South Korea Food
Eating when traveling is one of my favourite things to do but if you've never been to a country or know nothing about it, you might not know what to try. Of course, South Korea has a gajillion dishes and each region will have their specialties (see special section on Jeju Food), but here is a quick run down of some must-eats.
The experience
The traditional way of eating is to sit down on a mat on the floor. But unlike Japanese whether there is a hole carved out in the floor such that you’re essentially still sitting on a chair, the Koreans just have the floor and mat. Instead, you have to cross your legs, which, for one wearing slim jeans, was not an easy task. Suggestion: don’t be a hipster.
The quintessentials
Kimbap with a side of kim chi
Kim bap is like sushi. In fact, it’s exactly the same as sushi. The only difference is the filling. Well that’s actually a big difference. Where most sushi rolls have only a small amount of fillings, kim bap has all of the fillings. Pickles, meat, egg, kim chi, cucumber, etc, etc, all jam packed into one nutritious roll. The hardest thing about kim bap is the eating of it. The only real option is to eat a slice all in one go, but because its so large, that can be a challenge. Note, the person who chooses to eat a slice of kim bap in two bites faces the threat of fillings going everywhere.
Bulgogi is simple but delicious. Fried beef with onions, what's not to love!. Eat it with rice or just by itself. I had it for breakfast with some kim chi and it was awesome.
Bibimbap is like the hamburger of Korea. It’s a very simple dish and it’s sold in many places. Its basically rice topped with all this veg and some meat with an egg on top (vegetarian options available). You can put some chilli sauce in it if you like, stir it all up and enjoy. The best ones are served in a clay pot such that the rice at the bottom crisps up and becomes crunchy. It’s a pretty quick and easy meal, very healthy and just lovely and nourishing.
Bulgogi is simple but delicious. Fried beef with onions, what's not to love!. Eat it with rice or just by itself. I had it for breakfast with some kim chi and it was awesome.
Bibimbap is like the hamburger of Korea. It’s a very simple dish and it’s sold in many places. Its basically rice topped with all this veg and some meat with an egg on top (vegetarian options available). You can put some chilli sauce in it if you like, stir it all up and enjoy. The best ones are served in a clay pot such that the rice at the bottom crisps up and becomes crunchy. It’s a pretty quick and easy meal, very healthy and just lovely and nourishing.
Kim Chi
What’s a
food write-up about Korea without mentioning kim chi. Its like the national
dish and one of the WHO’s top 10 healthiest foods in the world, which may help
to explain why I only saw 8 fat people in my 12 day trip to Korea. Anyway, it’s
a dish of fermented cabbage, which helps to develop a healthy colony of bacterial
that can supposedly help with your gastrointestinal environment. If you do end
up visiting Korea, you’ll have kim chi with almost every meal and will be
blessed with beautifully healthy bowel movements.
Kim chi and an assortment of other pickled vegetables will be served to you as a side dish with pretty much every meal that you buy in Korea (every Korean cuisine dish that is). Whether it be Korean BBQ or just a noodle soup, there will be kim chi. What’s great about these side dishes is that they’re bottomless! If you run out of kim chi or pickles, just ask your waitress and she will top it up for you. Usually pointing to the empty dish is enough to get a refill. Throughout your journey in Korea, you should experience a variety of types of kim chi as well as side dishes whenever you change restaurants and provinces.
Fun facts for you: Korean love kim chi that much, that many houses have their own kim chi fridges and when posing for photos, instead of saying ‘cheese’, they say ‘kim chi’.
Kim chi and an assortment of other pickled vegetables will be served to you as a side dish with pretty much every meal that you buy in Korea (every Korean cuisine dish that is). Whether it be Korean BBQ or just a noodle soup, there will be kim chi. What’s great about these side dishes is that they’re bottomless! If you run out of kim chi or pickles, just ask your waitress and she will top it up for you. Usually pointing to the empty dish is enough to get a refill. Throughout your journey in Korea, you should experience a variety of types of kim chi as well as side dishes whenever you change restaurants and provinces.
