If there’s one universal truth about South Korea, it’s this: the people there know how to eat, and they do it incredibly well.
I was lucky enough to find my way to Seoul late last year and I stumbled into Seoul’s vibrant food scene quite by accident, thinking I was there for the sights and sounds, but it was the flavors that captured my heart.
I was expecting a quiet trip, but what I got was a love affair with Korean convenience store snacks. Who knew a 7-11 could be so magical?
While I had tasted Korean food before, it was often in places like Dublin and Chania—hardly the first places you think of when searching for authentic Korean cuisine. My familiarity with South Korea was mostly through Korean movies and TV shows, from classics like My Sassy Girl and Park Chan-wook’s Vengeance Trilogy to more recent action thrillers such as I Saw The Devil. K-dramas and K-pop were also abundant sources of exported Korean culture.
Given this, it might not be so surprising that my expectations for finding mind-blowing food were…low. In hindsight, this lack of expectation may have played a small part in how delightfully surprised I was by the range and quality of food I discovered.
It’s no exaggeration that every place I went to served food ranging from great to amazing. Not once was I disappointed. From convenience store pickups to fantastic Korean Fried Chicken and gaming snacks, the food was consistently excellent.
On my first day, I arrived early at my Airbnb, feeling quite tired. Knowing there was a nearby 7-11, I went off to buy some quick snacks, only one of which I was familiar with: gimbap, or kimbap as most know it.
The kimbap was made with bulgogi, thinly sliced marinated beef, and was a fantastic first taste. While Korean kimbap may initially be mistaken for sushi rolls, kimbap can be rolled with all kinds of meat or vegetarian options. One of the more recent popular versions is mayak kimbap, or “drug kimbap,” named for its brilliant, addictive flavors.
Some flavourful and surprisingly mild spicy meat sticks and a lovely milky cream bread rounded out my first trip to the local 7-11, in what would become an almost daily occurence.
One thing I was somewhat familiar with when it comes to Korean food is Korean Fried Chicken and Budae Jjigae, or “Army Base Stew.” After a brief nap, I realized I wasn’t quite ready to go out just yet. Having heard so many good things about Korean delivery services, I decided it was time to put them to the test.
However, for foreigners in Korea navigating the food delivery scene was not as easy as i thought, as most delivery apps require you to have a local registered phone number, which is a bit harder to acquire than i anticipated initially. Thankfully i found Shuttle, a service that allowed me to register quite quickly, had English menus and delivered to my area.
To my surprise though, the two KFC's that i ordered were far larger portions than i expected. While the 'Original' flavour of the chicken were absolutely best in class of your typical fried chicken, the Yangnyeom flavoured chicken was just a much more flavourful and elevated version. Made with a combination of gochujang, spices and sugar, the yangnyeom sauce was nothing like i'd had before.
If you’ve never had Korean Fried Chicken, you’re missing out on one of life’s greatest pleasures. Seriously, put it on your bucket list right now.
The delivery though came with something unexpected, pickled radish or mu, as the locals would say.
A common side-dish in South Korea, this wasn't something i've ever seen on any of my previous encounters with KFC. But it was such a refreshing item to snack on in alternating between the original and yangnyeom flavours. Mixing the flavours with the mu created this sweet-and-salty flavour that become a hint of the different flavour combinations that would later come.
One of the first things you'll learn when you got out to eat in various restaurants is that almost all restaurants will serve you a number of smaller side-dishes, called banchan. The banchan can be a variety of smaller dishes and there is no set number or expected items, but quite often will involve some fermented or pickled items, garlic or steamed meats/fish. The idea here is to provide you with different flavour profiles and combinations you can use.
Other starting items can also include one of my favourite South Korean dishes, the jeon or pancake. But this isn't the typical pancake my mother used to make, thankfully for everyone involved.
Jeon often comes as either kimchi jeon, pajeon (scallion), or haemul jeon (seafood). Having tried all three multiple times, i must say with some surprise that the seafood jeons i've had have all been so spectacularly good. Coming from someone who historically hasn't been a lover of seafood, that's saying something.
But where South Korea elevates already great food to a higher level is when they start to mix a lot of the sweet and salty combinations. This particular mix has a Korean word for it, danjjan. This meaning of mixing just the right amount of sweetness with saltiness can often be found in dishes such as kimchi fried rice with some pickled garlic or one of my favourite go-to street food; the tteokbokki.
A sticky race cake shaped not too dissimilar from penne pasta for those more familiar with that, this dish combines the sticky ricky cake with a sweet, savoury, and spicy sauce.
The flavour combinations don't stop there either as you will often also see excellent use of dishes mixing with each others. One popular combination is to take the budae jigae stew once you have slurped up all the noodles, and add rice to the remaining stew to make a new kind of dish.
Some of my absolute favourite meals were exactly my favourites, from pre-made lunchboxes to setting out my own combinations of rice, sweet and spicy chicken feet, salty anchovies, pickled garlic and spicy squid strips. More than any other place i've experienced South Korea has allowed me to indulge and expand my tastebuds and experience whole new taste profiles. I would wholeheartedly encourage anyone wanting to go on a new food adventure to start here, and maybe you can yourself find new flavours and food to enjoy.
But more than anything else i think i would be remiss if i didn't also partake of Korean bbq while in South Korea. It would be absolutely criminal if i didn't.
As we've explored earlier, and probably more so than anywhere else, Korean BBQ places are also somewhere you would definitely expect to be served banchan, a whole set of side-dishes to complement and flavour your meal.
From grilled cheese and peppers to pickled vegetables, the side dishes serve both as small things to snack on while grilling but also can be mixed with the meat. One surprising element that i saw at a few places was that along with your banchan you would also be served perilla leaves, or what's known as the ssam.
These mint-looking leaves serve not just as an interesting flavour contrast to the rich meats, but also as a wrapper for your meat slices. Grab a leaf, a bit of grilled meat, add some of the accompanying garnishes such as salt, sauce (my go-to quickly became the ssamjang), maybe some garlic or kimchi. Wrap it all up inside the leaf, scrunch it together and eat it in one single bite.
The first time i tried it, there was a veritable flavour explosion in my mouth. All those delightful little things coming together in harmony is just an experience you must try for yourself.
When it comes to the actual grilling of the meat however, how you get it done will change from establishment to establishment.
A lot of the more BBQ places that have more of the premium cuts of meats will often have someone around that will grill the meats, and even cut them up in smaller pieces for you. I must admit i found this part to be a little bit of a small relief on my part, because history will show that i've been close enough to burn whole houses down when left to my own devices.
The self-serve option though is something that some people do enjoy a lot of the time, and is often found in restaurants that serve a larger assortment of cuts or all-you-can-eat type options.
Historically i've leaned towards eating more lean cuts of meat, but i found myself challenged in South Korea with the myriad of beautifully marbled and fatty cuts of meat available to you. While definitely not your A-level type of Wagyu meats, the meats had this beautiful combination of fat and meat that would just melt in your mouth. Throw some grilled cheese on top of that, and it'll be bites you wish you could endlessly throw back.
Suffice to say that this way of combining so many little ingredients together, with quality side-dishes and flavours, was one that i quickly fell in love with. While i've had many Korean meals since i left the country, few have been good enough to compete with what i had locally during my travels.
It is therefore perhaps not entirely surprising that i'm already looking forward to booking my second trip to South Korea in the near future, and explore more of this beautiful little corner of the world and what they have to offer.
See you soon, South Korea.