Korea

Dining at the top of N Seoul Tower – n.Grill

7 May 2014

Fu decided to splurge a little on my birthday and brought me to n.Grill, which is a restaurant located at the top of N Seoul Tower (Namsan Tower).

The coolest thing about this restaurant is that it’s on the highest floor of N Seoul Tower. This means it’s even higher than the observatory! Can you imagine the kind of view diners will have?! ^o^

Contrary to the name, their main menu is not grilled items, but French fine dining. Honestly, I don’t find the menu very “french” though.

Fu called to make reservations at n.Grill before we arrived in Korea, and while he called about 2 weeks before our dinner, only the 9pm slot was left. It took many tries before someone picked up the call, so that was a bit annoying -_- On the upside, the service staff could speak enough English to complete the reservation.

Before I go on, disclaimer first that the pictures are going to be pretty grainy. Blame low light, lousy iphone picture quality and lack of budget for a good camera! D:

We ordered our mains, and they quite promptly served bread and the first item in the course thereafter.

Amuse-bouche

I was looking at the menu to write this post and this is what it said. Honestly I have no idea what Amuse-bouche means. On that day, I just ate up everything without knowing what was what :D

But for those who are clueless (like me), Wiki says that Amuse-bouche is:

A single, bite-sized hors d’œuvre (appetizer), literally translated as “mouth amuser”.

This dish was pretty okay. Not mind-blowing, but passable.

Tomato, Cucumber, Eggplant

Sorry for the lacklustre name.

The menu said that the second item is either
“Carpaccio of korean beef with smoked herring roe and watercress”
or
“Salad of quail “escabeche with foie gras”.

Seeing as this dish is neither of the above, I now realize we were effectively cheated of beef/foie gras and given some lousy vegetables instead :S

I wouldn’t touch eggplant with a 10-foot pole, but since it’s all atas and made in the kitchen of a chef who earned a michelin star before, I was curious to see what magic could be performed.

… and…

I actually finished the entire dish!

Achievement unlocked: Making an eggplant hater finish an eggplant dish. I could almost hear the level-up music of the chef who prepared this, lol.

Pan-roasted sea bass, for-crushed potatoes, “bouillabaisse jus”

Back on track on the menu.

This dish was pretty yummy! I didn’t even mind having this even though I ordered a fish main.

Mushroom cappuccino

A frothy mushroom… drink. I wouldn’t call it soup, because it’s very thin. I scooped up the froth to eat and the bubbles are very flavorful, although after the bubbles burst, there’s essentially nothing in your mouth but the flavor.

When I drank it, it was bland and quite horrible D: No velvety smooth, rich mushroom flavor. Just thin, tasteless brown stuff.

How is it that the froth (which is really just air), is tastier than the soup, sorry, I mean drink? Talk about a strange experience!

The real shocker though, was my main.

Cod, shishito peppers, confit garlic, pictual olive oil, old balsamic

This… is my main.

The ingredients sound fancy enough, but when the waiter set the plate down in front of me, my first thought was “THIS is what fine dining looks like?”

The 小白菜-looking things slapped on top makes this look like some dish from the food court. Thing is, these vegetables are not even in the description! They went through pains to describe the olive oil and balsamic vinegar which are nothing more than drizzles, but failed to mention the green stuff right smack in the middle of the plate?

Taste-wise, it was supremely underwhelming as well. It felt like I was eating from a 菜飯 (economy mixed rice) stall T_T

At least Fu’s main was more palatable.

USA Prime Rib-Eye with green salad, mousseline potatoes, smokey jus

He liked his main, and the white lump you see at the back are the potatoes and they are heavenly smooth!

Fu saw that I really liked it and told me I can have the last bit. I was saving it till after I finish my main so that I can end on a delicious note, and guess what happened?

While we were eating, he swiped it up with his fork and downed it in a flash.

:O :O :O

When he saw I had a shocked expression, he even had the cheek to ask what was wrong!  He apologized and claimed he forgot, but the damage was done. :A He said it was sitting looking all delicious, so he very naturally just ate it up! Wahhh, took me a while to get over it >_<

The green salad that came with the mains

This looks like the salad I buy from the supermarket, and thrown into a bowl. Would it kill them to make it look a bit nicer?

