Once upon a time in Jeju, there lived a mammoth-sized old maid named Seolmundae who had five hundred sons. As legend has it, Seolmundae was such a large lady that she used Mt. Halla as her pillow when she slept, and her feet reached all the way to Kwantal, a small uninhabited island off of Jeju. One day while cooking a very large pot of rice soup for her many sons, she accidentally fell into her concoction, simmering herself to death. A little while later, the five hundred hungry …

By now most foreigners in Jeju will be familiar with Bagdad Café. Since opening in 2006, the restaurant has established itself as one of the most popular expat haunts on the island, and has built a reputation for offering authentic Indian cuisine in a warm and welcoming atmosphere.

Bagdad owner and Jeju native Hyun Ju-Roung named the place after a 1987 West German film called Out of Rosenheim, about a group of people whose lives change after connecting in a rundown café in Bagdad, California. The movie was re-released in America a year later as Bagdad Café. The film is one of Hyun’s favourites, and helped to inspire her venture into the restaurant business. She says she wanted her own Bagdad Café to be a place for locals and out-of-towners to meet and connect in friendly surroundings here in Jeju.

Hyun places a strong focus on quality and authenticity. When she needed chefs for her fledging restaurant, she sent her business partner, Sobu, out to India to find them.