Since before we arrived in South Korea, one of the things I was most excited about, was the culinary trip we were about to experience. Though I was somewhat a picky eater when I was younger, there are now few things I won’t eat. We were aware of how meat-centric South Korea was before we came here, and were worried about Briana being able to eat out. We have since discovered, it is nearly impossible for her to eat true Korean food out because vegetarian does not seem to mean the same thing here as it does in the states. So with that in mind, I am going to give you my South Korean food review over the decidedly South Korean food that we, most particularly I, ate.

South Korean Food Review – 3 Months in Seoul

Where Did I Eat?

Most of what I ate has been out and about on our excursions into various cities and neighborhoods, primarily street vendors or stand-alone restaurants. Because of our living arrangement in Songtan, I most frequently cooked at home, using traditional Korean ingredients – only occasionally getting western items from HomePlus. I’ll exclude my cooking and do my best to go over the individual dishes and dining experiences.

South Korean Food Is Spicy and Delicious

Kimchi 

So this is possibly the most important cuisine in all of Korea. Everyone eats it and everyone makes it. When we walk down the city streets, you can see the adjumas washing and preparing the cabbage for Kimchi, especially during the fall to prepare for the harsh winter.

At its core, it’s a spicy pickled cabbage, somewhat reminiscent of sauerkraut. But in reality, it is so much more complex than that. It is pickled with loads of garlic, ginger, radishes, and gochugaru (red pepper paste), and usually – though not necessarily – shrimp paste. But this is just the basic Baechu kimchi – it can widely vary, from person to person, and region to region.

There are several hundred different varieties as well, and although cabbage is the mainstay, it can be made with just about any vegetable you can pickle: zucchini, carrot, asparagus, cucumber, etc. Some are sweeter, some make you breathe fire. Typically, it’s served with every meal as a side. We’ve had quite a few different varieties, and most have been quite excellent.

 

We’ve tried our hand at making it, and it’s not too difficult. It’s pretty tasty too. We leave out the shrimp paste so that it doesn’t bother Briana, but I’m perfectly fine with this. In fact, back in the states, we keep several jars of homemade kimchi in the fridge for whenever we need a spicy snack.

Kimchi is very nutritious, loaded with vitamin C, originally the best way for the Korean people to get vitamins and nutrients during the brutal winters here that in no way could allow anything to grow.

Oi Muchim

This is a variant of kimchi in my opinion, but it is really a spicy cucumber salad.  Thinly sliced cucumber, marinated in a small amount of rice vinegar, gochugaru, sugar, garlic, and sesame seed and oil. It’s very similar to cucumbers in vinegar, but with a little extra kick. A big difference is that this is typically made fresh, and not allowed to pickle.

 

Gochu (Gochugaru)

The gochu pepper is another staple of Korean delicacy. It’s a spicy little red pepper, that I’d put at about twice the heat of a jalapeño. While it’s quite hot, it also has a sweet and smoky flavor that reminds me of a chipotle pepper, though not as distinct. 

These little peppers are grown everywhere here. In Songtan, you can see these pepper plants growing in pots in people’s yards and porches, in spots of land beside the road, and everywhere in between. Once picked, they’re set out to dry in sun. Again, you can see thousands of these peppers laying out on sheets all around town, just drying in the sun. 

Once dry, they’re ground up or chopped, sometimes sold whole, and the powder is then used to make the Gochugaru paste.  This paste is pretty spicy and used in everything here in Korea. If it’s red, it’s got Gochugaru in it and it’s spicy.

 

While the Gochu pepper is relatively new (a few hundred years old) to Korean cuisine, it has taken a firm hold and is almost just as important as Kimchi.

Gaji Namul (Eggplant)

This preparation of eggplant is quite good. Utilizing Chinese eggplant, rather than globe eggplants that we typically have in the US, it’s thinner, tender, and less bitter. These are steamed, and then torn apart and marinated with soy sauce, gochugaru, and sesame seed. This is a wonderful vegetarian dish you can make here in Korea, though most likely as a side.

 

Nakji Gguri

Octopus on a stick. This is one of the first foods I tried here. It’s a pretty common street vendor food and straightforward as well – an octopus wrapped around a stick, then grilled on an open fire. Once cooked, it’s then dipped in a spicy sauce such as Mandu sauce.

It tastes pretty good and quite chewy. If you don’t like seafood though, I wouldn’t expect you would like it, as it is a very distinct taste. While I enjoyed it, I was slightly bothered by the head, because when you bite it, something inside soft kinda squirts out – I think it may be the brain, or other organs though I’m not sure. But aside from that, it is a fun and easy vendor food, and rather cheap as well, as I was able to get it for 3,000 Won, which is roughly $2.75.