Fun facts for you: Korean love kim chi that much, that many houses have their own kim chi fridges and when posing for photos, instead of saying ‘cheese’, they say ‘kim chi’.
Live octopus
Not so glamorously sold live octopus. Wriggles on plate
While you can probably eat live octopus anywhere in Korea, I did it in Seoul so here this section lies. For a tourist without a local friend like I had, it might be a bit tricky. I don’t know which restaurants sell it exactly and where those restaurants are, but I’ll tell you how I did it.
We went to one of the fish markets in Seoul, which, by the way was open 24hours (Who needs a helping of sashimi at 3am I’ll never know). The stalls sell any kind of seafood you want really: fish, clams, octopus, squid, mussels, sea cucumber and other things I had never seen before. Each of the stalls is also attached to a partnership restaurant, so if you buy the seafood there, you can also have the restaurant prepare/cook it for you. This is what we did. Here is a rundown of what to do:
1) Go to a fish market
2) Find a stall you like and select your produce, whether it be live octopus or other seafood
3) Have the sellers escort you to the partnership local restaurant
4) Wait for them to cook all the food
5) Sit down and enjoy
English is not that proficiently spoken so do your best and hope for the best. All the seafood in shells that we bought like clams and scallops were steamed and served with a few different condiments. The fish came out as sliced sashimi with the remainder of the fish served in a spicy soup which would come at the end of the meal. The sashimi itself was eaten wrapped in a lettuce or sesame leaf, with a little bit of rice and a few other condiments. Quite different to the Japanese style of just soy sauce and wasabi. The first thing to come out will be the live octopus so get ready, quickly.
You can read more about my personal experience eating live octopus at my blog
We went to one of the fish markets in Seoul, which, by the way was open 24hours (Who needs a helping of sashimi at 3am I’ll never know). The stalls sell any kind of seafood you want really: fish, clams, octopus, squid, mussels, sea cucumber and other things I had never seen before. Each of the stalls is also attached to a partnership restaurant, so if you buy the seafood there, you can also have the restaurant prepare/cook it for you. This is what we did. Here is a rundown of what to do:
1) Go to a fish market
2) Find a stall you like and select your produce, whether it be live octopus or other seafood
3) Have the sellers escort you to the partnership local restaurant
4) Wait for them to cook all the food
5) Sit down and enjoy
English is not that proficiently spoken so do your best and hope for the best. All the seafood in shells that we bought like clams and scallops were steamed and served with a few different condiments. The fish came out as sliced sashimi with the remainder of the fish served in a spicy soup which would come at the end of the meal. The sashimi itself was eaten wrapped in a lettuce or sesame leaf, with a little bit of rice and a few other condiments. Quite different to the Japanese style of just soy sauce and wasabi. The first thing to come out will be the live octopus so get ready, quickly.
You can read more about my personal experience eating live octopus at my blog
Korean bbq
Korean BBQ is one of the funnest things you can do. If you’re not familiar with the concept (which I am very upset for you if you aren’t), its DIY restauranting. At the centre of your table are coals and a grill plate over it. You then order meat that you then cook yourself. And I know, why would you pay to have to cook food at a restaurant. Well it’s super tasty to have meat come straight off the grill and it’s a nice communal way to enjoy food with friends.
If you can get someone from your hostel/hotel to recommend you a Korean BBQ joint, that would be the best. Not all districts have BBQ restaurants so it might be difficult just to stumble across one. Also, I suspect that some of the BBQ restaurants give you an English menu that has raised prices. I went to a place that charged me 27,000won for two bits of C grade quality meat. Luckily Korean restaurants have loads of refillable side dishes, otherwise I would’ve left very hungry.
As with any Korean meal, you’ll have kim chi brought to you and a variety of other side dishes with your meal. You can also order some rice dishes and stews which are a nice accompaniment. The meat that’s cooked on the grill can be eaten as is. Alternatively, they give you some lettuce leaves and chilli sauce that you can wrap your meat in.
