Eastern European Food in Wolgok-dong

As fun as it is to check out restaurants in the more popular areas of Gwangju, an activity that has quickly been growing into a favorite of mine has been to explore the lesser known parts of this place I have called home for the better half of a decade. Lucky for me, I have great friends who seem to enjoy exploring and eating way too much food like I do. At least, that’s the conclusion I came to after a recent trip to Wolgok-dong.

I ended up going on this very memorable adventure with my friends, Cupcake and Lollipop. The idea was originally brought forth to us by Lollipop, who speaks Russian and had been kind enough to map out the area during her own exploration. To call this area in Wolgok-dong “Russia Town” seems wrong, as there is so much more to this area that is bustling with cultures from all over the world. It should also be noted that while there are pockets of these various shops and restaurants in the neighborhood, they are spread out over the span of a few blocks throughout the area instead of being in the same place. From a business perspective, this makes sense, but if it hadn’t been for Lollipop setting markers from her first trip, these treasure troves of deliciousness would have been close to impossible to find.

Please do note before reading that my knowledge of food beyond what I’ve had in places I’ve visited is fairly limited. As a result, I would like to apologize in advance for any mistakes that  may be present in this post, and welcome any corrections or extra information sent my way. As someone who is eager to learn, such knowledge is always appreciated!

Our journey, which was delayed by a visit to a nearby Chinese grocery store, began at a small mart called Семья (Family), which I definitely spent way too much time in. While the shop offered an impressive selection of teas, canned goods, and all sorts of other ingredients and condiments that offered no information in English or Korean, my attention was immediately drawn to the fridge filled with cured meats and fancy cheeses. It goes without saying that I had no idea what sort of flavors these items had, but the act of randomly grabbing whatever looked good and wasn’t too expensive seemed to suffice at the time. As I obsessed over the savory side, Cupcake and Lollipop were busy grabbing all sorts of small candies and chocolates. When it was time to check out, all of our attention turned to the different types of bread. Ignoring the fact that we would shortly be on our way to a restaurant, we ordered some baked goods as Lollipop, being the beautiful human she is, answered the many different questions I had. My memory is a little foggy, but from what I recall, I believe we walked away with a pair of Piroshki (baked or fried buns), one filled with pork and onions and another filled with cabbage, and Vatrushka (pastry with cream cheese in the center). Everything was delicious, though we were all wishing the savory options had a little more filling. The cream cheese was also much sweeter than expected.

After our first stop, we headed over to Кафе Гранд МИР (Cafe Grand MIR) for a bite to eat. Though Lollipop did state that this wasn’t exactly her favorite spot for food that reminded her of home, it was one of the only restaurants that had a picture menu. This proved to be most helpful, as there were no translations available in either English or Korean. The menu offered a wide variety of food, such as salads, soups, meat dishes, and even fried goods. As is common with these smaller, family-owned restaurants, only certain parts of the menu were available at the time. This wasn’t an issue for us, as there was still plenty available and we wanted to avoid eating too much so that we could have room to do some proper restaurant hopping. We ended up ordering the Pelmeni (meat dumplings), which came in a soup with sour cream and fresh dill, the Kievski Kotleti (pounded chicken breast topped with mushrooms and melted cheese), and a jug of Kompot (homemade fruit juice). The dumpling soup was tasty, though it reminded me quite a bit of the Korean version of the same thing. Lollipop informed us that these adorable little dumplings, which were quite simple compared to other pockets of deliciousness I’ve had in the past, were available frozen for purchase at nearby shops and were actually much tastier when boiled, buttered, and topped with sour cream. The chicken dish, which was quite hot due to the lava of extra flavorful cheese on top, was nice, though quite salty at the same time. I found myself enjoying the mushrooms over everything, and wished I had ordered a salad or something much lighter to offset the richness of the dish. The tangy and sweet fruit juice definitely helped a lot with that.

Walking away a little fuller than intended, we made a stop at another Семья location, which was more of a cafe and had a couple of different items compared to the first store. It was there we noticed someone dropping off fresh baked bread from the nearby Imperia Bakery, which we practically ran into after being teased with the aroma and promises of delicious carbs. Quickly moving up in ranks as one of my favorite bakeries in town, I was shocked by both the variety and affordable prices of these baked goods that I had been promised were not surprisingly sweet. This bakery was also a shop that sold similar goods as previous stops and a restaurant that had a nicely organized picture menu and so much food I wanted to try. We held back our temptation to eat more here, as Lollipop was excited to take us to one of her favorite restaurants, but that didn’t stop me from purchasing a sausage bread pastry that reminded me so much of kolaches that I ate back in Texas, as well as Lepyoshka (circular bread), which was only slightly bigger than my face.

