Have you tried Korean pizza?

[broadway-bound3.livejournal.com]

The Weird And Wonderful World of Korean Pizza - Annette Ekin, Slate Online Magazine



Sweet potato crust, fig and snail toppings, strawberry and cream cheese: Seoul's pizza-makers aren't afraid to experiment.

Since the arrival of pizza, primarily through big American brands like Pizza Hut, which came to the Korean Peninsula in 1980, the culture around it has evolved and become Koreanized. The country’s pizza scene has grown diverse in recent times thanks to more Koreans traveling abroad and returning home to set up different ventures and demand from the growing foreign population. Today, there are the Koreanized chains, upscale eateries, places doing Neapolitan-style pizza, and casual spots to eat New York slices.

But “Korean pizza” is most often associated with the outlandish toppings-laden creations of the fast-food chains. The most “flamboyant” chain, in the opinion of one Seoul-based food expert, is delivery-based Domino’s. The “premium” section of its website lists its most dubious combinations, like “Cheese Cake Sand,” with cheesecake mousse and shrimp. During the Brazil World Cup, Domino’s unleashed the “Churrasco Cheese Roll Pizza,” a Brazilian barbecue and pão de queijo mashup with a topping of mounds of beef and vegetables encircled in glistening cheese rolls.

Pizza Hut Korea’s fall release, “Star Edge Pizza,” is shaped like a many-pointed star, with the points crammed full of cinnamon apple nut or cranberry-flavored cream cheese, and a surf-and-turf topping of sausage, shrimp, calamari, bacon, steak, and broccoli.

In Korea, the turnover of ideas and competitive experimentation tends to be faster than in the West, says Daniel Tudor, an author and journalist who lived in Seoul for seven years and is a co-founder of The Booth pubs, which specialize in craft beer and sell New York-style slices. The pace is a byproduct of the “compressed modernity”—and resultant consumerism—that the country experienced after the Korean War. “There’s always a desire for something new in Korea,” Tudor says.

When it comes to Koreanized pizza, it is Mr. Pizza that by many accounts does it best. According to Joe McPherson, a Seoul-based Korean food consultant and founder of the blog ZenKimchi, whereas other chains seem to plug random, new dishes, which pop up and quickly disappear, Mr. Pizza’s unusual creations stick around. McPherson finds Mr. Pizza better-tasting and consistent. “They don’t sneak anything on off the menu, but they’re also the king of the weird pizzas,” McPherson says.

[...]

Commenting on why [the customers] like Mr. Pizza, the bank employees say the recipes tend to be more toned down than at other chains. A table of business students say they like the promotions. Lunch at the all-you-can-eat salad and pizza bar costs 9,900 Korean won (about $9). À la carte customers can choose crust fillings such as egg tart custard, cream cheese, mocha-flavored cream cheese, or the bright-yellow sweet potato—a common feature at different franchises—which has a light, whipped texture. Other discernible Korean “classics,” like the potato wedge, bacon, and mayonnaise pizza, are available at Mr. Pizza, as are dishes called “Seafood Island 2,” which has coconut and a border of crumbed, deep-fried prawns, or “OmyRib,” featuring ribs and barbecue sauce.

[...]

And seeing pizza as something malleable, according to Jennifer Flinn, a Seoul-based Korean food expert who ran a bilingual food blog, has in turn nurtured a culture of experimentation. Koreans have a “less fixed image of what a pizza is,” Flinn says. Pizza is “just a strange foreign food that somebody brought over.”

It is also a bread, she adds, which has an “indeterminate place” in Korean culture, particularly among older Koreans who view it as a snack food rather than a proper meal, which necessitates eating rice. “Because it’s a snack, you can play around with it more,” she says. “If you just go, ‘Oh, it’s a flatbread with usually cheese on it,’ you’ll go different places.”

I Have a Dream, a kitsch restaurant decorated with bric-a-brac, Barbie dolls, and theater paraphernalia, located above Gangnam’s labyrinthine subway station, is home to one of the city’s more unusual pizzas. The almost exclusively female clientele often orders the strawberry pizza, an ultrasweet dish that the restaurant has been flogging for four years. Strawberries feature in the dough, as the sauce, and as the topping. It’s baked with mozzarella and served with lashings of cream cheese icing.