For posterity sake

For desserts, we had:

Meringue with marscapone cream and blueberries

This was delicious.

Creme caramel

This was pretty bad.

Going by the food alone, it’s definitely not worth the price. The saving grace is the scenery.

The restaurant has an outer revolving floor, and we had a table on it that was by the window. As the floor slowly rotated, we had access to every view that the tower offered, just by sitting at our table!

This restaurant is the same one where Cheon Song Yi waited for Do Min Joo to celebrate their 100-daysary in the K-drama My Love from the Star.

TADAH! Same! Ok, not exactly. They didn’t bother placing a flower on our table T_T Maybe cause we’re not a superstar like she is.

There are also couple couch seats whereby the couple is literally facing the window!

We didn’t know about it until we sat down and saw this, and it was too late to change. Oh well, probably requires the purchase of the couple dinner set or something, which costs almost 50% more.

Speaking of which, this was our bill.

195,000 won in total, about SGD 250.

Would I go back again? Definitely not. While it was quite romantic, with pretty good service and a good view, the food is really disappointing. Overall, the experience cannot justify the price paid.

If I knew what I know now, I would have just paid for the observatory, and after having my fill of the night view, head to another place for delicious, and much cheaper food!

10 Comments

  • Reply yy 10 May 2014 at 1:31 am

    Omg so crazy expensive!! But that view is gorgeous though. And didn’t Running Man film here too? I feel like I remember someone hiding in the couple booth…

    • Reply Rin 10 May 2014 at 2:55 am

      Actually, you’re right! RM did film here too! But the K-drama was a lot more recent, so I thought of that first :D

      And yar, I would have felt a bit better about the price if the food was nicer ;__;

  • Reply Getting a hair cut in Seoul • tripleRIN 3 September 2014 at 4:04 am

    […] say the best service I got in Seoul was from this hair salon! I guess you could almost count n.Grill too, although they’re tend more to the purely professional type. Besides, I didn’t get […]

  • Reply Pauline 1 December 2014 at 2:41 am

    hi, i came across your blog while researching for my upcoming seoul trip. just wanted to let you know even though i do not know you, but i had a super good laugh while reading it! i like your style of writing! highly entertaining for me complete with info and peppered with singlish! love it loads!!! i am truly appreciative for all that info! gamxia-hamnida!!! :)

    • Reply Rin 2 December 2014 at 12:40 am

      Haha Pauline! I love your gamxia-hamnida lol! And you don’t know how happy I am to hear that you found my posts entertaining in addition to being helpful! ^o^ For sure you have good taste hahaha!

  • Reply Where to Rent a Mobile Pocket Wifi in Korea • tripleRIN 2 January 2015 at 4:59 pm

    […] I really don’t believe we used so much data in a single day, especially since we were preoccupied with activities the entire day, from Bau House in the morning, shopping at Myeongdong and then N Seoul Tower (lock and then dinner). […]

  • Reply Erfhina Zhang 22 August 2016 at 10:52 am

    Hi,
    nice post! i enjoyed alot reading ur blog lol.
    May I know how to book and make a reservation?
    Im going to seoul next mth, which is my bf bday. So i wish to gv him a surprise :)
    thanks

    • Reply Rin 22 August 2016 at 1:10 pm

      Hi, we googled the restaurant’s number and called to make a reservation. Pretty straightforward!
      Enjoy your trip! :)

  • Reply Ming Han 23 February 2018 at 2:34 pm

    I came across your post last night and find it really intriguing & I love your sense of humour really! Its been some time since I’ve actually laughed reading someone’s blog. I have a few questions regarding the restaurant though
    1. How do you make a reservation there and is it free?
    2. Are the prices on the menu inclusive of taxes?
    3. Are there tables which aren’t by the window?

    • Reply Rin 7 March 2018 at 5:30 pm

      Hello, thanks for reading!

      I just saw your comment and if the info is still helpful, here are my answers to your questions:

      1. As described in the post above, we simply called them. There are no reservation charges.
      2. I’m not sure about now, but when we went, prices were inclusive of taxes.
      3. My memory is a little fuzzy, but I THINK there are tables away from the table. Best to check with them!

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