It would be very easy for me to plan an entire trip to New York City around food alone.

As someone who especially loves Korean and Japanese food, I was in heaven getting to spend so much of our weekend eating our way through Koreatown, with a little Chinatown dim sum and conveyor belt sushi thrown into the mix. We managed to fit a surprising number of delicious things into just three days, ranging from casual late-night noodles to a Michelin Guide-featured Korean restaurant.

Here’s everything I ate!

1. Kimchi Cream Udon at Mew Izakaya

After seeing a concert at Kings Theatre, my husband and I headed back to Koreatown in search of a late-night meal and ended up at Mew Izakaya. I ordered the kimchi cream udon, and it was exactly what I needed after a day that had been book-ended with a 6AM flight and a pop music concert. I needed carbs!

The noodles were thick and chewy, and coated in a rich and creamy kimchi sauce with just enough of a kick. It was hot, comforting, and incredibly satisfying. This was one of my favorite dishes of the entire weekend.

2. Okonomiyaki at Mew Izakaya

Tim went with the okonomiyaki, and naturally I had to steal some.

Okonomiyaki is a wonderfully comforting Japanese savory pancake that’s full of different flavors and textures and then covered in sauce. It’s usually made with batter and cabbage but sometimes it has noodles in it as well. Between his okonomiyaki and my giant bowl of creamy kimchi udon, Mew Izakaya turned out to be an excellent spontaneous post-concert dinner choice.

3. Conveyor Belt Sushi at Kaiten Zushi

We also managed to fit in conveyor belt sushi at Kaiten Zushi.

I always think conveyor belt sushi is such a fun experience. It’s so much fun to choose a whole array of sushi and side dishes from a tablet and wait for it to travel to your table via conveyor belt. Instead of committing to one big entrée, you can keep trying different plates and get a lot more variety for a reasonable price than a traditional sushi restaurant.

This was a casual meal compared to some of the other restaurants we visited, but that’s part of what I liked about it! Sometimes you just need to sit down, watch sushi come by on a conveyor belt, and see how many plates mysteriously accumulate in front of you.

4. Spicy Octopus with Bori Risotto at Seoul Salon

One of our more elevated meals was at Seoul Salon, a Korean restaurant featured in the Michelin Guide.

I ordered the spicy octopus with bori risotto. Bori means barley in Korean. The dish paired tender, spicy octopus with a creamy barley risotto. I hadn’t eaten anything quite like it before, and I loved the combination of spicy octopus with creamy and comforting risotto.

It was flavorful, beautifully presented, and definitely one of the more unique things I ate all weekend.

5. Tteokgalbi Wagyu Sliders at Seoul Salon

Tim and I also shared the tteokgalbi sliders at Seoul Salon, made with wagyu beef, garlic mayo, and soft potato buns.

These were SO good. Tteokgalbi is traditionally made from ground, seasoned meat formed into patties, and turning it into a tiny wagyu slider was an awesome way to serve it. The beef, garlicky mayo, and fluffy bun worked very well together.

They were playful and approachable while still feeling special enough to fit the restaurant, and they ended up being one of my favorite things we ordered.

6. Korean Fried Chicken at Seoul Salon

Tim chose the Korean fried chicken as his main dish, which of course meant that I also got to try some!

It’s easy to see why Korean fried chicken has become so popular. When it’s done well, the crispy exterior and spicy chicken combination is hard to beat. Seoul Salon’s version fit right in with the rest of our meal and gave us something a little more familiar alongside dishes like my spicy octopus and the tteokgalbi sliders.

Between all three dishes, Seoul Salon was easily a standout of the weekend.

7. Black Sesame Ice Cream at Food Gallery 32

After dinner, we went back to our hotel for a couple of hours before somehow deciding that we needed dessert. We headed back into Koreatown and stopped at Food Gallery 32, where I tried black sesame ice cream for the first time.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, but it was surprisingly mild and easy to eat. The flavor was subtly nutty and with just enough sweetness, and I ended up enjoying it. It was one of those little things I probably wouldn’t have gone out of my way to order at home, which is exactly why I love trying things like this while traveling.

8. Dim Sum at Jing Fong

We saved Chinatown for our final day in New York and started the morning with an early dim sum lunch at Jing Fong.

The food was delicious, but I also love the experience of eating there. Servers periodically wheeled carts loaded with freshly prepared dim sum through the dining room, stopping at the tables so you could see what was available and choose whatever looked good.

We ended up with an assortment spread across the table, making it a perfect meal for sharing and trying different things. I had been here before, and I was eager to introduce this place to my husband, who loves dumplings and pork buns and basically all things dim sum.

It was also a great way to end the food portion of our trip before spending our last few hours exploring the city.

Basically, I Ate Very Well!

If there’s one thing this weekend confirmed, it’s that I could very happily spend an entire NYC trip bouncing between Koreatown and Chinatown to eat everything in sight.

I loved that we got a little bit of everything: comforting creamy kimchi udon after a concert, casual conveyor belt sushi, an elevated Korean dinner at Seoul Salon, a new-to-me dessert in the form of black sesame ice cream, and a table full of dim sum in Chinatown.

As much as I love sightseeing when I travel, food is such a huge part of how I experience a destination. Some of my strongest memories from trips are tied to specific restaurants or dishes, and I already know that several of these will be things I think about when I remember this trip.

And considering how many restaurants in Koreatown and Chinatown we didn’t even get to try, I clearly have an excuse to go back.