Chaegundaam 채근담 - Seoul

Save them space before they leave. there is a considerable amount of food that comes, and it is all fantastic and would be a shame to waste. in any case an unforgettable eating out, and worth the price.

I was surprised to hear that they don't have a vegan suppe when I visited here. they must tell them to prepare vegan menus when a reservation. also one of their vegan courses have honey. ware! the vegan course menus are more traditional and have natural taste.

Eating here is good. some very interesting and unique dishes. a great temple food. a little expensive. a court had a garnel that hid in the middle. the waitress warned us what was good, but I guess there is confusion about what vegetarian means (let them vegan alone, as we clearly ordered a vegetarian meal and the waitress informed that we were vegan.

We visited the restaurant for dinner while in Seoul in Aug 2010. It is an easy 10 minute walk from the COEX Samseong (world trade center) subway stop. Go out exit 3 and walk straight (away from the COEX) for about 7 minutes 150 meters, across the hill top side crossroad turn right into a small street/alley just past the Mercedes Benz building, and it is almost immediately on your left (downstairs). It is a fancy place with delicious food and excellent service (I think best to make a reservation if you can). They did appear to have some menus with fish (not sure), but they had at least 3 fixed course menus that were all vegan (they speak some english, but we also used our vegan passport to let them know we were looking for all vegan food). We choose one of the mid-priced menus you would certainly pay more for a meal like this in the US courses just keep coming in waves, and just when you think it might be over, another whole set of dishes is delivered and we tried a specifically Korean fermented beverage (sort of like beer) call Makgeolli and it was very good. As with so many of the Korean veggie-oriented (since probably not technically all veggie) restaurants we visited, the proprietor was very proud of the food and the place, and wanted to let us know about the dishes, etc. Overall, definitely worth going out of your way to visit this place; best meal we had in Korea.

I made a reservation in advance for a birthday dinner through email, arrived on the scheduled date and time, but the restaurant was closed. If they had informed us earlier, we could have made other plans. This is very disappointing customer service.