Korea is often referred to as a food paradise and surely one of the best places for street food, attracting many people with its scents and flavors.
Needless to say, visiting all the best restaurants and eating the best food is by far a must-do when spending 7 days in Seoul or more!
In this post, we’ll take a look at the different street food you should try and places to visit in Seoul when you go there.
What Food is Seoul Known For?
Seoul is known for its Korean street foods. In a culture continuously shifting and adapting to trends, the foods served in stalls and from carts are a cultural standard firmly ingrained in the cultural history and natural identity of the country. Comfort and nostalgia are cooked into every and bite.
What is Seoul’s Famous Food?
Bulgogi is perhaps the most popular dish in Korea, with thinly sliced meat with a smoky-sweet flavor. You can enjoy it stir-fired, grilled, or broiled.
Why is Korean Food Often Considered Terrible?
While a few Korean dishes are considered healthy meals, Korean stews and soups have one major disadvantage. They often contain a lot of salt. South Koreans are popular to be massive consumers of sodium, which rank at the top globally in terms of their daily intake.
What’s The Worst Korean Food to Try?
It might be beondegi—a cooked silkworm pupa is certain to awaken your senses with its unmistakable smell and memorable taste profile: buggy, juicy flavor that lingers long after you are done eating. It is a snack and a typical street food famous among kids.
How Expensive is Food in South Korea?
Meal prices in the country can differ, but the average cost of food is ₩30,541 ($26) per day. According to the spending habits of previous travelers, dining out an average meal in Korea should cost approximately ₩12,216 ($10.40) per individual. The prices for breakfast are relatively lower than lunch or dinner.
Best Places to Eat Seoul Street Food
With endless numbers of vendors serving up streets like a stuffed pancake (hotteok), fish cake (odeng), and spicy rice cakes (tteokbokki), Seoul is basically one big open-air restaurant. Delicious, hearty, and cheap, Seoul street food is essential on any visit to the capital of South Korea. However, if you are searching for the best places to taste it, make sure you consider the following places.
- Gwangjang Market (광장시장)
- Seoul Bamdokkaebi Night Market (서울 밤도깨비 야시장)
- Myeongdong Street Food Alley
- Common Ground (커먼그라운드)
- Tongin Market (통인시장)
- Dongdaemun Night Market (동대문시장)
- Sindang-Dong Tteokbokki Town (신당동떡볶이골목)
- Namdaemun Market (남대문시장)
- Sindang-Dong Tteokbokki Town
- Namdaemun Market
Best Seoul Street Food
Street food is everywhere, tempting you with its unique aromas and bomb flavors. Choosing what to eat can be challenging. Below are the twenty-seven must-eat foods you should try as you make your way around Seoul.
Also, before starting, it’s worth noting that trying all the street food is one of the best things to do with kids in Seoul, and you’ll love trying new flavors with your little ones!
Fishcake – Eomuk Tang
It’s made of seafood (white fish) combined together with potato starch, veggies, and sugar and processed into different shapes.
Donuts
It’s a portion of pretty common street food in Korea. It’s basically a dough rolled into a rope and twisted together to make the signature twist shape. After frying, it’s coated in sugar and cinnamon powder mixture.
Stewed Pork Feet
Also known as jokbal, it’s a well-cherished dish in Korea due to its amazing flavors rendered with tasty, healthy pork fats and seasoning. It’s often made with fresh pig feet.
Banana Milk
Banana milk is one of the highly sought beverages in Korea. It may sound boring in theory, but there’s something about the combination of savory and sweet notes in this drink.
Kimchi-Ppang
This is composed of gigantic, white, fluffy buns baked with a good amount of kimchi and pork filling inside that’s meaty, crispy, savory, and spicy. It has a golden crunchy crust outside and soft bread inside.
Live Octopus
It may be hard to swallow, as it is chopped, live small octopus. Further, the tentacles continue to squirm even after it is plated, sticking in your mouth or on your chopsticks. It’s often seasoned with sesame oil and dust of sesame seeds.
Bindaetteok – Mung Bean Pancake
This snack is made from ground mung bean batter along with pork belly, veggies, and kimchi added inside.
