South Korea

Korean cuisine is becoming increasingly popular outside of Korea, especially in other parts of East Asia and the U.S. However, those unfamiliar with Korean cuisine will have to be wary for the many spicy and fermented dishes in Korean cuisine. Nevertheless, it is addictive once you get used to it and Korean food is definitely in a class of its own, mixing spicy chillies and copious amounts of garlic with delicate ingredients like raw fish. Although Korean food is quite low in fat, a fact attested to by the observation that very few South Koreans are overweight, those with sodium-limited diets should beware, as Korean cuisine can be heavy in salt.

A Korean meal is centered around rice and soup and likely a fish or meat dish, invariably served with a vast assortment of side dishes known as banchan 반찬. The humblest meal comes with three types while a royal banquet may well feature twenty types of banchan. In addition to kimchi see below, typical side dishes include bean sprouts 콩나물 kongnamul, spinach 시금치 shigeumchi, small dried fish, and much more.

The ubiquitous kimchi 김치 gimchi, made from fermented cabbage and chili, accompanies nearly every meal and may be a bit of an acquired taste for visitors as it can be quite spicy. In addition to the common cabbage type, kimchi can also be made from white radish 깍두기 ggakdugi, cucumbers 오이 소박이 oi-sobagi, chives 부추 김치 buchu gimchi or pretty much any vegetable that can be pickled. Many different dishes are made using kimchi for flavoring, and kimchi is served as a side dish as well. It is not uncommon to find Korean tourists carrying a stash of tightly packed kimchi when travelling abroad.

Two more condiments found in almost every dish are doenjang 된장, a fermented soybean paste akin to Japanese miso, and gochujang 고추장, a spicy chilli paste.

While many of these dishes can be found throughout Korea, every city also has its own regional specialities, such as dakgalbi 닭갈비 in the city of Chuncheon. See the various city articles for more details.

A common perception amongst Koreans is that foreigners simply don't like spicy food, so you might have to spend some time convincing people otherwise if you really want to eat something hot. Also, while Korean food undoubtedly has the neighboring bland-dieted Japanese and northern Chinese breathing fire, if you're accustomed to say Thai or Mexican food you may wonder what the fuss is about.

Be aware that eating is deemed a group activity in Korea, and some restaurants may charge a little bit extra or up to double the stipulated price for a lone patron, or on rare occasions, be uneasy with serving them at all.

other

Jeon 전, jijimi 지짐이, jijim 지짐, bindaetteok 빈대떡 and buchimgae 부침개 are all general terms for Korean-style pan-fried pancakes, which can be made of virtually anything. Pajeon 파전 is a Korean-style pan-fried pancake laden with spring onions 파 pa. Haemul pajeon 해물파전, which has seafood added, is particularly popular. Saengseonjeon 생선전 is made of small fillets of fish covered with egg and flour and then pan fried, and nokdu bindaetteok 녹두빈대떡 is made from ground mung bean and various vegetables and meat combined.

If barbequed meat is not to your taste, then try Korean-style beef tartar, known as yukhoe 육회. Raw beef is finely shredded and then some sesame oil, sesame, pine nuts and egg yolk are added, plus soy and sometimes gochujang to taste. It's also occasionally prepared with raw tuna or even chicken instead.

Sundae 순대, pron. "soon-deh" are Korean sausages made from a wide variety of ingredients, often including barley, potato noodles and pig blood.

A squirmy delicacy is raw octopus 산낙지 sannakji — it's sliced to order, but keeps wiggling for another half hour as you try to remove its suction cups from your plate with your chopsticks. Sea squirts meongge are at least usually killed before eating, but you might be hard-pressed to tell the difference as the taste been memorably described as "rubber dipped in ammonia".

soups and stews

Soups are known as guk 국 or tang 탕, while jjigae 찌개 covers a wide variety of stews. The line is fuzzy, and a few dishes can be referred to with both eg. the fish soup-stew dongtae jjigae/dongtaetang, but in general, jjigae are spicier while tang/guk are milder. Both are always eaten with plenty of white rice on the side.

Common versions jjigae include doenjang jjigae 된장찌개, made with doenjang Korean miso, vegetables and shellfish, and gimchi jjigae 김치찌개, made with — you guessed it — kimchi. Sundubu jjigae 순두부찌개 uses soft tofu as the main ingredient, usually with minced pork added, but there's also a seafood version called haemul sundubu jjigae해물 순두부찌개 where the meat is replaced by shrimp, squid and the like.

Budae jjigae 부대찌개 is a interesting type of Korean fusion food from the city of Uijeongbu, where a US military base was located. Locals experimenting with American canned food like Spam, sausages, and pork and beans tried adding them into jjigae, and while recipes vary, most of them involve large quantities of fiery kimchi. Most places will bring you a big pan of stew and put it on a gas stove in the middle of the table. Many like to put ramyeon noodle 라면 사리 in the stew, which is optional.

