A good place of spending time in a hipster’s gathering spot in Seoul

Full of Japanese sensibility in a cozy plant-terior ambience

Nestled in Mangwon-dong, Seoul, So Seol Won is a renovated 4-story house cafe. On entering, you cannot help but falling into a home-like coziness. Don’t get alarmism about stuffiness as the space goes up to the rooftop through second, third and fourth floors, not to mention distant and comfortable seats that secures privacy when you talk. Your worries relieved, now try to take a table, sit back and feel the Japanese tatami room-like ambience while choosing drinks and deserts. In fact, there are floor-heated seats, if you like, and you will rather prefer it during the winter. If you have a keen eye, you might also have noticed the bricks outside, and wooden and ivory finish inside. Your connoisseur observation done, it is time to focus on the specialty.

Many drinks and handmade desserts to choose

It is not gentlemanly if a cafe offers coffee-based drinks only since there are people who cannot take it. At So Seol Won, you and your friends can choose a variety of drinks from teas such as green, chamomile and oolong to name a few, to ades and the coffee-based drinks including trendy brown sugar einspanner. The So Seol Won’s signature castella-based desserts are classic, wormwood, strawberry whipping cream and peach yogurt cream. The dough is fermented with makulli (traditional Korean rice wine) for 24 hours to enliven the savory and sweet taste. The financier, a steady seller in the nation, lines up in salt vanilla, red bean butter, yellow cheese malcha and earl gray fig. For your surprise, pure milk pudding is recommended for classic flavor lovers while milk tea and earl gray puddings offer deep and fragrant edge respectively. 

For those with decision disorder, either Soolpang So Seol Bansang or Financier So Seol Bansang will give them a relief. *soolpang means a bread of wine, and bansang means a simple (half) table as opposed to a full set of table. The former consists of a pure milk pudding, an original soolpang castella, and two cups of tea or coffee. The latter comes with a salt vanilla financier and a perilla financier instead of castella. 

While social distance and wearing mask is almost fully lifted, the number of Koreans travelling to Japan is increasing. If you have missed the chance or plan to visit, So Seol Won is worth a try before you embark on a journey.