Gadling has a street food tip sheet for your next trip to South Korea. Contributor Jonathan Kramer says street food in Korea is very popular, sold by vendors manning covered steel carts called pojangmacha. It’s just not perceived “in the same way as Twitter-enabled, grilled-cheese food-trucks that are growing with momentum in the U.S.”
To add to the basics he breaks down, we’ve also gathered some tips from Mark Wiens’ street food tour of Seoul on Migrationology.
- Kimbap/Gimbap. A seaweed-wrapped rice roll can be filled with pickled and fresh vegetables as well as other ingredients like egg(s), deli meat, and/or seafood.
- Tteokbokki. A dish of rice cakes with processed seafood in a spicy red sauce based on gochujang, or a chili pepper paste.
- Grilled Squid. The flattened then grilled squid is served with a side of mayo or soy sauce.
- Hotteok. A winter-time sweet snack of pancake with cinnamon-sugar filling. Wiens likens them to samosas.
- Tornado Potatoes. A whole potato spiraled and fried—Korea’s answer to the french fry.
- Two-feet tall ice cream cones. It’s mostly ice cream, piled up perilously high on one intrepid cone.
- Mandu. In the Myeongdong district of Seoul, fried mandu is topped with a pile of shredded cabbage, tomato chili, and teriyaki sauce.
- Twigim. These deep-fried vegetables came in all types, and they pair well with beer.
- French Fry Hot Dog. It looks exactly like it sounds: A hot dog wrapped in a spiraled potato, then fried.
- Sundae/Sondae. There are quite a few variations, but the general ingredient list for the blood sausage dish calls for cellophane noodles, barley, and pork blood.
- Chapssaltteok. Soft mochi mounds stuffed with sweetened azuki beans.
[via Gadling; Migrationology]