I love brunch. I love the idea of having eggs and sausages and french toast and pastries in the middle of the day, and if it's on the menu, you better believe it'll soon be on the table then straight into my belly. One of my first ever posts on this blog was on a corner restaurant in Hapjeong called Cafe the Air. I went with Austin and remembered how much I loved their brunch options, so on M's last day in Korea (just a few hours before his flight actually) that's where we went.
Isn't the interior just great? I love the minimal set-up and the concrete floor. Definitely a first date kind of place, in my humble opinion. And, btw, the dessert display is to die for... But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
There we go again with the matchy-matchy.
Walking in, I was pretty confident that I knew what I was going to order: the same thing from two years ago. But they changed their menu and got rid of English brunch!!!! The heartache... While I've only been here a couple of times before, Cafe the Air was my favorite brunch spot EVER. What am going to fantasize about eating on those Saturday mornings?
I was seriously tempted to just walk out -- I was that flabbergasted. But M said that we came this far, so why not just try something new. Hmph. So we went with the brunch combo of a pizza, a pasta, and two coffees. "Brunch combo" It's almost laughable.
Bacon Potato Pizza
Let's see what we got here...
It passed the ooey gooey cheese test. We're at least heading towards the right direction. Solid pizza fresh outta the oven.
I can't remember if I've ever seen potato on pizza anywhere other than in Korea. Is it a Korean thing? But then again, Koreans put a lot of randoms on their pizza like corn and cream cheese and broccoli...sometimes they stuff their crust with sweet potatoes. 90% of the time, they manage to pull through and it turns out pretty good. The remaining 10% seriously need to head back to the drawing board (I'm looking at you, Mr. Pizza sweet cranberry pineapple almond smh).
Cafe the Air did good on this one. The potato wasn't roughly cut into chunks, like it is on many potato pizzas, but was smooshed to create a crumble-like texture. It was smooth and didn't hinder from the pizza eating experience, haha. I will say that because potato is a starchy veg, this dish will fill you up pretty quick.
...But the star of the show was this Shrimp Basil Pesto
M and I couldn't figure out what it was exactly, but it was savory and sweet at the same time with a kick of spice. Alright Cafe the Air, I'll give it to ya.. At first, I was pretty disappointed to find out that they had changed their menu, and questioned if coming here was even worth it now that brunch was off the menu, but this pasta dish alone saved the morning.
Happiest of clams when there's food to be eaten!
After stuffing ourselves silly, we walked a few steps over to my beloved Peony.
Soft, creamy, absolutely decadent but not at all too sweet. I think Peony has the best cake in all of Hongdae. Each bite left me feeling some type of way, so much so that I didn't even mind that we had to order two slices if we wanted a table (One order per person. Somewhat common in Korea). But I have been hearing about this other place with strawberry cream cakes called Snob. Imagine that, a cake shop called Snob. I'm expecting some fancy high class slices when I go.
The chocolate banana was good but I couldn't do more than one bite. M liked it a lot more than I did, but then again he likes anything made out of chocolate. You all know how I feel about it, so I just stuck with the original strawberry cream.
This was our last full meal together before he flew back to Nueva York. I'm jealous of all the pomme frites, chicken over rice, and hot dogs he'll get to have, while I have to settle for pizza "brunch" over here. Jokes aside, I'll miss him. If you're reading this, I miss you.