Popular tang soups include seolleongtang 설렁탕, a milky white broth from ox bones and meat, gamjatang 감자탕, a stew of potatoes with pork spine and chillies and doganitang 도가니탕, made from cow knees. One soup worth a special mention is samgyetang 삼계탕, pron. saam-gae-taang, which is a whole spring chicken stuffed with ginseng and rice. Thanks to the ginseng, it's often a little expensive, but the taste is quite mild. It's commonly eaten right before the hottest part of summer in warm broth in a sort of "eat the heat to beat the heat" tradition.

Guk are mostly side dishes like the seaweed soup miyeokguk 미역국 and the dumpling soup manduguk 만두국, but a few like the scary-looking pork spine and ox blood soup haejangguk 해장국, a popular hangover remedy, are substantial enough to be a meal.

dietary restrictions

Vegetarians will have a tough time in Korea. As in most of East Asia, meat is understood to be the flesh of land animals, so seafood is not considered meat. If you ask for "no gogi" 고기 they will probably just cook as usual and pick out the big chunks of meat. One good phrase is to say you are chaesikjuwija 채식주의자, a person who only eats vegetables. This may prompt questions from the server, so be prepared!

Most stews will not use beef stock, but fish stock, especially myeol-chi 멸치, anchovy. This will be your bane, and outside of reputable vegetarian restaurants, you should ask if you are ordering any stews/hotpots or casseroles.

Spicy red kimchi will almost certainly have seafood, such as salted tiny shrimp, as an ingredient. Since it disappears into the brine, you will not be able to visually identify it. Another type of kimchi, called mulgimchi 물김치, "water kimchi" is vegan, as it is simply salted in a clear, white broth with many different vegetables.

On the bright side, vegans and vegetarians are perfectly safe at Korean monastery cuisine restaurants, which uses no dairy, egg, or animal products, except perhaps honey. There has been a recent vogue for this type of cuisine, but it can be rather expensive.

There is an increasing number of vegetarian restaurants in Korea - most are in the larger or medium-sized places. Some of these are run by Seventh-Day Adventists or Hindus.

etiquette

Koreans use chopsticks with a twist: alone among the peoples of Asia, they prefer chopsticks of metal. Typically, restaurants have stainless steel chopsticks, but fine silver ones are also available. Unfortunately for the chopstick learner, these thin and slippery sticks are not the best implements to practice with, but if you can eat with wooden or plastic chopsticks you'll manage with some fumbling. When eating as a group, communal dishes will be placed in the center and everybody can chopstick what they want, but you'll still get individual portions of rice and soup. Unless you are eating royal cuisine, most dishes are served family style.

In many traditional households, children were taught that it was impolite to speak during meals. Don't be surprised if there's complete silence while eating. People, particularly men, will use mealtimes to quickly eat up and move on to other things. This can be attributed to the short mealtimes during military service that most young Korean men must perform.

Some etiquette pointers:

Do not leave chopsticks sticking upright in a dish, especially rice. This is only done when honoring the deceased. Similarly, a spoon sticking upright into a bowl of rice is also not a good sign.

Do not start eating unless the eldest at the table has begun to eat.

Do not lift any plates or bowls off the table while eating, as Koreans consider this to be rude.

You can use your spoon to eat your rice and soup. Koreans will normally use a spoon to eat their rice and use chopsticks to eat the other dishes.

Don't be self-conscious of whether you're doing something right or wrong. Just use your common sense of politeness and good manners, and everything will be fine.

seafood

Since Korea is a peninsula, you can find every type of seafood 해물 haemul, eaten both cooked and raw. Restaurants where you pick your own fish — or bring it from the fish market next door — are popular, but can be very expensive depending on what you order.

Hwe 회, pronounced roughly "hweh", is raw fish Korean-style similar to sashimi, meaning it's served with spicy cho-gochujang Korean hot pepper sauce with vinegar sauce. Chobap 초밥 is raw fish with vinegared rice, similar to Japanese sushi. If ordering fish as hoe/chobap, the bony parts not served raw are often made into a tasty but spicy soup called meuntang 매운탕.

Another cooked specialty is haemultang 해물탕, a spicy red hotpot stew filled crab, shrimp, fish, squid, vegetables and noodles.

Whalemeat may also be regionally available at festivals in the outer provinces. Bear in mind that there has been quite a media ruckus over its origin: a recent study of restaurants in Seoul traced the meat back to Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean. As international whale trade is illegal, and the species itself endangered, this is one decision to be left up your own moral compass.

restaurants

Going hungry in South Korea would be difficult. Everywhere you turn, there is always somewhere to eat. Korean restaurants can be divided into a few categories:

Bunsik 분식 are snack eateries that have cheap, tasty food prepared quickly.