The female customers will usually order the pizza as a main to share with a pasta dish, says Yoon Seok, the head chef. Seok thinks that the dish is popular in part because, as Korean women are known to take good care of their skin, they’re probably attracted to the health benefits of the fruit. With this logic, Seok introduced a fig and snail pizza—many Korean cosmetic brands feature skin care products with snail extracts—hoping it would catch on. It hasn’t.

[...]

Korean pizza-makers and cultural observers generally agree that women drive food trends in the country. In fact, it’s no surprise that Mr. Pizza first opened near the Ewha campus; the area was then a trend incubator, but more than that, the Korean chain is clearly focusing on the women’s market. Its slogan is “Ladies First”—past slogans were “Love for Women” and “Made for Women”—and its advertising campaigns are women-focused. A commercial like “Mr. Pizza Does Shrimp” depicts eating pizza, for the woman doing it, as pleasurable and liberating.

[...]

[Pizza shop owner] makes it a point to keep up with his clientele. On Sundays, his day off, he tries new restaurants with friends or bikes around the city to check out which eateries are crowded, and what trends he can discern. That’s how he discovered that places serving patbingsoo—a red bean and shaved ice dessert—were attracting lots of customers. “I have to use it,” he recalls thinking to himself. So he added a new pizza to his menu, which has whipped cream, red beans, melted cheese, and walnut powder. “I can clearly say, in Korea, especially women, they just love sweet red beans,” Kim says.

[...]

On a previous visit, [a pizza chef] shared with me her definition of “Korean pizza.” She said there’s already a pizzalike Korean dish, referring to buchimgae—a savory flour pancake that is made with different ingredients mixed into the batter. For her, Korean pizza is based on her cuisine, but what makes it a pizza is simply the addition of something foreign: cheese. For Alice, pizza is a food that’s far more Korean than it is anything else.



Source: Slate Online Magazine

This is severly edited to focus on the food. The original article is twice as long but still interesting to read.

So, Omona, if you've been to Korea, where's you're favorite pizza place? What do you usually order? (I like Monster Pizza in Hongdae and Pizza Alvolo which is a chain)
What's the pizza like in your country?

EDIT: Thinking about all this pizza and reading all the comments, makes me want to have a Seoul meet-up with any members living/working/visiting in Korea. How could I set that up?

Comments

[juhli.livejournal.com]

I know many people hate corn on pizza, but I love it. And I love how in Korea you mostly have to say that you don't want corn on your pizza instead of the other way xD

Sweet Potatoe Pizza is delicious as well! But I never eat the pickles they deliver with the pizza.

[ironicmustache.livejournal.com]

pickles in korea are the worst. sweet pickles = death

[uguukawaii.livejournal.com]

i usually never eat pizza in korea i dont like the weird stuff they put on and i feel like theres never enough cheese but all the girls at my dorm are always ordering it every night of exam period and since im vegetarian and the other option is the chicken the boys eat sometimes ill have to eat it for days on end lmao

anyway just speaking on korean food im home rn visiting my mother but like i want to eat 된장 찌개 so bad i always go to this family restaurant where its like 5000won per person and she gives u so many sides and all the cola and stuff u want and ramyun and everything and i miss it sooo much

anyway ill try the place in hongdae next time i go to cocoon!

[broadway-bound3.livejournal.com]

Just a warning, Monster Pizza in Hongdae serves New York-style pizza by the slice or a whole pie, and they only have three toppings: cheese, pepperoni, and Spice Girls (no lie).

[ironicmustache.livejournal.com]

KOREAN PIZZA IS EVERYTHING. foriegners complaining about corn on pizza annoys me so much lol

fav korean pizza chain??
mine is: 1. pizza school 2. 59 pizza 3. pizza hut 4. dominoes

[bi-bing-ka.livejournal.com]

lol I love Korean pizza too (corn and all) and i like dipping it in honey haha. I tried Pizza Alvolo recently and it's really good. One of my co-workers is really health conscious and ordered us a pizza from Alvolo with the dough made from black rice. The dough was purplish in colour but it was delicious!