By the time we stopped at У Нataли (At Natali’s), a shop that was also near the bakery, it didn’t take us long to realize that most of the stores offered very similar goods. Lollipop ended up buying some mystery cured meat here, and there were so many other items we wanted to buy and try. Still, a lot of what was available was mostly identical to what we had seen at other places. Not wanting to make our bags any heavier than they already were, we made the trek to the mysterious and well-hidden Согдиана (Sogdiana), which would be our last restaurant stop. Though small, the restaurant was quite busy and filled with customers and staff who neither Cupcake or myself could understand. The menu, which was written in Cyrillic on a whiteboard, was impossible to make sense of without assistance from Lollipop. At least, I assumed as much until a very young waitress came to our table to see if we needed any help while speaking in near-perfect English. As we were craving protein, we got three orders of Shashilik (meat skewers), making sure to get chicken, pork, and lamb, a simple salad, and a pot of black tea. We were informed that the meat would take a while, but we certainly didn’t mind as we sipped on hot tea and consumed pieces of complimentary bread. The salad, which came heavy with cucumbers, tomatoes, and onions, was fresh and ended up being a nice contrast to the large pieces of juicy, perfectly cooked meat. Considering that the skewers looked big enough to be small swords, the single orders of each type of protein proved to be enough to leave us satisfied, though it should be noted that we weren’t starving when we arrived. My personal favorite was the wonderfully seasoned lamb, which still had pieces of rendering and slightly charred fat that melted with each bite. Writing about my memory of it is actually kind of painful, as I miss it so much. I only wish we could have gotten less raw onions than we got, as it was hard not to feel wasteful after being unable to eat the large portions we had been given.

Before we ended our fantastic adventure through Wolgok-dong, we made sure to make one last stop at the first Семья, which just happened to be close to where I parked. I had seen this layered dessert which I later learned is called Medovnik (honey cake), and felt compelled to buy it to take home after passing by it at so many of our stops. It’s a good thing we made that stop, as we also ended up picking up some Samsa (flaky meat pastries) for Cupcake’s husband, Big Fudge. After a long drive through the snow, we ended up hanging out at Cupcake’s place while gloating about our day to the very hungry Big Fudge. Despite being full, I was glad to see that everyone had the same idea as I did to try some of the meats, cheeses, and bread we purchased for ourselves, as well as the cake. As we prepared a makeshift platter, we also made sure to steal pieces of meaty pastries, which came in pork, beef, and lamb, off Big Fudge’s plate after he had heated them up in the oven. I personally preferred them over the previous pastries we had, but I’m a sucker for that flakiness. The cured meats and cheeses were tasty, with the former being salty and the latter being rather creamy and mild, and they all went beautifully with the fresh baked bread that Lollipop had purchased right out of the oven. I also didn’t realize until after forcefully chewing down a few pieces of what looked like salami that the edges definitely needed to be peeled before consumption. As for that honey cake that came in beautiful layers, our minds were blown at first bite. Though it had been sitting out all day, the cake was surprisingly moist, tender, and flavored beautifully with honey. It feels strange to admit that a cake I’ve never had before has basically left me questioning cakes I’ve said I enjoyed in the past. I can only imagine how amazing it is when eaten fresh, as we were practically fighting for that last piece.

While this post currently stands as one of the longest posts I’ve ever written, I hope that it’s enough to encourage anyone who has made it this far to venture out beyond the better known parts of this city to this smaller, but exciting neighborhood for a proper visit. I personally can’t wait to go back. If anyone asks, I will be needing much more of that cake for future celebrations.

Stores & Shops:

Семья (Family)
Address: 광주광역시 광산구 월곡동 54-1

Семья Cafe (Family Cafe)
Address: 광주광역시 광산구 월곡동 510-1

Imperia Bakery
Address: 광주광역시 광산구 월곡동 509-10

У Нataли (At Natali’s)
Address: 광주광역시 광산구 월곡동 509-13

Restaurants:

Кафе Гранд МИР (Cafe Grand MIR)
Address: 광주광역시 광산구 산정동 941-3
Hours: 10:00 – 02:00

Согдиана (Sogdiana)
Address: 광주광역시 광산구 월곡동 533-8