Are you heading to South Korea soon? There is no doubt that you’ve done a lot of research on what to do and where to eat. If you’re a K-drama fan, then you may already be familiar with a lot of places in the country as well as the kind of food that Koreans love to eat.
Koreans have a thriving street food culture and people from all walks of life still buy their fresh ingredients and ready-to-eat meals from traditional markets and little shops along the road or in subway stations. Some are more tourist friendly than others, but in general, the items that you can find in nearly every market are quite similar.
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| Korean Fried Street Food |
My friends and I were heading to Pyongchang for a K-pop festival and our bus stopped at a traditional Korean market in Gangneung City, which is part of Gangwon Province. Because we were part of a massive tour group, the market was extremely packed. However, these types of markets are often quite busy anyway so be prepared to elbow your way to get past a lot of people regardless of which market you choose to visit.
The key is to walk a little further in to get away from the crowd that has formed near the entrance. Since we were not there to shop for ingredients to bring back home, we proceeded to go on a hunt for ready-to-eat Korean street food that we could enjoy before resuming the rest of our journey.
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| Korean Rice Cakes |
We first spotted a stall selling Korean fried chicken. It’s kind of the entry-level street food in Korea, which is definitely something that every visitor must try. These are bite-size pieces of chicken which are breaded and deep-fried until crispy. The cooked chicken is then covered with a sweet, spicy glaze made with gochujang or Korean red chili paste.
We made the mistake of buying from a shop that had the chicken on display at the counter, meaning that it had gone cold by the time we dug in. There are long lines for the freshly-cooked batch though, so I'm not sure if we would have had the patience.
We then moved on to browse through the other items on offer. We saw a number of fresh vegetable stands, various kinds of seaweed, rice cakes, dried fruits and nuts and basically just about any ingredient typically used in traditional Korean cooking.
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| Korean Tempura |
After walking a bit, we had to grab some deep-fried prawns, similar to Japanese tempura. They also batter and fry a variety of other things like dumplings (mandu), stuffed peppers, squid and vegetables. However, the prawns looked particularly appetizing so we ordered some.
There were two stacks, with one labelled “naked shrimp.” On hindsight, we should have gone for those because we realized too late that we ordered those that had been battered and deep fried with the heads and shells included!
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| Cheese-stuffed Tempura |
Basically, they did not bother to peel the prawns and just dumped them in the hot oil after coating them with the almost universal batter that I see everywhere in Korea. The whole thing becomes crispy of course and not really difficult to eat. But for me, I really did not need the head and the shell.
Moving forward, we skipped the fishcakes and tteokbokki (spicy rice cakes) because we have had those may times before. If it’s your first time, then you need to have those.
We then proceeded to order some sundae or blood sausage, which is one of the most famous street snacks in Korea. These have made an appearance in every single K-drama that I have seen to date. They may not look too attractive because of the grayish-black color that the sausage gets from the blood, but if you’re willing to look past that, this is a very tasty snack.
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| Stuffed Squid |
We ordered the sundae with a large squid also stuffed with blood, meat and noodles similar to what’s in the sausage. A very dignified looking ahjumma reheated everything for us, and we found a table at the back where we could have a sit-down meal away from the crowd.
Overall, it was a fun experience but be prepared to eat standing up and to deal with a lot of people. It’s a great way to get a real feel of Korean culture so make sure you visit a market when you travel to the country. Watch the video below to see more:
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