Cafe Mula • 카페 뮬라

If you’re reading articles titled somewhere along the lines of ‘Pretty Cafes to visit in Garosugil’, Cafe Mula (카페 뮬라) probably made it to 9 out of 10 of those kind of articles. Located in the quieter side of Garosugil (가로수길), Cafe Mula’s entrance is quite simple and almost hidden. Unless you turn your head and look into the small alley like path leading to the cafe, you could’ve easily missed the entrance of this place. What I love about this place is the glass rooftop that they have on half of the space of the cafe. The combination of the amount of natural lighting shining through the ceiling and the pretty interior that they have will make you feel like you’re having tea time in a beautiful greenhouse. I’ve been here a couple of times and for some reason, every time I was here, it’s always on a gloomy day (which I don’t mind to be honest) and I still like the place. Imagine being here on a sunny day when all the sunlight brightly lit the place. The atmosphere is probably even more awesome.

Since its opening day, the thing that people usually order when visiting this place is their Tiramisu (or at least that’s the picture people Instagrammed the most at this place), so I ordered their Tiramisu and a cup of hot tea on the side the first time I came to visit this cafe with my friend. The tiramisu was alright. I mean, I’m not an expert in Tiramisu or anything so I can’t really say if this is the best Tiramisu in town or not. I feel like there are so many cafes in Seoul that offer Tiramisu as their dessert menu and all of them just tasted similar (maybe they have the same recipe or got them from the same source? I dunno). But, in my opinion, I could use a little bit more ladyfingers and less of the mascarpone. It’d be nice to have the ladyfingers with the mascarpone instead of the other way around. Too whipped-creamy for my taste. But hey, that’s just me. On another visit though, I tried their green tea latte and it was pretty good. Solid green tea latte at this place.

If you’re looking for a spot to chill in Garosugil, I would definitely recommend this place. It was pretty crowded with both locals and tourists when it was just opened a couple of years ago, but I think nowadays, it’s getting less crowded. I’m not 100% sure but at least on my latest visit, the cafe wasn’t as crowded as it used to be. But then again, I went on a Monday afternoon, so that could be one of the reasons why.

Here’s a video of the place:

Cafe Mula • 카페 뮬라

Address: 서울 강남구 압구정로4길 13-12
Telephone: 02-6104-4541
Hours: 10:00 - 22:00 (Sunday - Thursday) | 10:00 - 23:00 (Friday - Saturday)

Instagram: @cafemula

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One In A Million • 원인어밀리언

When this place was just opened a couple of years ago, I swear it popped up so much on my Instagram explore page and it seemed like everybody went to this place to take a picture with the pink banner in front of the cafe entrance or their Instagrammable Rain Coffee menu. One In A Million (원인어밀리언) is probably one of the most well-known cafe in Hannam-dong (한남동) area. Both locals and tourists came to this place to either hang out or take pictures around the cafe.

I visited this cafe for the first time last summer during one rainy day and the place was pretty empty. There were a couple people inside but being it was a weekday and it was raining, the place was pretty quiet, which was perfect for me. The cafe has indoor and outdoor area and it is pretty spacious. Marble tables, black chairs, and white walls dominated the interior of the space with the combination of green plants placed around the cafe.

Since I’ve been here on a couple of different occasions, my friends and I got to try a couple of different things. Since I always go for the non-coffee options, I ordered their grapefruit ade and green tea latte. They were okay. The carrot cake wasn’t bad either. My sister tried their coffee and she said it’s not bad. My other friend actually ordered their Rain Coffee, which is essentially a hot Americano served with cotton candy. I didn’t try it, but it’s definitely pretty to took pictures at.

All and all, I think this place is a good place to hang out at with your friends if you’re looking for a cafe around Hannam area. They have the drinks and dessert menu with pictures on a tablet so it’s pretty helpful when you are deciding what to order, especially if you want to order a pretty-looking drink menu from the selections. I didn’t really took a whole bunch of pictures here, but hopefully the video could give you a good sense about the space.

Here’s the video of the space:

One In A Million • 원인어밀리언

Address: 서울특별시 용산구 한남동 684-62
Telephone: 02-794-2414
Hours: 11:00 - 23:00 (Monday to Saturday) | 11:00 - 22:00 (Sunday)

Instagram: @oneinamillion_cafe

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Daelim Changgo Gallery CO:LUMN • 성수동대림창고갤러리

Daelim Changgo Gallery CO:LUMN (대림창고 갤러리 컬럼 also known as 성수동대림창고갤러리) is probably one of my favorite industrial café that I visited when this type of cafe started becoming popular in Seoul. Prior to my visit to Cafe Onion, I actually stumbled upon this cafe way before. Two years ago to be exact. Let me tell you what makes this place one of my favorite. As you may know, Seoul has a lot of cafes. The cafe culture here is pretty big and you won’t have a problem finding cafes to hang out at. What I found out from my multiple explorations is that there are more smaller cafes in Seoul than the spacious ones. You’ll be more likely to find cafes with ten to twenty seatings in different neighborhoods than cafes with seatings more than that (I’m talking about the non-chain cafes here. Not the big chain cafes).

