One of my worries prior to arriving to Korea was finding what I considered to be western comfort food. Much to my surprise Seoul has an abundance of coffee and pastry shops, western brunch and fast food joints. To top it all off there’s always the awesome Korean traditional and fast street food.
I had promised myself to eat as much street food as possible during my first week in Seoul in order to get an iron gut immediately. Needless to say from the point of view of a westerner I was somewhat hesitant to try some of the street vendor offerings. Some of the food appears to be cooking in the sun for hours on end. That being said I have yet to be seriously sick and have had only a minor case of diarrhea. I believe the diarrhea or “the runs” as others may know it came about from the significant change in my dietary intake. Koreans eat a lot of fresh vegetables as well as pickled vegetables. I believe this was the cause of my digestive problems. Enough on the subject…
Here I present you with some of my favorites. Some of these I had a chance to try prior to arriving in Korea while others I discovered while wandering the streets. These food post will be ongoing as I have only really had a chance to document a small percentage of all the good food there is to be had.
First I’ll start off with one of my favorites which is “Kun Mandu” or fried dumplings. Now the street stalls all over Korea have a variation of these dumplings. Some are larger and filled with pork goodness and steamed. Think the size of a baseball or the size of your fist.
Other resemble what some westerners might call the wonton dumpling. Here in Seoul the majority have pork or Kimchi inside. You cannot come to Seoul and not experience Kimchi so i’ll have a specific post on the subject later on!
The Kun mandu can be either fried in a pan or deep friend. You can normally get 4 or 5 of them for a few thousand won’s (a couple of Canadian dollars) and are best eaten with a little of soya sauce mixed with sesame seeds and garlic. Each street food vendor puts their own twist on the condiments. Often times they will cut the mandu in half using scissors (more on Korean scissor use as well)
I present to you one of my favorite street snacks so far:
One of the other many Korea dishes I enjoy is the bibimbap. This is a dish normally served in a large stone bowl which has been heated so that when it arrives at your table the food is still sizzling. The bowl is usually placed on a wooden or plastic holder because of it’s high temperature.
A large varieties of these bibimbap dishes exist but one of my favorites is rice along with mixed vegetables (mushrooms, cucumbers, bean sprouts, the combinations vary) with some kind of meat (usually beef). As always with most Korean dishes it contains some gochujang (red pepper paste. Think tomato paste but made with red peppers instead. Very delicious if you like spicy food). You normally mixed the whole thing together as its still sizzling.
The variations of this dish are uncountable. Sometimes the dish is mostly soup and noodles but most often it’s rice with vegetables and/or meat. Here’s a few pictures of these wonderfully belly filling and healthy dishes!
Finally I leave you with these delicious treats! This are the Korean versions of street donuts. If you’re lucky when you buy one they are still warm to the touch, very soft and extremely delicious. I’ll ask my Korean friend if there is a specific name for them but I believe they are just referred to as donuts.
There are many many more great Korean street foods and snacks. I consider myself a bit of a food enthusiast so there will be lots of food related posts. Coming soon in the food related post categories: Korean barbq (galbi), Kimchi, more street goodness and the best Korean burger I’ve had to date!
An-nyung!