Kogijip 고기집, literally meaning "meat house", are where you'll find grilled meat dishes and fixings.

Hoejip 회집, "raw fish house", serve slices of fresh fish akin to Japanese sashimi, known as hwe in Korean, and complementary side dishes. You'll normally find these restaurants cluttering the shores of any waterway.

Hansik 한식. The full course Korean meal, short for hanjeongsik 한정식, this Korean haute cuisine originated with banquets given at the royal palace. The course starts with a cold appetizer and porridge juk 죽. The main dish includes seasoned meat and vegetable dishes that can be either steamed, boiled, fried or grilled. After the meal, you are served traditional drinks such as sikhye or sujeonggwa.

Department Stores have two types of food areas: a food hall in the basement and full service restaurants on the top levels. The food hall areas have take-away as well as eat-in areas. The full service restaurants are more expensive, but typically have the advantage of picture menus and good ambience.

rice dishes

Bibimbap 비빔밥 literally means "mixed rice", which is a pretty good description. It consists of a bowl of rice with all sorts of condiments on top vegetables, shreds of meat, and an egg, which you mash up with your spoon, stirring in your preferred quantity of gochujang 고추장 chili sauce, and then devour. Particularly tasty is dolsot bibimbap 돌솥비빔밥, served in a piping hot stone bowl watch your fingers! that cooks the rice to a crisp on the bottom and edges.

Another healthy and tasty option is gimbap 김밥, sometimes dubbed "Korean sushi". Gimbap contains rice, sesame seed, a Korean variety of spinach, pickled radish, and an optional meat, such as minced beef or tuna, all neatly wrapped in dried seaweed, topped with sesame oil and sliced. A single roll makes a good snack or meal depending on one's appetite, and they travel well. Basically what differentiates Korean gimbap and Japanese sushi is how they prepare rice: Korean style gimbap usually use salt and sesame oil to flavor the rice, while Japanese style uses sugar and vinegar.

More of a snack than a meal is tteokbokki 떡볶이, which resembles a pile of steaming intestines at first sight, but is actually rice cakes tteok, 떡 in a sweet chili sauce that's much milder than it looks.

noodles

Koreans are great noodle lovers too, and the terms kuksu 국수 and myeon 면 span a vast variety of types, sold in fast-food noodle shops for as little as W3000-4000. Wheat-based noodles are a staple of Korea.

Naengmyeon 냉면 are a Korean speciality, being thin, chewy buckwheat noodles served in ice cold beef broth, and hence a popular summer dish — although it's traditionally winter food! They're also a classic way to end a heavy, meaty barbeque meal. The key to the dish is the broth 육수 yuksu and the recipes of well known restaurants are usually closely guarded secrets.

Japchae 잡채 is made from yam noodles, which are fried along with some vegetables commonly cabbage, carrots, onions and sometimes beef or odeng fishcake. Mandu 만두 dumplings are also very popular and are served up in steamed or fried as an accompaniment to other foods, or boiled in soup to make a whole meal.

Ramyeon 라면 is Korea's variant of ramen, often served with kimchi what else?. Korean ramyeon is well known for its overall spiciness, at least when compared to Japanese ones. Try shin ramyeon 신라면 for example.

Jajangmyeon 자장면 is the Korean version of the northern Chinese zhajiangmian, a wheat noodle dish served with a black sauce that usually includes minced pork, onions, cucumber, and garlic — kind of like a tomatoless spaghetti bolognese. Its sauce contains some caramel and therefore makes the overall dish sweet.

Finally, u-dong 우동 are thick wheat noodles, similar to the Japanese udon.

barbeques

"Korean barbecue" is probably the most popular Korean dish for Westerners, split in Korea itself into bulgogi 불고기, which uses cuts of marinated meat, and galbi 갈비, which uses ribs, usually unmarinated. In both, a charcoal brazier is placed in the middle of the table and patrons cook their choice of meats, adding garlic to the brazier for spice. The cooked meat from both of these is placed on a lettuce or perilla leaf along with shredded green onion salad 파무침 pa-muchim, raw or cooked garlic, shredded pickled radish 무채 muchae and some chili-soya paste 쌈장 ssamjang and then devoured. All are optional, so be creative.

The cost of a barbecue meal depends largely on the meat chosen. In most Korean restaurants that serve meat, it is sold in units usually 100 grams. Pork is by far the most common meat ordered. It's much cheaper than beef and according to diners tastier. You'll rarely see filet mignon, instead common cuts of meat include ribs, unsalted pork bacon 삼겹살 samgyeopsal and chicken stir-fried with veggies and spicy sauce 닭갈비 dakgalbi. Unmarinated meats tend to be higher quality, but in cheaper joints it's best to stick with the marinated stuff.