Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Korean Veggie Buffet - Garobee

Garobee- veggie restaurant in Gangnam


Garobee is a vegetarian and vegan-friendly buffet restaurant in Gangnam, Seoul. While Sanchon in Insadong is classy, unique, spacious and special occasion-worthy (with its 40,000won per person rates), Garobee is cozy, sweet and affordable. Though a decent meal can be got for under 8,000won in Seoul, an all-you-can-eat-vegetarian buffet for those ravenous days can be quite satisfying at Garobee at 15,000won.


Garobee is located behind CGV in Gangnam
Pretty glasses all in a row!
Garobee is quite easy enough to find. Take Gangnam station exit 11. Find CGV movies. Garobee is located behind the CGV in a small alley.

Veggie Buffet in Gangnam
 There is decent salad bar with fresh veggies, fruits and kimchi of course,  and a special salad dressing each day. It was an interesting and quite tasty peppery pineapple dressing on the day we visited. The soup made with kelp was a bit hit with my younger one. As for me, i am stuck at "there is a smell associated with seaweed."

Not beef, only tofu!
Though this item looks like a beef dish, it is made totally out of tofu seitan (Thanks VeganBeats! )with the bean paste, cabbage, onions, capsicums and sesame seeds. This is used as a gravy to top the rice. But it was good enough to eat it alone too.

Tofu shells stuffed with rice
Fried Tofu shells with rice filling.
This is one of my favorite food at Korea. So easy to make too.  Tofu (soya paneer) is widely used in cooking in Korean food. Tofu is quite versatile and marinates well and can be grilled, sauteed, fried and boiled. Thick triangle chunks of tofu is fried and cut half way on the inside of the base to make a shell. Then, flavored rice is then stuffed into the shell. The shell is quite soft and not so brittle as we would imagine it to be.

Potato fritters and sweet and sour sauce
Deep fried golden veggies in tempura batter with sweet and sour sauce for the topping
The veggies- potatoes, sweet potatoes, pine mushrooms- were light and crisp while the tangy sauce was a nice accompaniment to it.

Thick noodles in soy sauce
Noodles in Soy sauce
 Pardon the shake, i guess i was getting pretty hungry by this time!


Soy Ham and cheese sandwich
Fake ham and cheese sandwiches
 The good thing about this place is that it does not only serve Korean food. There were these fake ham (tofu, again) and cheese sandwiches and potato fries with ketchup that my kids happily gobbled up! There were also some bread and a variety of spread for those picky eaters.

Tofu soup
Silken tofu soup
 There was also this whole section dedicated to bibimbap. With a lot of sauteed veggies, pickled veggies, dried and cut seaweed and the red sauce with the option of white Korean rice or the more healthy brown rice.
Plum tea
Plum tea was yummy
 And I really enjoyed the refreshing  plum tea. Must find out if the store-bought ones are as good as this one...
my cup of plum tea

the dessert
Korean Dessert
The dessert was not fulfilling though, with just one Korean sweet. (Which has to be eaten with sugar on the side for us sweet-toothed Indians!)

Garobee is a good veggie place but i am told there is a better veggie buffet elsewhere with even more options... Will unearth it soon.

10 comments:

  1. Wow...its all delicious. How can I stop drooling...? Lovely...

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  2. The food looks delicious. Thanks for visiting my blog.

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  3. Interesting recipes! Glad you enjoyed :)

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  4. I miss eating Korean foods!

    Catching up with Sky Watch Friday,.

    Sky Shots
    Thanks for visiting!

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  5. I'm loving these little lessons on Korean food.
    There's a lot of Tufu huh, and in so many different forms. So interesting.

    Hey Meoww, that plum tea looks really inviting.

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  6. Looks yummy... you can also try 'Loving Hut' at Achasan station.

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  7. The fake ham and "meat" (bulgogi imitation) is actually not tofu~ it's seitan. A meat alternative mainly composed of gluten.

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