Cafe Review: Camon (까몽) Vietnamese Cafe in Daejeon

Behind Daejeon Station and right next to the Daejeon Traditional Narae Hall, you can find a tiny Vietnamese café. It’s built out of a small house and it’s called Camon.

Price: 5,500 won for hand drip; 4.5-6,000 won for lattes; 3,200 won for kaya toast
Hours: Every day 12pm-11:30pm
Address: 대전 동구 대동천우안5길 38

As always, let’s rate it. Bolded means recommended. This café is best for:

Good brew | Tea | Socializing | Studying | Aesthetics | Desserts | Alcohol | Food |

As I plodded my way down to the cafe, I noticed how old the neighborhood is. Bisected by a canal, the majority of homes were run-down and maybe even abandoned hanoks (traditional buildings). A few tell-tale signs of temples mark their gates. I stopped to pet an entire litter of friendly, well-fed cats.

Camon is in a rapidly changing area. I’m not sure if there’s a conversation about gentrification in Korea as there is in the US, or how that takes form.

Regardless, cafe review isn’t the place for it. Just wanted to note this area has lots of history…and many of these traditional homes are being converted into cafes. Usually, most of the architecture remains untouched.

Anyway, upstairs of Camon is their terrace with a few tables overlooking the canal. It was a cool October day when I went, but still warm enough to sit outside and read.

Their coffee menu is a lot of, you guessed it, Vietnamese-style drinks. The menu has no English, so here’s a lil chart of what each drink looks like. You can check out this page for more info on Vietnamese coffee and how it’s made!

They also have my favorite northern Vietnamese treat—egg coffee.

If you’re unfamiliar with this, egg coffee is made by whisking an egg yolk into sweetened condensed milk and serving it atop hot Vietnamese drip coffee. The layer of foam is sweet and creamy, while the coffee is bitter and rich.

You’ll want to use your tiny spoon to push back the foam and drink the black coffee together with the cream.

There’s not many Vietnamese cafes in Daejeon, so it was a treasure to find this place.

They also offer another Southeast Asian classic—kaya toast. I’m most familiar with this from Singapore. It’s two slices of toasted with kaya jam and butter.

Nearby is a German restaurant for all your schnitzel needs—and another cafe, called Byeot, which makes souffle pancakes.

Here’s the menu below. I hope you find it helpful!