New shop specializes apricot-lavender puff pastry and other delicate treats

A wine label is more than a pretty marketing device. Most of the information printed there is highly regulated and can tell you a lot about what to expect. (Handout/TNS)Trumping whatever aesthetic value a wine label may have, its main function is to impart legal information to the consumer. As such, the bottler, winery or winemaker, as well as the legal authority in the country where the wine is sold, have an interest in shaping that information. For their part, the people who put the wine in th

Just a short stroll away from the bustling multicultural neighborhood of Seoul’s Itaewon lies the lesser-known, yet trend-setting street of Gyeongnidan-gil.A short walk from Noksapyeong Station, this stretch of road is filled with craft breweries, terrace cafes, unique restaurants and quaint shops steeped in culture and creativity. Located two blocks away from the main streets of this up-and-coming neighborhood is a narrow alley, nestled away in a residential district that is even further off th

These fancy beef patties are called tteokgalbi, literally translated to rice cake ribs. But don’t expect any rice cakes in the dish. The name comes from the way the minced meat is kneaded and shaped as rice cakes are made in Korea. Tteokgalbi is made with beef short rib meat. The meat is separated from the bones, finely minced and then marinated. The marinated meat can be attached back to the rib bones before being cooked. Here, I simply shaped them like burger patties. Beef short ribs are an ex

　If one good thing came from the years of communist control in Hungary, it was to hew Hungarian winemaking to its traditions.　　For the most part, Hungary’s wine is still made as it has long been made, by small vineyard owners and wineries and down-to-earth, everyday folk. Fertilizer use is infrequent; sustainable farming practices are common.　　This somewhat bucolic image belies Hungary’s past as a winemaking country. From the 17th to the early 20th century, Hungary had the third-most sophisticat

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At around 12:40 p.m., people started lining up in front of Lee Sung Dang Bakery’s modest-size branch inside a department store in Jamsil, southern Seoul. The reason for the wait is the bakery’s signature red bean buns which come out at 1 p.m.“The line isn’t too bad today,” said Lee Yoon-mi, a customer in her 50s carrying five red bean buns and five vegetable buns on her tray. “I am just glad that I don’t have to go all the way to Gunsan to taste this treat.”Lee Sung Dang, the oldest bakery in Ko

Despite the vast demand for additional chains in other, more populated areas like Seoul and even abroad, Sungsimdang stubbornly refuses to expand beyond its three local stores, which have now become Daejeon landmarks. “We want to be unique to the Daejeon area and provide a flavor that people can only taste when visiting here,” said Kim Kang-eun, head of public relations at Sungsimdang. That flavor is the reason foodies and tourists from all over the nation have flocked to the Eunhaeng-dong area

OPS Bakery, BusanOPS’s signature menu is the hagwonjeon, which in Korean means “pastry for hagwon,” or after-school lessons. The idea was to create a simple, hearty snack that Korean children could gobble down with a glass of milk before heading to an evening of grueling studies. Made with eggs and honey from Gyeongju’s Mount Tohamsan, the sweet, spongy cake embodies a typical Korean mother’s caring for her child, said OPS.Another specialty of the bakery is the pollack roe baguette, which combin

During the recent Jeonju International Film Festival, everyone who visited Jeonju seemed to have the same souvenir in mind: a box of bakery PNB’s famous choco pies. The bakery’s bright orange shopping bags were ubiquitous around its branches, and hourlong lines snaked around corners.PNB (also known as Pungnyeon Jegwa) first opened in 1951 in Jungang-dong, Jeonju, and has been passed down through three generations. Instead of choosing to continuously change and expand its offerings, the bakery ha

Street food is an intrinsic part of Korean society, and where there are cups of dried squid, heated silk worm larvae and bowls of spicy rice cakes, there are also pastries that are uniquely Korean.Walk down almost any bustling shopping district or high-time nightlife area and street food vendors selling various types of pastry and cake snacks are an inevitable find; whether it’s the ever-so popular “boongabbang” ― a red bean paste-filled sweet pastry shaped like a fish ― or the sweet-eggy goodne