Guide to Seoul: Food Delivery Services | We used Shuttle and Uber Eats to deliver food to our Airbnb in Hongdae several times! Sharing what we ordered from our favorite restaurants as well as the ones that we wouldn’t recommend.
We are used to living out in the country where food delivery service is nonexistent. We can’t even get a pizza delivered; in terms of restaurant options, we have a donut shop and a Mexican food place in town… that’s it.
We discovered early on in our trip to Seoul that if we wanted to try new restaurants it was best to feed our kids at home and then order in. It became a fun thing that we looked forward to- our little date nights in.
Most everything was delivered in 15-30 minutes and arrived shockingly warm. (Drinks arrive cold, sealed with spill-proof plastic wrap. You can even order ice cream!) The kids were watching from our balcony once and saw the delivery driver remove the pizza boxes from his “trunk” and thought it was the funniest thing.
UBER EATS VS SHUTTLE
There are tons of delivery services in Seoul but the two we used the most were Uber Eats and Shuttle. Shuttle was the only Korea-specific app that I could find in English. You can search by cuisine and both had tons of options, though Uber Eats had more. You pay in the app with Uber Eats or can pay in the app/in person with Shuttle.
We never had a bad experience with either service. Shuttle had to cancel our order from Cuchara once, apparently the restaurant decided to close early, and they called me right away. The employees speak English and you can also reach out to them via Facebook messenger.
Restaurants we ordered from, in no particular order:
PIZZA COMPANY
Our order: Cheese pizza, company salad, chicken tenders, Dr.Pepper
This was just okay. The pizza almost tasted like it didn’t have any sauce but the chicken tenders were good. We switched to Papa Johns after this order.
NEW YORK APARTMENT
Our order: Pulled pork mac & cheese, New York spicy chicken, french fries
The pulled pork was chopped into cubes, not pulled, and really greasy. This was one of our least favorite.
BUKCHON HAND-MADE DUMPLING
Our order: Fried small dumplings (10ea), fried dumplings, Steamed dumplings-pork, steamed dumplings- kimchi, small dumplings-pork (10ea), bowl of rice
Probably our favorite! We tried these mandu while visiting Insadong and fell in love. The deep fried are our favorite but you can’t go wrong with any of them. Eli especially loved the small steamed pork.
CUCHARA
Our order: Chicken burrito bowl, steak burrito bowl, nacho & salsa & guacamole
Our second favorite! Cuchara is Korea’s Chipotle- the guac is almost identical! When you order through the app you aren’t able to customize… so what you see is what you get. I couldn’t get past the tomatoes and sour cream, so we opted to pickup ourselves after this first order. (Located in Mecentapolis, Hapjeong Station between exits 9 & 10)
72 TACO
Our order: Meat & fajita burrito, meat quesadilla, chips, guacamole, Dr.Pepper
This was also just okay. The guacamole was mostly tomatoes and didn’t have much flavor.
GUSTO TACO
Our order: Pulled pork BBQ sandwich, pork taquitos, fries
This was actual pulled pork (not cubed) and was decent. The taquitos were filling and came with a side of queso for dipping.
MASTER PEACE
Our order: Deep cheese dog with fries, pulled pork dog with fries, mac & cheese, Dr. Pepper
Again, actual pulled pork, and it was probably the best we tried. The chili was surprisingly spicy and had beans. Mac & cheese comes with crumbled bacon.
SALAD COMPANY
Our order: Green salad, peach iced tea
I was craving vegetables and opted for Salad Company for lunch. I chose balsamic vinaigrette dressing and had to fight Eli for every bite haha. The peach iced teas were good.
KRISPY KREME DOUGHNUTS
Our order: Dozen original glazed, lemonade smoothie (which is actually a slushie)
We ordered this the night before so we would have it for breakfast the next day. (Delivery doesn’t really start until the evening and most restaurants don’t even open until past 11am.) Emily and I got an extra half dozen to eat that night and I was hoping they would be warm but they weren’t. The slushies were refreshing.
*Emily wants me to add that it is paining her to upload the low-quality iPhone food pictures taken at night/ with artificial lighting. For pretty food pictures go to Farmette Kitchen or Grace and Good Eats.
**Coke and Sprite are everywhere but Dr. Pepper was hard to find (at restaurants or grocery stores) so anytime it was available via delivery we ordered a few extra.