If you can get someone from your hostel/hotel to recommend you a Korean BBQ joint, that would be the best. Not all districts have BBQ restaurants so it might be difficult just to stumble across one. Also, I suspect that some of the BBQ restaurants give you an English menu that has raised prices. I went to a place that charged me 27,000won for two bits of C grade quality meat. Luckily Korean restaurants have loads of refillable side dishes, otherwise I would’ve left very hungry.
As with any Korean meal, you’ll have kim chi brought to you and a variety of other side dishes with your meal. You can also order some rice dishes and stews which are a nice accompaniment. The meat that’s cooked on the grill can be eaten as is. Alternatively, they give you some lettuce leaves and chilli sauce that you can wrap your meat in.
mandoo
Noodle soup are a beautiful addition to mandoo
Mandoo are my new favourite food. It’s a steam Korean dumpling with a pork and cabbage filling. It sounds like a traditional Chinese dumpling but it does have its own unique taste. If you don’t like dumplings, you wont like mandoo. But if you don’t like dumplings, you really have to ask the question, what’s going wrong in your life? Mandoo? Can do!
Stews
Koreans make some dynamite stews and it shouldn’t be too difficult to get a hold of some. There are spicy tofu stews with miso, potato and chicken stews with a spicy soy broth and many more. It’s too difficult to go and name them all here as a) there’s lots and b) I haven’t tried them all, but I thought I’d let you know they're there. If you happen to be in one of the coastal cities, they make some phenomenal seafood medley stews which you should definitely try. It’s usually an assortment of shelled fish like clams and prawns. Go for it!
Street food
The street food in Korea rivals that of Thailand. There is so much great street food in Korea that you need to enjoy. It rivals Thailand in how great it is. Most of the food I tried I didn’t know the name but I know that it was delicious. There are some sweet filled doughs, pan fried on a hot plate in front of you, glutinous rice balls in a red savoury sauce and great little sweet snacks that Malaysians would call ‘dragon beard’.
Soju and makkoli
Well if Psy drinks it, I should too
Soju and makkoli are the two types of alcohol that are unique to South Korea. Soju is a rice liquor and sort of tastes like vodka but not as strong, which means it’s quite pleasant to drink straight up. If you can drink Japanese sake, you can drink soju. It also has the cool/lame (you pick) factor of Psy as the soju pin-up boy.
Makkoli, or makgeoli, actually looks like milk and has a taste that I can’t quite put my finger on. It does have some sweet and slightly sour notes but overall, has its own distinct flavor. Due to its lower alcoholic content of 6-8%, you can sometimes see old Korean mountain climbers drink this when they reach the summit of their conquest.
You should be able to find soju at any restaurant or bar. I suspect makkoli might be less popular but still should not be hard to find
Makkoli, or makgeoli, actually looks like milk and has a taste that I can’t quite put my finger on. It does have some sweet and slightly sour notes but overall, has its own distinct flavor. Due to its lower alcoholic content of 6-8%, you can sometimes see old Korean mountain climbers drink this when they reach the summit of their conquest.
You should be able to find soju at any restaurant or bar. I suspect makkoli might be less popular but still should not be hard to find
beer and fried chicken
A few locals told me that Cass beer, South Korea’s local brand, had been named one of the worst in all of Asia. To me, it wasn’t that bad. If you are a bit of a beer connoisseur, you will probably hate it, but if you’re a bit ambivalent about beer and just want to feel refreshed, Cass is fine. The real issue here is the fried chicken. Having fried chicken with beer is a Korean classic, which sucks if you’re a vegetarian. My experience with fried chicken with beer did not go well. The chicken was not that tender and the texture was not that crunchy. Clearly, I’m more of a food whore.
sweet potato latte
While I did not try this particular beverage myself, I had to mention it. Many of you might have heard of green tea lattes, but sweet potato?! Almost all coffee places I went to sold this, try at your own risk and let me know how it goes.
Much more!
There’s many more dishes for you to try in Korea, whether you are in Seoul or another city. I didn’t mention the amazing cold noodles which are amazing on a hot day, Remember, each city might have regional specialties so look out for those. Happy eating!