After visiting the Biennale I tried to find someplace nearby or within walking distance for lunch. I ended up at Golden Rice Brunch or 황금리 브런치: From Natural Farming which seems to be a restaurant in Gwangju that specializes in freshly made food.
They weren’t very busy when I visited, it was after all a late lunch time. They also offer a lot of other foods but their speciality is brunch so I decided to just go for the pancakes which are only served in a brunch set (9,900 won) and a blueberry yogurt smoothie (5,500 won).
I’m not really a person to balk at the idea of food touching. I’ll for sure dip some fries in a milkshake or mix my veggies into mashed potatoes but these sets are enough to give people who can’t have their food touch nightmares and to ruin the integrity of specific flavors. It looks pretty though, doesn’t it?
Let me explain. Because about 3/4ths of this food touching I was fine with but then one pesky fourth ruined the entirety of it. The sets include eggs, in an omelette style form filled to near bursting with vegetables like a non-coleslaw coleslaw, there was cabbage and carrots and onions all hiding within the very unassuming looking fluffy egg. Next to it, in the middle was bacon (kind of), some beautifully lightly crispy pancakes covered in powdered sugar and all these lived in breakfast-y harmony. The salad though ruined it all. It may not look particularly ruined at first glance but there was a deep rich tangy sour dressing that ran as fast as it could from the salad and underneath the omelette (okay, not terrible) and the pancakes which soaked it up like a sponge. (Absolutely ruined) It was so disappointing, the texture was great, I loved the original flavor but when the pancake is heavy and dark brown from a salad dressing it’s almost inedible. How to avoid this? They have extra plates in their self serve section (which I had to find in order to get utensils) Have a plate ready and immediately move the pancakes as soon as they arrive because everything is made fresh to order so it can take awhile but it gets to you pretty fast. This should hopefully limit the amount of salad dressing soaking, because I assume one of the big factors was I wanted to save the pancakes for last like a special treat for eating all the healthier options and then found myself instantly wincing from the sharp sour taste.
Other than that, I did enjoy the meal. It was good, there were plenty of options in the menu and English so it was easy to peruse and they didn’t particularly bat an eye that I was by myself. (Though there was also only one other group of patrons in the place at like 2 in the afternoon) There’s plenty of space for groups and I was quite happy with my drink as well. Essentially I was given a menu, I wrote down what I wanted and pressed a button at my table to summon the server back. Very easy and minimal conversation is needed.
Hwanggeumri Brunch is open from 10:30am until 11pm with last call at 10pm. They tend to be closed the second and fourth Tuesday of the month.