*Boing*boing*boing*~~

... that's the sound of me jumping up and down on my imaginary trampoline because today is Leap Day! Has it already been 4 years since the last one? Eesh, I thought it wasn't until 2 more years.... Time is flying by too fast, I can't keep up. Well, unlike probably every one else, I'm not doing anything particularly special or different to 'carpe diem.' It's just another lovely day over here at ADO. :)

So let's do some random eats and small talk.

Recently Theresa Bergen over at the 'Healthy & Creative Living' blog did a short interview of me as a vegan blogger in Korea and wrote some heart warming words about Alien's Day Out and my art. Her blog shares inspiring interviews with vegans in various odd countries and it's pretty cool to see how eating compassionately is possible anywhere in the world~ It's really humbling to be included amongst so many inspiring vegans, so thank you Theresa. Clickiddy click on the link here!


And now bouncing on to some random eats. I had spelt pancakes for breakfast last week, made with spelt flour that I ordered from iHerb. I didn't even realize it was pancake day until after the fact, but I guess I somehow knew deep down.


Thoroughly enjoyed with lots of agave syrup.... perhaps a bit too much.


Ended up spending an afternoon in Gangnam and so I popped into Tea Purple cafe for a sec. Soy milk added by me.


And lunch today was low-carb... just a bunch of sauteed veggies and tofu, with teriyaki style sauce. First, I lightly sauteed some onions, garlic, and enoki mushrooms in a pan with some sesame oil. Then I added some cabbage and about 1 Tbs soy sauce, 1/2 tsp fresh grated garlic, red pepper flakes, and about 1 tsp of sugar, and continued to saute. Next, I dissolved some cornstarch (2tsp?) in about 1 1/2 cup water and poured it into the pot to get a thick sauce. Near the end, I threw in some broccoli and cubed firm tofu and cooked until the broccoli was tender but not mushy. And there you go, easy peasy one pot wonder.



And here are some sweets I've been baking. Marble cake, pomegranate-flavored cookie bites with cranberry bits, and lots of chai tea muffins.


I bought some pure pomegranate powder at the bangsan baking market and added them to some drop cookies~ It gave them a light pinkish hue and lovely berry flavor. :)

Aiights. That's all for today. Have a happy leap day and let's go into March with new-found inspiration and passion for life.

Coffee & Bread

Hello my dear Aliens! Hope everyone had a relaxing weekend and got to enjoy the amazing weather. Ahhhh, looks like the worst of winter is over. I can finally smell spring in the air and it puts a 'spring' in my step (sorry for the pun). Can i get a whut wutt~ Yesh, indeed.


Merong! If you know where this Einstein pic was taken, you get a gold star.

Well, I recently had the pleasure of hanging out at Hapjeong for a little bit and got to indulge in two of my fave past-times... cafe-crashing and bakery-browsing.

I love going to cafes to work, draw, read, blog, catch up on emails, or journal. I hate staying at home and I find that I'm most productive when working at a cafe with coffee in hand. Even though coffee in Korea is expensive, I just tell myself that I'm paying for the cafe experience, not just the drink. And having been to countless cafes all over Seoul, I've developed this real pickiness about the cafes I visit. It's usually not even about whether they're vegan-friendly or whether their coffee is actually good, but it more has to do with whether they have comfy seats, non k-pop music, quiet and chill ambiance (no loud groups of ajushis or ajoomz), lots of electrical outlets, books and magazines, free wifi, and clean bathrooms. If I ever opened up a cafe, you could bet it would have all of those and more. But I digress...


Well last week I went to Cafe Nostalgia which is along that popular cafe-lined road in Hapjeong. The only pic I took was this one because there was a kitty! She (or he) was so flooofy and cute, and pretty much just napped the whole 4 hours i was there. I really wonder how Bunny would react if I ever adopted a kitty. Yay for cafes with furry animals.


Well, since I don't have many pics for Nostalgia Cafe, here's another cafe along the same street that I went to way back in December last year (yea, this is way overdue). Paul & Lina Cafe. This is a newer spot that I've visited a few times now.


