Cacao Haru

This is where to go if you feel like enjoying world-class chocolate.

And, by way of qualification, I do not use the term "world-class" lightly. Growing up in my family, at any given time, we would have two drawers crammed full of Swiss, Belgian, Italian and Austrian chocolate.

The handmade chocolate at Cacao Haru is pretty much as good as you'll get anywhere.

The owner of this particular chocolate shop worked as a chef for many years before taking a chocolate-making course in Seoul and returning to his hometown to open this fantastic little shop.

On the ground floor is his chocolate-making area, while just upstairs is a nicely lit, cozy (expect to stoop) loft area, great for studying Korean, sketching or reading Dan Brown novels.

An added bonus is the chocolatier seems to have good taste in music. American and Korean indie-rock provide a nice break from the k-pop and r'n'b that a lot of coffeeshops offer over the sound system.

The coffee is a little pricey and delivered via a German system called 'nespresso' that uses a special machine to extract vacuum-packed shots of varying strength and taste. It's not fantastic coffee, but not bad either - usually nice and strong. The real treat is the chocolate you get for free with the coffee. (You don't get a free one if you order chocolates. So wait, get the free one, then go order more.)

His chocolates start at 900 and go up to about 1500 won. This may seem like a lot, but after observing how much time and skill are put into each batch, the price seems totally justified. And a box will last, too: they are so rich that eating more than three would be a feat only the most disgusting, degraded gluttons would attempt.

They make great gifts too, as no one would imagine they'd receive such high-quality confections from a shop just across from the University of Ulsan.
www.cacaoharu.com

Hello.

You've read this kind of blog before. It starts with something like "while it might seem as City X if is a cultural/culinary/artistic wasteland, there are plenty of hidden gems if you just scratch under the surface!"

Sometimes that template sentence is followed by up to three exlamation marks.

Now, Ulsan is something of a cultural/culinary/artistic wasteland; for a city of well over 1 million, you'd expect more. But unfortunately, South Korea doesn't work quite like that. In a lot of countries any city of this size, even places like Boise or Adelaide, will probably have a 'hip' area. In said 'hip' area, one can expect to find people with tattoos, dreadlocks, african drums and angst about their middle-class roots.

South Korea is small. So if you're one of those people, you get out of your hometown as soon as possible and move a few hundred kilometers (at most) to Seoul, to Hongdae, and open a coffeeshop/wine bar/record label/drum shop/skate shop/head shop there. This leaves a deficit in most other cities.

That said, this country is becoming bourgeoisified (it's a word now) and internationalized enough, that changes are taking place. You still won't find a good, indiginous music scene here. But there are good places to go in Ulsan. We're going to talk about a few.