Kimbap
This snack is composed of rice rolled with different fillings from cucumber and carrots to strips of omelet and beef and then wrapped in seaweed. It’s treated like a sandwich and intended to be consumed with your hands.
Blood Sausage
It’s made of pig or cow intestines that are cleaned and stuffed with other meat, blood, and veggies. Depending on where you go, you may encounter other varieties of blood sausage as well.
Gyeran-Bbang
This snack is a loaf of bread baked along with the whole egg inside of it. You can have this snack as it is, or you can ask to be topped with some parsley or cheese.
Croissant Boong-Uh-Ppang
This is a fish-shaped bread served with red beans on in a sweet battery. It is widely referred to as goldfish bread.
Hweori Gamja – Tornado Potato
This is composed of potatoes, laid out into thin pieces. It has the right amount of thinness to let it hold salty flavored powder.
Gamja Hot Dog
A corn dog is one of the most highly-sought Korean street food. The hot dog and mozzarella cheese are placed in a skewer.
Korean Grilled Cheese Lobster
Grilled cheese lobsters are some of the main attractions in a portion of Korean street food, and it is exactly like its name suggests—a fresh lobster grilled and topped with melted cheese.
Korean Bbq
This is a food where meat, chicken, or pork are grilled at the dining table. Short ribs of meat like chicken, pork, or beef are marinated in a savory and sweet sauce.
Grilled Cheese
This Seoul street food is skewered on a stick, and the baked cheese is composed of rice cakes, mozzarella cheese and grilled on a griddle.
Mandu
These are dumplings that are enjoyed by the masses, whether it’s fried, steamed, or steamed. A few mandu are filled with veggies, while some have various types of meats and often a mix of two.
Baked Cheese Scallops
As the name suggests, it’s composed of fresh scallops and covered with cheese and then baked.
Dak-Kkochi 닭꼬치: Skewered Chicken
This scallion and chicken skewer is the ideal introduction for you. The chicken is marinated in garlic, ginger, and mirin brushed with a sweet, spicy soy sauce.
Tteokbokki 떡볶이: Spicy Rice Cakes
This is a spicy, stir-fried rice cake. Other ingredients in this dish include everything from fish cakes to eggs in a sauce made from gochujang.
Hotteok 호떡: Sweet Korean Pancake
A freshly cooked hotteok is often filled with melted browned sugar and some pieces of nutty goodness. The dough is made from glutinous rice and corn, offering it a chewy texture.
Bindaetteok 빈대떡: Mung Bean Pancake
This street food is made from scallions, garlic, bean sprouts, and mung beans.
Twigim 튀김: Battered And Deep-Fried Food
Twigim is composed of a wide array of deep-fried delights, such as seafood, egg, kimbap, veggies, and many more.
Soondae 순대: Korean Blood Sausage
It’s basically a sausage made from boiled or steamed pig or cow’s small intestines filled with rice, blood, vegetables, minced meat, alliums, and dangmyeon (glass noodles from potato starch).
Eomuk Guk 어묵국: Fish Cake Soup
This fish cake soup is a vital ingredient in tteokbokki. It is added when the liquid decreases much, which causes it to be pasty and thick.
Beondegi 번데기: Steamed Silkworm
This Korean food is made by boiling or steaming silkworm pupa and then served in a throwaway paper cup with along with a toothpick. It’s a high-protein worm that became famous throughout the Korean War because of its availability and nutritional content.
Fresh Pomegranate Juice
This is a tangy, fruity, and refreshing drink mix concentrated with vinegar and pomegranate concentrate. You could mix this drink with milk, sparkling water, or water. You can also add to your favorite salad dressing, yogurt, milk, carbonated water, smoothie, marinate, cocktail, and many more.
There you have it! These are the twenty-seven must-try Seoul street food you should try. In this day and age, when dining is no longer constrained to restaurants and homes, Seoul street food is surely making big waves. As such, markets have become centers of culinary innovation, where you can try many different Seoul street food that is unavailable anywhere else.
So, what are you waiting for? Come to Seoul to feast on the most traditional favorites and savor one-of-a-kind and delicious snacks. Make sure you bring your Banana Milk or Fresh Pomegranate Juice!
We hope you find this guide entertaining and helpful. Share your thoughts with us by leaving your comments below!
