Seoul Food | Yogiyo!

Recently, online and out-and-about, I've been seeing these adverts for a company called "Yogiyo", featuring one of my favourite k-pop groups, Akdong Musician (AKMU for short). The ads are usually too fast for me to comprehend much of what's going on, especially on Youtube where they're only really granted the 5 seconds it takes until I'm allowed to skip the darn thing, and on the subway where the videos don't really have speakers.

But from what I could gather, there was AKMU, there was Yogiyo, and there was delicious food. I was sold.

So far, in our 15 months of living in Korea, we've not managed to muster enough courage to order delivery to our apartment over the phone. There's too much that could go wrong, what with our pronunciation being less than perfect in person, let alone over the treacherous chasm that is a muffled phone line.

Enter Yogiyo, effectively the JustEat of Korea, which has a handy and simple-to-use mobile app (provided you can read hangeul and type words into your Naver 한영 dictionary.)

We set up an account and tentatively made an order for juk, which I'd been craving and completely unable to find a restaurant for (despite walking up and down the same strip of road for an hour with Naver Maps as my only 'friend').

We got a confirmation text containing an ETA on our order, and sat down to watch some TV.

After one episode there was a tap at the door and lo a man in a motorcycle helmet, presumably one of the culprits of those pesky bikes that zip around terrorising the streets and pavements of South Korea, was at our door with an insulated box. He handed me the order, I handed him cash, we exchanged thank-yous and we were done. Next-to-no human interaction, just the way I like it.

The juk was nice, authentic, and cost us almost nothing. Trial 1, success!

Excuse my weird feet.

Order number 2, a few days later during a particularly busy week where we had little time for grocery shopping and even less for cooking, we went for a slightly more adventurous order of a doshirak (Korean-style lunchbox, usually some side dishes with rice and breaded meat of some kind) with a side of carbonara pasta? This one arrived halfway through the episode, and we paid by the futuristic method of a portable card machine. Ooh-la.

Finally, as a treat for me actually finding sandals that fit me, and another "we've done too much today, cba with cooking" day, we ordered Chinese rather than heading all the way to Chinatown.
This one was my favourite because it was so nicely presented, despite it being far cheaper than a UK Chinese, tastier, bigger, and just generally great.

The best thing about this one to me, though, is in the delivery and collection. It arrives in a metal carrying case with shelves this time, holding one or many meals. Once you finish eating, you stack all of the solid plastic plates up and tuck them into a rubbish bag they provide you with at delivery. Tie up the neck and stick it neatly just outside your door. By morning it's gone. No rubbish, no washing up, nothing to think about. Someone comes along several hours later and takes it back to be washed and reused!

It's truly great, and I kind of wish we'd known about it sooner. Now our only problem is not falling into the trap of ordering out all the time because of convenience! Especially when you can pay by card at the door. At least when you go to a restaurant you get some exercise ;p