 

Donkkaseu

Photo courtesy of Peter Eimon

I got this at a restaurant in Pyeongtaek AK Station. It is a fried pork cutlet. To me, it reminds me quite a bit of a thinly sliced chicken-fried pork chop. Served alongside Kimchi and with Mandu sauce, it’s quite a vibe of southern soul food. I have to say it’s pretty good, and if you’re craving some American food but have only access to Korean food, this is your top choice.

Vegetable Jap Chae

This meal was, unfortunately, a mistake for us. While I enjoyed it, Briana really did not. We were in Myeongdong and came across a restaurant that advertised a vegetable dish with no meat (something we had yet to see), so we decided to try it out.

It was served family style. A ton of noodles, vegetables, glass noodles, and sauce came out in a dish with ice. They mix it up in front of you and you dig in. Our problem was the sauce, which was pretty much all shrimp paste. 

Briana could hardly eat it and gave up quite quickly. Which left me to devour the entire family sized portion of food alone. The glass noodles are very chewy and can be difficult to eat. The taste is also slightly overwhelming. Although I liked it, by the time I was nearing the end, I was ready to be done with it. I also was not fond of it being ice cold, but that is just how it was. I wouldn’t have it again, but it was certainly worth trying.

Squid Fried Rice

I don’t know if this is actually a Korean dish per se, it may be a variant of Nakji bokkeum, but I got it at a restaurant and it was pretty good. The squid was prepared in a way that it wasn’t too chewy, and it was very spicy, covered in a gochugaru sauce – you may be noticing a trend here.

The fried rice was dry, but not in a bad way, and mixed quite well with the sauce of the squid. By far one of my favorite dishes here. Considering Korea’s peninsular location and proximity to Japan and China, seafood, particularly squid, octopus, and eel have a firm hold here. It’s readily and widely available, often times still alive in tanks at various markets like you’ll find lobster in the states.

 

Beondigi

Photo courtesy of Jean-François Chénier

This dish is a little unfair for me to review, because I haven’t tried it yet (or ever), but it is so prevalent and distinct I couldn’t ignore it. It is boiled or pan-fried silkworm larvae.  You can see these being offered frequently as a street food. While the visual appeal is basically none to me, I can accept that this is probably just due to my culturalization to avoid insects.

But that is not what turns me from it. The smell. The stench is nauseating to me and just drifts around and overpowers everything. You know if there is a vendor nearby, even if you can’t see it. To me, it smells like boiled dirty rags, mixed with sewage. I’m sure there are some who like it, and more power to them, but this is one that I will not be able to bring myself to eat.

Bibimbap

This is a mainstay of Korean food and is a must-try if you’re here. At its core, it is rice, tossed with vegetables, meat, gochugaru, and a sunny side up egg on top. Though the vegetables will vary, you can typically expect to find mushrooms, carrot, bell pepper, and fern-brake.

But this meal is often times treated as a “leftovers” meal, so if you’re cooking it at home, feel free to throw whatever you may have in your fridge in as well – it’s all up to you. I like to add sautéed onion and drop the fern-brake.

It is served in a hot stone bowl, so it was crisp the rice when you place it in as well as keep the food hot while you eat. The vegetables and meat are then laid around the edges of the rice and the egg is placed on top. When ready to eat, you mix it up and dig in.

The egg, once broken provides a nice creamy sauce and texture to the rest of the dish that will slightly cook due to the heat of the bowl. If you’re a vegetarian, this is probably one of your best-bet meals, because it’s easy to ask for no egg or meat, and it’s all mixed together at the end rather than during its production, so you should be safe.

Galbi 

Galbi is a Korean barbecued short rib dish that you grill. The meat is cut and prepped in a way to make the meat exceptionally tender and easy to eat. Typically it will be served to you raw, and you will cook it at the table on the grill in front of you. It is marinated in Korean ganjang-based (Korean soy-sauce) sauce.

Galbi is a sweet Korean food, in contrast to most items you’ll find here. If you want to make it spicy you’ll have to add some sauce to it after cooking although there are varieties such as “maeun dwaeji galbi” which literally means hot and spicy pork ribs. You can find Galbi in other preparations as well, such as Galbitang (clear soup) Galbi jjigae (thick stew), Dak galbi (chicken), and Tteokgalbi (meatballs with rice cake in the center). While I like it, my preference is still Bulgogi.

