Seoul - hunting for almonds

I was told that there was an almond craze recently in South Korea. Specifically, people were going crazy over honey butter almond nuts. In places such as Myeongdong, shops were stacked with packets of almonds. There were honey butter, wasabi, hot spicy, strawberry and many other flavors.

I have tasted honey butter almond from Tom's in Singapore and it was really good. Only problem was the price. At SGD$9 to SGD$10 for a 210g pack of nuts, it is not exactly cheap.  But boy, did we run through a few packets.

In Seoul, the price of these almond nuts are cheaper. I believe they are manufactured in South Korea. We decide to buy 10 packets back to Singapore as gifts and for our own consumption.

And this was how we started our very Singaporean quest of looking for cheap honey butter almond nuts. We started taking mental notes of their price at various shops as we tour. Never get from the first shop, they say.

On the second day of our search, wife noticed that though the packaging looks similar, the almonds may be from different companies. Not all are from Tom's, and the difference can be seen from the logo on top. We bought a few small packs to do a taste test. Indeed, Tom's honey butter nuts tasted better, and we were adamant to only get from Tom's, despite its heftier prices. All previous research and mental notes gone down the drain.

Different logo

Different logo

All in all, our research shows that the cheapest nuts can be found in this shop named baviphat in Myeongdong with a price of KRW$4900 for a pack of 210g nuts (about SGD$5.60). I attached the picture of the shop and its location (marked in green) below.

Tourist Map of Myeongdong

We don't professed to have scoured all shops since this was not really our top priority. However, we did search Lotte mart, Myeongdong, Hongdae and Ewha Woman University areas, though not too extensively, I must admit. Generally, we noticed it is cheaper to get them from places outside of Myeongdong. You are warned.