It's simple, modern, classy/cutesy in style (as is practically every other cafe in Korea), and they have comfy seats, a clean bathroom within the cafe, plenty of natural lighting, friendly service, and ofcourse wifi. I'm assuming that they're somehow connected to the Paul & Paulina bakery in Hongdae because the name is so similar. Either that, or they're too lazy to come up with an original name. But then again, I'm pretty sure Paul & Paulina bakery is based on the Paul bakery in France....


Since this was around the holidays, they had their Christmas deco up. ^_^


Check out this bunny mug.


My americano. For service, they give a clementine and a chocolate truffle (not vegan). Overall, a lovely cafe-experience. Nice environment, bright natural lighting, kind service, and free coffee refill. :)

Directions to Paul & Lina Cafe: Hapjeong Station, Line 6&2. Come out Exit 5 and turn right at the 'Giant' bike store. Walk straight for 5 minutes and the cafe will be on your right, on the 2nd floor.

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While wandering around the Hapjeong/Sangsu area, I also popped into this Bread05 Bakery. This bakery isn't exactly new (I think it's been around for almost a year or so), but this was my first time actually going inside. It's also pretty easy to overlook because it's in the half-basement of the building.


The space is pretty tiny but they seem to make it work for them. There's a skinny table along the wall where you can sit and enjoy some coffee with your bread, but I've never seen anyone actually hanging out there before.



Sadly, the vast majority of their bread is not vegan... When I asked which items were vegan, the guy at the counter pointed to the baguette, campagne buns and ciabatta.


You can see the vegan baguettes in the top right corner of this pic. Hm... pointy. They look like elf shoes.


Pain de campagne (vegan) Honestly, none of the breads were really calling to me, but I couldn't walk out empty-handed after taking photos of the place, so I just got one of their ciabattas....


Here's the ciabatta bun (1,800 won), which I took home and had with some tofu scramble and coffee for breakfast.


The ciabatta was a lot crisper and harder than I expected... I like ciabatta that is ever so slightly crispy on the outside and really pillowy soft on the inside, but this was super hard and crusty and more like a baguette. It wouldn't been perfect for bruscetta though. :)


All in all, I had high hopes for Bread05, but it was a bit of a disappointment. Cute bakery, but not the best (vegan) bread, imho. Perhaps my particular bun was just stale, they were having an off day, or that's just their version of ciabatta, who knows. At least my tofu scramble saved it somewhat. :)

Bread05 Bakery (between Sangsu & Hapjeong Station)
Address:서울시 마포구 서교동 408-25
Seoul, Mapo-gu, Seogyo-dong, 408-25
Tel: 070-7656-9905
Hours: morning - 9pm.
Closed on Mondays
Click for Google map.

Accidentally Vegan: Packaged Sweet Pumpkin Juk (Hetbahn)

For this week's Accidentally Vegan product, I've chosen Hetbahn's ready-made Sweet Pumpkin Porridge. Hetbahn is most well-known for their instant rice, but they have plenty of other instant meals available like soups, curies, and porridge (although not vegan). This product, as well as many other brands of packaged pumpkin or red bean juk are actually vegan and they're very easy to find at most local supermarkets and convenience stores, and even Daiso.


It's packaged so that you just have to microwave it for a minute, but I don't own a microwave so I just transferred it to a pot and heated it over a stove. I know it may seem like I'm in a 'juk' (porridge) phase because my last post was also about juk, but I swear it's not intentional. Overall, this made for a pretty good snack. I would've preferred it to be smoother, without the visible bits of bloated rice, and some more red beans would've been good too, but maybe I'm expecting too much of a packaged juk.


The ingredients list does not include any animal products, but it does have some unnatural ingredients/flavorings. Also, you might see the characters for crab, eggs, soy, wheat, milk, tomatoes, and pork on the label, but that's just saying that this product has been made in a facility (or with equipment) that also processes those things. But they are not actually in the ingredients list. Someday I'm gonna have to do a post solely on Korean nutrition labels and break it down for y'all (not that I'm a pro or anything...). :)

Have a good weekend!