The Ultimate Guide To Street Food In South Korea
I went to Seoul, Korea straight from Bali for my ultimate Asia trip, where I traveled to four countries in a row. I met my sister, mom, and my sister’s ice dance partner in Jeju Island, Korea. Even though the layover was absolutely terrible, it was doable because I was having so much fun on my solo female traveler trip. I went from Bali to Kuala Lumpur (4 hours? I forgot) airport and the layover was more than 7 hours. I then flew to Seoul Kimpo airport (a few hours) then went straight to Jejudo from the airport. This whole flight time plus layover was 18 hours (it was pretty dreadful since on the way to Bali it was another 7 hour layover in Kuala Lumpur). Kuala Lumpur's airport also has two TSA points for some reason, which makes the layover seem a little bit shorter. When the TSA asked me what country I came from I got so confused I said I am going to Bali, I came from Macau i am going to Kuala because I literally forgot where I came from lol.
It was nice to arrive in Seoul because It is my motherland, and I always love eating legit Korean food, going to Korean malls, cafes, etc.
At Seoul Kimpo airport I ordered three dishes and ate it all no joke. I was craving Korean so badly after I had a lot of Balinese food. I ate udon, ddukbokki, and Odeng (fish cake). This restaurant was so good and it tasted so authentic, and I needed to eat nothing else to satisfy my cravings. It was also only 10$ total.
When I arrived in Jeju Island, I was so tired but I was happy to meet my family there. the air bnb i reserved for everyone was very cozy and spacious. She was nice enough to buy some clementines for us. The hallabong clementine that is the size of an orange was so tasty! I heard of jeju clementines but now I know why Koreans die for those fruits. So succulent and sweet! My mom even brought the bucket of clementines we picked from the trees to Seoul (she really made us carry them on the plane).
Another street food we love in Seoul are dumplings (especially when we go to Mokdong). We found this dumpling place in Jeju Island and there was a dog in front of the restaurant. My mom went to get some dumplings there and they were a wonderful hangover snack. They were so tasty! They had assorted kimchi dumplings and they were different colors. I really recommend them to anyone who goes there. My mom said they were Chinese owned, and the dog there was really friendly and cute. I loved how the kimchi dumpling was very spicy, since we drank a lot that night and it was great hangover food.
Dumplings are a necessity when traveling to Korea. Most dumpling places have awesome dumplings in South Korea, and the places I have been to had super delicious dumplings. They are a great street food. They are very inexpensive, will fill you up, and taste super yummy. Dumpling soup is popular in the winter because they are basically soup dumplings (Korean Version) served with rice cake, eggs, and a white beef flavored broth.
The dog in front of the dumpling house! Isn't he so cute?!
When we arrived in Seoul, we got to eat a lot of delicious ddukbokki! Sometimes Ddukbokki can taste very bland, depending on where you go. It will not be all delicious wherever you go, so you need to go to the ones with either a lot of people or a highly rated place. There is not really many review sites for Korean restaurants because there are so many, so you have to sometimes trust your gut instinct. You can't really get a good clue from it from the restaurants around the ddukbokki place either, because they are all random. This one place looked good and was a big restaurant, but they took around 20 minutes to prepare ready-made dduk bokki and it was not tasty at all. I bought two servings and we ended up just storing it in the fridge, letting it all go to waste :(
Ddukbokki was so good at this one place next to the Blue House. It was so tasty I cannot forget the taste of this ddukbokki!! It was at the little pojang macha (orange booth) that you see a lot on the streets on every block. The Fish cake soup and soon dae (pork intestines) is a must when eating ddukbokki as well. Koreans love eating soon dae with dduk bokki sauce, because they complement each other very well. They sound kind of nasty as they are intestines, but they taste so great to us Koreans. A lot of Americans living in Korea love them as well. The soup usually is around 1USD and you drink it with the ddukbokki to make yourself extra warm in the cold winter months.
Another street food in Korea is the new and trending cow-rice cake cow-rice cake so-dduk so-dduk. It is literally beef with rice cake kabobs. They taste good, but I feel like I had one that was a bit too slathered in bulgogi sauce so I did not like the overly sweet taste.
I tried them on two different occasions, once at a hip hop concert as an appetizer with some beer, and another right before Christmas, hence the Christmas costume that the person selling them was wearing. The dish at the concert tasted much better, but I am not sure if that was because I was lit. I love how most Korean food is food good for hangovers and alcohol hors d'oeuvres because Koreans drink so much. Koreans will drink soju all day long. When we went to the bar crawl in Jejudo, we were drinking starting at 8pm until 5am the next morning. We drank so many bottles to count, and some Koreans will top that by drinking with a hangover cure food even the next morning at like 8am. It is pretty insane but Koreans just love their soju lol.
Another tip for street food in Korean booths are to see if the food looks fresh. Some food do not look visually appetizing, so try not to go to those booths, especially if no one is around eating from the booth. Kim Bap is also a very popular yet also healthy street food. It is kind of like a California Roll, but with seaweed wrapped on the outermost layer and different types of vegetables and proteins inside. There are usually carrots, yellow radish, bulgogi, egg, spinach, fish cake, biut they vary inside every kim bap. These are also very cheap and they give it to you in long pieces without cutting them in a foil wrapping.
Last but not least, the desserts in Korea are simply amazing. This is the extremely long ice cream Chocolate and Vanilla swirl from Hongdae. That is my mom secretly judging us for getting this ice cream. I wish we had a video of us eating it, because we ate it about halfway and it dripped all over our whole entire arms. The taste was so delicious. It was like a Mc Donald's cone but better and it felt like we were eating unlimited Ice Cream on a hot summer's day (This was in the summer when we went). I really want to get this ice cream again next time I go to Hongdae because I love walking around there. There are a lot of young people but I still looking around the shops, getting the cheap and nice sunglasses there, and going to all the cool themed cafes and animal cafes.
Another street food that is very delicious in South Korea is the Korean corn dog, or hot dog as they say it. I never tried the big monstrous corn dogs I saw on television, but I always wanted to. Right before I went to Korea, I saw an episode on "Mom's Diary" where Hong Sun Young has a cheat day and she goes to Chop Chop, the corn dog house in Gangnam. The way she ate those corn dogs made them look so delicious, that I promised myself to go there when I stay in Gangnam for Christmas week. I went there with my sister and her Ice dance partner, and tried the regular potato corn dog. They were so good! I loved the restaurant too because they decorated it with like a forest and the store was massive. There were random figures like giraffes and other artwork in the display cases. They had all these different types of sauces and different flavors you can order from an automatic checkout machine. Daniel had two hot dogs because they were yummy.
They have different ones at different booths and restaurants, and I really recommend corn dogs from Korea. They are usually really good. Another street food in the winter is the ho dduk, chestnuts in a bag, Korean sweet potatoes, and the jjin bbang (bread with black bean paste in the middle). I will go into these later, but they are a must try when traveling to Korea!