Located in an industrial neighborhood and having big storage buildings as neighbors, Daelim Changgo’s exterior doesn’t necessarily screams hip cafe (the building was used as a storage space and a rice mill at some point after all). I thought it was a foundry at first. For real! I took a peek from one of the windows and saw what seemed to be a metal sculpture on display. I was curious what this place actually is and decided to hang around for a bit.

After a couple of minutes, I noticed that different groups of young people start entering the building through the big wooden door. And they don’t look like they work or have any business in a foundry. Most of them look like college students or group of girls that are hanging out. At that point, I concluded that this place is probably not a foundry and decided to follow one group of girls that was entering the wooden door to check out the place.

Imagine my surprise when I walked into the space and found out that it’s actually a cafe and art gallery. The space was huge for a cafe. Exposed beams, high ceilings, and the combination of concrete and brick walls give this whole place a very industrial vibes. But combine that with the art installations, furnitures, and plants that they placed around the space, they actually made it a pretty cool place to hang out at. And not only that, the cafe also have four different seating areas in this space—two different section on the ground floor and a more smaller area on the second floor and a rooftop area if you want to enjoy the weather. I mean, you gotta understand, to me this felt like such a contrast to the cafes I’ve been to prior to my visit to this place. And it was so good to found a place that is so different than the ones I’ve been to before. Granted these days, there are probably more cafes like this in Seoul but at least back then, this was still pretty rare I have to say.

Anyways, I ended up hanging out here for a bit. Ordered a drink, took a break, and looked around the space. My tip for you is this is a good place to go to when you are hanging out in a bigger groups. The chance of you finding enough seats for everyone is probably higher here since they have a lot of seating areas (although the place gets pretty busy during the weekend). They also have extensive food and drink menu. For drinks, they serve coffee, tea, non-coffee options as well as beer. For their food options, they serve desserts and also lunch and dinner menu ranging from soup, salad, pasta, and pizza. Plenty to choose from. And oh, one more thing, if you do come to this place, give that big wooden door a good push when you are entering. The door is quite heavy and it does took some effort to get it to move ;)

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(p.s: photos are from my first visit two years ago.)

Daelim Warehouse Gallery CO:LUMN • 대림창고 갤러리 컬럼

Address: 서울 성동구 성수이로 78
Telephone: 02-499-9669
Hours: 11:00 - 23:00

Instagram: @daelim_changgo

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Zapangi • 자판기

I think every single one of you who has been searching for popular Seoul cafes on the internet recently, especially on Instagram, has probably came across this pink vending machine image that has been popping up a lot lately. This place has been featured on several Seoul and Korean tourism related accounts and that only help boosts its popularity amongst tourists as well as the locals. I gotta hand it to them tho, having a pink vending machine as an entrance to the cafe is pretty ingenious. Not only it's pretty unique (there might be other places which has done this, but for me, this is the first time I've ever seen a vending machine as a door) but it is also a great incentive for people to come to this place just to check out this pink vending machine and take a picture with it. Good job Zapangi (자판기).

I actually came to Zapangi (자판기) on two different occasions. First, during a weekend and the place filled up pretty fast soon after I arrived. I was pretty overwhelmed by the amount of people who were in the space so I decided to try my luck on a weekday, hoping that there would be less people around so it's easier for me to take pictures of the space. So on my second try, I did go on a weekday afternoon and boy, was I wrong about my prediction that this place will be less busy on a weekday. Nope. It was as crowded as my first visit. The place was packed. Anyways, I tried their Jasmine Milk Tea and it was alright. It's not bad but it's also not something that I would come here specifically for either. They have other fancier drink and dessert menu options that are definitely more instagrammable, but I opted out from ordering those cos they all look very very sweet (I might be wrong tho. Anybody who has ordered them, let me know).

The pink vending machine itself is pretty cool I guess. If you come here specially to take picture with the vending machine, I have to warn you that there could be a bit of a waiting line going on since I guess everybody who comes here wants a picture on that spot (watch my video to see what I'm talking about). On both occasions I was there, there was quite a queue going on. Everybody is pretty civil, but you just have to be patient since almost everyone came in groups and try to do creative poses and plandids. So if you get there, and there's no line, I suggest you grab that opportunity to take your picture right there and then. And oh, another interesting observation, some people who came to the cafe and couldn't find an empty seats or people who was just passing by the cafe, they ended up just taking pictures with the vending machine and left. So I guess there's that option too.

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Watch the video:

 

Zapangi • 자판기

Address: 서울특별시 마포구 월드컵로13길 79
Telephone: 02-325-8185
Hours: 10:00 - 23:00

Instagram: @zapangi_official

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