[smilla-sini.livejournal.com]

We often used Domino's bc their site had English version.
I lllooooove sweet potato pizza, but all of my friends hate it, so we didn't order it much. =///

[yulins.livejournal.com]

korean pizza is something i don't think i could get used to lol

pizza here is usually savory, so the sweet toppings w/ mozzarella just doesn't sound appetizing to me. to each their own, i guess.

[yakuniku-8.livejournal.com]

I love this vegetable!! But it's hard to find a good pizza with it. I don't think it's American style though.

[figus204.livejournal.com]

Really close to my dormitory there's a "Pizza School" and I eat there all the time. But I'm also really boring then it comes to pizza so I always go with the "Cheese pizza".. since it's not only good but really cheap too.. like 5000 won for a pizza that's enough for dinner and lunch isn't bad at all. And the owners are really nice :3

Also I don't really mind the corn.. at least not on that pizza. It was worse when I was in Thailand because there they had peas on all the pizzas - although that was like 10 years ago so maybe that's changed? lol

[yakuniku-8.livejournal.com]

I've never tried Korean pizza. How is the paste? I'm curious but I prefer thin paste and simple pizzas, Italian style.

[jrt131n.livejournal.com]

From what I have heard some have said that some korean pizza is sweet. They like mixing things that you wouldn't think to put in a pizza. Corn, cream cheese, sometimes strawberries. I don't think I could get behind some of those toppings. I'm like you in that I like classic pizza. Though I did have one that had grilled chicken, bacon, red onion, pickles, mustard. My god was that pizza amazing. Every time I think about, I start drooling.

[kaninasan.livejournal.com]

corn and cream cheese on pizza is weird? we do it all the time here lol. my country loves to put tons and tons of toppings on pizzas, but most are what you'd expect to be on a pizza. except cream cheese and corn apparently. and there's a place here that makes a pepperoni and banana pizza, which is honestly very tasty. i didn't have any pizza when i was in korea, mostly bc my friend who lived there told me korean pizza was really weird.

[tokyocinema.livejournal.com]

pepperoni and banana?
that sounds so weird but it honestly sounds like it would taste good.

[waves-of-light.livejournal.com]

There is couple of Korean pizza places around where I live and I like that sweet potato crust. Have to be in the mood for it, though

[sra-interesante.livejournal.com]

corn its one popular topping on my country too (everybody loves it but me lol)
i have never tried korean pizza, but all those weird toppings sounds like something i could try

[lostnoodle0317.livejournal.com]

MR. PIZZA 0_0

AND AS A LIFE-LONG FAN OF CORN IN ANY SHAPE OR FORM, THANK YOU, KOREA, FOR PUTTING CORN ON MY FAVOURITE FOOD

[shanny-w.livejournal.com]

i buy bags of frozen corn and steam it practically every night.... so damn good

[syrenshaeda.livejournal.com]

I haven't had pizza in Korea, but on my first trip to Seoul there was a pizza place down the street from my hostel who had pasta pizza. Pizza. With spaghetti on it. That had me puzzled for a while. But as time went on I figured this is quite normal, with odd toppings..

Pizza in Norway is usually pretty unexciting/normal.

[fabulousdoll.livejournal.com]

I hate the texture of the corn and I don't like the flavour, so I don't think I would be a fan of Korean pizza.
The combination of pineapple and the warmth of the pizza does things to me mmmmmmm, but a lot of people I know hates it (almost everyone).

[tokyocinema.livejournal.com]

omg, fellow pineapple on pizza lover...O.O
*anime sparkles*

[somacomatose.livejournal.com]

pizza in singapore is pretty basic. i made my own margherita pizza the other day and it.was.awesome. if anyone wants a great and super easy pizza dough recipe, use this one (http://iamafoodblog.com/no-knead-pizza-dough-recipe/)! (although instead of 1/4 tsp yeast + 18 hours rising time (which, no.) i do 2 1/2 tsp yeast + 2-3 hours rising time.

