Le Vert – Seoul, South Korea

After my “chalk it up to a learning experience” situation in Ulsan of reaching restaurants either closed for the day or closed permanently, I called ahead to the one burger house in Seoul that was recommended to me by multiple sources: Jacoby’s Burgers.  To my relief, someone answered the phone and told me they were open.  I knew I couldn’t get there that day so I asked if they were open the next day since a lot of places are closed on Mondays in Seoul.  “Of course!” was the reply.

So the next day I set out for Haebangchon, an ex-pat neighborhood that lies in the shadow of the N Seoul Tower on Namsan.  The area is filled with all sorts of restaurants, cafés, and bars serving the comfort foods of home.  Italian pasta?  Check.  French crêpe?  Check.  Philly cheesesteak?  Check.  And of course, burgers.  Walking up the street, I noticed a couple of potential locations to Hamblog on another visit.

With vague directions in hand, I was excited when I spotted Jacoby’s.  Unfortunately my happiness was short-lived.  The interior was dark.  The chairs were stacked on the tables.  It was closed.  I checked the sign on the door and found they didn’t open until 4:00PM on Mondays – I was three hours too early – but on Sundays they open at 11:00AM, which explained why someone had answered when I called the previous day at noon.  I stumbled into the street defeated and started walking downhill, the path of least resistance.  Just a couple of storefronts down, I came upon one of the cafés I spotted on my way in: Le Vert.  The sandwich board out front advertised burgers along with waffles and wine – just my kind of place.

The front and side walls were open wide allowing light and air to pass through the café.  I sat down at one of the artfully mismatched tables and opened the menu.  There are two burgers to choose from: the Cheeseburger for W8,000 (about $6.70) or Le Vert Burger for W10,000 (about $8.35).  The house special Le Vert comes with bacon, egg, cheese, caramelized onions, lettuce, tomato, pickles, and barbeque sauce, along with your choice of French fries or green salad.  The menu describes it as a burger “of stupendous magnitude” and I tend to be stupid when it comes to ordering the largest burger I can find… and so I did just that.  The friendly English speaking staff was youthful and beautiful.

I changed tables to sit outside on the side porch, taking in the fresh air and allowing the buzzing of the scooters on the street to be absorbed by the upbeat jazzy pop music emanating from inside the café.  The burger took a while to prepare giving me time to peep the other patrons.  All eight were foreigners; I hadn’t seen eight foreigners in the neighborhood I was staying in the entire week.

The burger arrived on a turquoise platter with a significant serving of fries.  One thing I had noticed on this trip was portion control. Excessive caloric intake is not likely to happen in Korea, but Haebangchon is a foreigner’s neighborhood and the serving presented to me was foreigner size.  I turned the plate to get a closer look at the burger and noticed I couldn’t actually see the patty itself.  The fried egg and melted cheese had hidden the beef entirely.  In probably what was only the second time in my Hamblogger career, I cut the burger in half and photographed the cross-section to get a view of the meat.

With the first bite, my concerns of having a soft mincemeat patty again were extinguished.  The patty was thick and dense with a pleasing texture.  The bacon was not the typical streaky and smoked American style, but more of the Australian eye bacon style.  It wasn’t cooked crisp but still contributed flavor to the burger.  The egg was not hard fried, probably somewhere in the neighborhood of over-medium, which left a fair amount of liquid yolk – a sauce I was not used to having on my burger but turned out to be enjoyable.  My only beef with the burger was that the patty, although stout and juicy, was diametrically too small for the bun leaving a couple of bites to be just fried egg sandwich, and the final bite to be pretty much bread only.  I enjoyed the burger and was a bit sad that it was gone so quickly, but the tasty French fries brightened the gloom.

Addresses here can be a bit funky so taxi rides can be hit or miss.  To find your way to Haebangchon, ride Subway Line 6 to Noksapyeong Station, take exit two and walk 100 meters downhill until you reach a lane that branches to the left, which is lined with large kimchi pots.  Follow that lane and walk uphill into foreigner central, where you’ll find both Le Vert and Jacoby’s Burgers on your right halfway up the hill.  It’s worth the adventure.

RATING: 4

Le Vert
Haebangchon-gil
Yongsan 2 ga-dong 45-10
Yongsan-gu
Seoul 140-842
Republic of Korea
+82 (0)2 6401-7705
Hours: Monday – Friday 11:00AM – 12:00AM
Saturday – Sunday 10:00AM – 12:00AM

Tagged as: bacon, beef, burger, burger review, cheeseburger, fried egg, Haebangchon, hamblogger, hamburger, Itaewon, photo, photographer, photography, photojournalism, photojournalist, Seoul, South Korea