"Eat Your Kimchi" Makes "Coffee Prince" Pilgrimage

This week Simon and Martina of "Eat Your Kimchi" made their third and first successful pilgrimage to a site featured in the kdrama "Coffee Prince."

Mostly the Seoul-based Canadian couple covers the kpop charts, reviewing the best music video of the week, and on their "TL;DR" segment, they cover different aspects of life in Korea. And occasionally they will make a field trip to a Korean site that attracts their interest.

This week they took a trip to visit one of the sites that was featured in the drama "Coffee Prince." The episode was named "Coffee Prince Round 3: Redemption."

While Simon admitted he had not actually seen the whole drama, Martina was obviously a big fan. She knew the characters and plenty of details. Except of course for the names of the actors, which she had forgotten.

The site they visited wasn't the actual coffee shop featured in the drama because that shop has since closed. Instead it was the house where Gong Yoo's composer cousin, played by Lee Sun Kyun, lived with his big shaggy dog and also occasionally with his girlfriend, played by Chae Jung An. That's the place where Yoon Eun Hye becomes friendly first with the dog and his owner.

It's also where she spends time with Lee Sun Kyun and the composer starts to think he really likes her.

The first two times that Simon and Martina tried to visit this site, they got lost, not quite making it up the steep hill and then taking a detour into some woods. This time with the help of a borrowed car and navigating system they reached their destination.

It was cause for kdrama celebration.

The former mansion, which was gutted for the drama, has since become a café, known both for its drama charm and its amazing views of Seoul's fortress wall.

Once you get to the gates of the Sanmootonge café at Seoul-si, Jongno-gu, Buam-dong, 97-5, kdrama fans may recognize the cobbled stone gate where Yoon Eun Hye delivered the milk every morning.

While the restaurant no longer looks like Lee Sun Kyun's home, it still has the ancient stone horses that Yoon Eun Hye and Lee Sun Kyun sat on in the drama, lots of "Coffee Prince" pictures and memorabilia and a running loop of the drama's kissing scene on a wall-mounted TV screen. There's all that and tasty green tea lattes too.

To see the episode, visit Eat Your Kimchi at https://www.eatyourkimchi.com/coffee-prince-round-3-redemption/#.UoYyzo2E7gk