[msgrottesca.livejournal.com]

I don't know about anyone else, but when I was a kid in school we always received corn as a side dish whenever we ate anything like pizza, spaghetti, etc. So I can kind of imagine corn on pizza being kind of cool. They lose me the minute they start putting fruit on pizza other than maybe pineapple (which I've never actually tried but have always thought sounded tasty).

[tokyocinema.livejournal.com]

it is!
people like to slam the idea of pineapple but they've probably never had hawaiian pizza (ham + pineapple, sometimes bacon) which is the bee's knees tbh

[fashionxxavenue.livejournal.com]

most pizza in korea is terrible imo. Monster Pizza is really good and the only one really worth eating. Dominos and pizza hut are fine if you get their basic pizzas, but when they add all those toppings... nah.

The worst pizza i've eaten here was Mick Jones, goddamn it was nasty. 5,000won pizza school tastes way better.

[broadway-bound3.livejournal.com]

I love Monster Pizza for the New York style. Even though I'm not from New York but I love to visit, so eating at Monster Pizza is always good times and good memories. We should go some time.

[embroideredkiss.livejournal.com]

Pizza in Korea is generally pretty disappointing tbh. Pizza Hut and Mr Pizza are very dry/boring/bizarre, and Dominos always seems to make me sick here for some reason.

Pizza School in good cos they're decent and super cheap. A lot of pasta places do that gorgonzola honey pizza that's usually good.

But the holy grail of pizza in Korea is that one place down the alley in Itaewon....I can't remember the name but it's run by a Korean American guy, has a stone oven and amazingggggggg garlic knots!

[broadway-bound3.livejournal.com]

You should tell me the name of this place when you remember it. Haha, I have a strong dislike for Itaewon, but if there's good pizza I'd go check it out.

[broadway-bound3.livejournal.com]

Ooo! I love Mellow Mushroom! There's one near my university campus and I had my going away party there. I love the meat lovers pizza.

[hyunbiased.livejournal.com]

Growing up in the UK I thought corn on pizza was normal, but I have been corrected since then

When we moved back to the US we mainly only had pizza that we made so we always put corn on it (as well as many other things that would probably put off mainstream Americans such as goat cheese or artichoke), the only time I really had pizza outside our house was at school lunch and that sad option was only cheese or the little cubed pepperonis so I didn't notice the lack of corn

It wasn't until college that I started to realise something was up with none of the 4 different varieties of pizza they would serve featuring corn in any way. I was assured by my friends that I was the strange one

Then I went to Korea and corn was back on pizza but if I went with my American friends they would always complain about it

Anyway besides the return of corn, I quite enjoy the sweet potato crust and the potato wedges on pizza in Korea

[shining-lore.livejournal.com]

Sounds just as bad as what Japan puts on pizza. No thank you.

[chloe1910.livejournal.com]

I've tried sweet potatoes pizza which is really yummy and also corn pizza which I is not really my cup of tea but it's not bad actually.

[chibi-rei.livejournal.com]

I never cared for Korea pizza much. Dominos had some interesting combinations but it's so expensive.
That wasabi ranch sauce that guy makes sounds really good though.
I used to hate sweet potato on pizza. Actually I still hate it in the crust. But on the pizza isn't bad. Trader Joe's has one now with kale and parm (nomnom).

Oh Pizza Alvolo was pretty decent. They were one of the few places open late near my house -- that was on Yogiyo (oh god that's a lifesaver right there).

[onlybrandy.livejournal.com]

I haven't tried any of the pizza since I've been here in Korea but I not a fan of pizza to begin with. It kinda makes me sick or feel like I'm going to be sick. I just think there isn't a good pizza store back home.

[dorawa.livejournal.com]

Korean pizza sucks tbh but I do love me that sweet potato ring and I don't mind the corn

Also why always Seoul for meetups? :/ my far away ass can never make those