Wednesday, February 11, 2015

les crêpes: comme à Paris

Quite possibly the most lovingly photographed series of images I've ever put on this blog: what follows, Dear Reader, is a photo essay about The Crêpe Guy in Dongdaemun, whose stall sits right across from the DDP, the Dongdaemun Design Plaza. At the time I first met this gentleman, on February 1st, he said he had been at that location for only a few days. I have no idea whether this means he's been selling crêpes for only a few days. My guess would be no: he's obviously a veteran crêpier. I've tried to capture both the man's method and some aspects of his crêpe stall. Everything he does, from start to finish, is almost exactly what you'd find if you went to Paris and bought yourself some steaming crêpes from the crêpiers there. This, I think, was part of the man's charm for me: the authenticity that he brought to his work. There were no shortcuts, no compromises in terms of the crêpe batter, no corner-cutting when it came to the fillings. Everything was exactly the way I remembered it from when I was in Alsace in 2007, freezing my way through a local marché de Noël (Christmas market). Back then, I had myself a wonderful Nutella crêpe, and what this man did on both February 1st and February 2nd (when I came back for more) was absolutely the same thing—for only W3,000 per crêpe. Enjoy the pics. Hover your cursor over the images to see the captions.

















Hie thee hence and get yourself some crêpes from this guy! Seriously—what are you waiting for?! This is the real thing! It's cheap, it's authentic, and it's good, and that's a rare confluence of qualities to find in Western food in Seoul.

My previous post on this gentleman is here. I want to see him get lots and lots of business from lots and lots of hungry expats.





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1 comment:

Charles said...

That looks awesome. The next time I find myself in Dongdaemun (which, admittedly, is not often), I will stop by.