In the more warmer seasons eat out more, in the colder seasons cook for yourself more. 
• Focus on buying veg when grocery shopping, you're going to need it.
• Shop in marts more because they are cheaper.
• Shop in supermarkets (Homplus, Emart, etc.) for more variety.
• Avoid buying breakfast everyday and just settle with grocery bought milk, cereal, bread and etc. 
• Wander around the area and take note of menu prices - take pictures if you must! 
•  Don't be afraid to enter stores that don't seem foreigner friendly, because KUBA may have provided an English translated menu for us foreigners!
•  Learn how to read Korean in case English isn't available
•  Learn about basic Korean dishes and meat types such as kuksu, naengmyun, bibimbap, bulgogi, chamchi, haemul, and etc.

In future - perhaps Winter time or early next year, I will post an 'Eating Out in Anam' guide for all KU hopefuls after I have visited pretty much every store. 
I will also post up a separate post on the Korean marts around KU's accommodation area.