Tteok

These are rice cakes, which come in many different styles here. But at their core, they all share the same basic quality. Glutinous rice flour is steamed and then pressed into a form. Some vendors will sell them at this point as they are, usually accompanied with a sauce of some sort. The type I tried I got on the metro during a transfer. It was a rice cake, surrounded by a deep-fried Korean pancake. It was pretty good, but I will say that the rice cake was exceptionally chewy.

Ox-bone Soup

Photo courtesy of gastrodamus

This soup is pretty good, but it is also strong. If you don’t like red meat, I would not recommend it. It is a broth soup, with nothing else in it. But it gets its flavor from boiled ox-bones. The fat renders off the bone, and the marrow dissolves into the water.

The result is a very rich, marrow flavored soup. Its good, but be warned that if you are off put by marrow or bloody soups, you will definitely not like this. A bowl is pictured near the bibimbap in the first picture.

Cuttlefish 

Photo courtesy of Jerry The Duck

I got the cuttlefish at a buffet-style restaurant, and it was served plain. I don’t know if there is a certain preparation for it or not, but I cooked it as it was and dipped in a Manchu sauce. Overall, it was dull. It tastes like boiled egg-white with a slight fishy taste and is very chewy. My preference is squid, and octopus below that – cuttlefish is at the bottom of my list.

Dotorimuk

This food is acorn jelly. It doesn’t have a strong taste though it is a bit nutty, and it reminds me a bit of tofu. But the texture totally threw it off for me. Reminds me a lot of canned cranberry sauce you can get around Thanksgiving in the US. Pictured on the right.

Tteokbokki

This dish was pretty decent, and another serving style of the rice cake. It was served inside a hollowed out pumpkin, filled with a Korean style carbonara sauce, very reminiscent of a vodka sauce, covered in cheese, and then baked. It was filling and tasted pretty good. To me, it was like Korea’s take on lasagna. This dish can be seen in the photo above for Dotorimuk.

The Meat Restaurant

My most recent experience gave me a thorough tasting of what meats Korea has to offer. I went to a meat buffet, aptly named Meat Restaurant.

An Awesome Buffet

This place was situated just down shopping-ro from Osan AirBase in Songtan. The premise was pretty simple, there’s a grill on your table, and you have unlimited access to the various meats at the buffet. You select what you want, grill, then eat.

 

I started off with a basic selection: Kimchi, lettuce, a few egg rolls, and then Samgyeopsal (which I thought was thick bacon at first, and it kinda is), brisket, and pork neck bone. I started the cooking process and ate the salads and egg rolls while it cooked.

 

Samgyeopsal, The Best Bacon

The brisket and neck bone cooked pretty quickly, but I let the Samgyeopsal cook a while longer. So I went to get another helping. This time, I got some duck, marinated chicken, and octopus.  These cooked very quickly. Dipped in Mandu sauce they taste very good since it adds a sweet and smokey flavor. But the meat is so good, it really doesn’t need the sauces for the most part.

 

Finally, the Samgyeopsal was finished and was basically some of the best bacon I’ve ever had.  So big I had to cut it into manageable strips with the oversized scissors they give you. Once done with this, I went for yet another serving: this time for beef Bulgogi. This was delicious and probably the best I’d had so far. It was sweet and savory, with a taste reminiscent of an English Stew. 

 

Try It All, Just Don’t Take Too Much

I got up to get more and looking around realized I had been eating wrong. So I decided to make this last trip count and do it right. I got more Bulgogi and duck, but also got large lettuce leaves.  Once cooked, I placed the meat on the lettuce and wrapped it around, almost like it was a tortilla. The freshness of the leaf with savory meat paired very well together. Finally, I was very full and had to call it a day.

The Take-Away

There have been a few observations I’ve made while at the Korea restaurants that are different from the US. One of the biggest and nicest is the no-tipping policy. It is actually considered rude to tip, so you walk in knowing exactly how much you are going to pay which is very relaxing.

Because of this no tipping policy, less service is provided, but this really isn’t a bad thing – I go out to eat for the food, not the service, and actually get annoyed at a waiter coming up and asking how things are in the middle of a bite.

This Is Proper Service

So there is only one or maybe two “servers” managing the entire restaurant usually. They give you your glasses and a huge jug of water so that you can serve yourself. Utensils are in a drawer built into the table. When you come in and sit down, they will leave you alone until you are ready: which you tell them by pressing a little button at your table.

You press the button and within a few seconds they come and help you out. This can be done any time during the meal, so really you can get better and quicker service than in the US since someone isn’t hopping around from table to table catering to some uptight guest. Once you order, they bring you the check, which you then take to the front and pay at the end of your meal. The process is easy, efficient, and convenient. I wish our restaurants operated the same way.

South Korean Food Review – 3 Months in Seoul