Our first thought when we arrive at a new city (OK, at any city) is, “What shall we eat?”
Food tour in Namdaemun Market.
Consistent with our guiding principle, we sought out a walking food tour led by a local person who is (or says they are!) passionate and knowledgeable about their hometown’s food. Along with getting introduced to local yummies, we started our orientation of Seoul.
At the appointed time on our first morning in Seoul, we met our guide, Sanghee, at the Namdaemun Market. This market is more a district that a single structure. It was established in the 1960s, and is currently the largest traditional market in Seoul. You find a huge array of foods and goods there, such as clothes, glasses, kitchenware, toys, mountain gear, fishing equipment, stationery, fine arts, accessories, hats, carpets, flowers, ginseng, and imported goods.
But we were there for the food!
Sanghee was an energetic knowledgeable tour leader. She was talkative about local culture, history and of course food. A relaxed seemingly ad-hoc style rather than set rote delivery. The Seoul food world is vast; Sanghee gave us a first glimpse, and helped demystify street-food options so we’d be ready to explore more.
가제골손만두 Gaje Bone Dumplings
The stuffed dumplings being made inside the storefront.
Mandoo and dumplings. Famous for generations. Beef rib mandoo, shrimp dumplings.
Hyojason King dumpling
Rice flour donuts
Buckwheat pancake
Meat dumpling: Pork, onion, leek fried pancake. Fried savory goodness.
Noodles, fish cake, rice cake, hard-boiled egg, leek, cabbage in chili broth. The server slowly stirred all the dry ingredients in the heating broth. The chili paste spread over everything. Delicious soup, spicy, and also a tiny bit sweet.
Fried tofu, home-made radish kimchee, sesame sauce. The tofu blocks look cold, but they had been seared hot.
Rice wine (5%): needed to be shaken up to distribute the milky rice part.
Fried chicken morsels with sweet chili sauce and sesame
Milk-tea shaved ice: This is a store famous for fine old Chinese teas. A famous summer treat is frozen milk tea, shaved into fine fine ice needles. (We visited on one of the last days of the season for the frozen delight.) The dish looks like a pile of tiny dry filaments. Then in mouth: fluffy, very light, followed by the delicate chill of the ice, then melting into sweet milk tea. Amazing!
Makgeolli tasting
Next organized activity, a couple days later, was a tasting of a traditional Korean rice wine called makgeolli.
We learned quickly that our tasting session was part of young company’s effort to elevate makgeolli from an old-school cheap alcohol to a modern drink worthy of savoring. The company is Spring Wind Brewery, founded only a few years ago. They wanted to proselytize and sell, and we wanted to taste — so it worked out perfectly.
Our host, Sam, was a young man in his thirties. He offered a candid and amusing introduction to makgeolli.
Sam explained that for hundreds of years, the women of the households produced the rice wine for their family. There were — and are — many many variations, which depend on the source rice, local yeast, water, and their personal method. Then came the trauma of the 20th century Japanese occupation, from 1910 to 1945. The Japanese systematically worked to crush Korean culture in its many forms. (We saw more evidence of this when we visited some famous palaces.) The Japanese outlawed traditional makgeolli in order to support Japanese sake production; sake production could be taxed. After World War II and the Korean War, South Korea spent about 30 years under autocratic rule. According to our host, the government’s highest priority was the modernization of South Korea, and their vision was emulation of the West. In the realm of spirits, that meant a turn to whisky, vodka and the like. Traditional makgeolli slipped further into the shadows.
But the current young generation of South Koreans has started to rediscover and value traditional Korean culture. And this includes great great great grandma’s makgeolli. Currently there are quite a few producers of ordinary makgeolli, but our host reports that it’s watered down and cheap, costing only about a dollar a bottle.
Spring Wind Brewery is introducing well-made higher-priced premium versions — which we had the pleasure of tasting.
The ingredients are simple: short grain rice (high in the carbs whose sugars become alcohol), water, and natural yeasts. The natural yeasts come from the environment, not from manufactured packages. While environmental yeasts are important, for a bigger production and for consistency, the brewers use concentrated yeasts and microbes; they come from wood, and look like chips of limestone. These yeasts, and other microbes, are the big variable, determining the taste of each run of makgeolli.
So, what did these varieties of makgeolli taste like? In general, currently, Korean consumers want their rice wine to be sweet, rather than dry.
Sam offered three options:
The Basic is not expensive — the brewery chooses to compete with the common varieties. Sam poured the makgeolli into beautiful simple metal bowls. We found almost no nose, but a light fresh flavor. Alcohol level is 6%, which is in the same range as beer.
The Premium has more character, with tastes of tropical fruits and rice, both tart and sweet.
Sam also presented a cocktail made with the Premium makgeolli, like a mimosa: makgeolli, vodka, tonic, and orange juice.
The experience was fun; Sam was dynamic and entertaining; and who doesn’t enjoy a bit of spirits tasting from time to time? But, for us and our palettes, the makgeolli seemed both fresh and plain. Nonetheless, we loved the fact that a set of entrepreneurs is resuscitating high-quality Korean rice wine, and introducing it to the world. Cheers to that!
The brewery created a fantastical tasting room on the level above the main bar. Perhaps what it feels like to be fermenting?
Department store food halls
A quick bit of food advice: head to the basement of department stores.
During one of our busy touristing days, we started getting hungry. Time had gotten away from us, and it was about 3 in the afternoon. It turns out that most restaurants take a break from 3 to about 5. We encountered one restaurant doorway after another with a little sign: “On Break.” We finally found an almost completely empty restaurant that was open, but it still seemed like the staff were on break anyway. Eventually, we ate two big bowls of screamingly hot soup – heat and spice.
After our off-hour lunch, we resumed our informal agenda. Seoul’s major department stores — such as Hyundai, Lotte and Shinsegae — are famous, and we wanted to take a look. By chance, we entered one of the stores from the metro at the store’s basement level. There before us spread a seemingly endless array of food stalls and food islands. Lots of local food styles, as well as plenty of international options. Lesson learned: if you’re hungry at any time of the day, and want a quick and interesting lunch, head downstairs in a Seoul department store.
Netflix-famous Gwangjang Market
One street-food market in particular has caught the eyes and tongues of international foodies: Gwangjang Market. Search for it on YouTube, and you’ll find a flash-flood of videos. Netflix’s Street Food Asia, and Phil Rosenthal’s Somebody Feed Phil, for example, celebrate this lively tasty place.
We saved our visit to Gwangjang Market for the latter days of our visit to Seoul. We wanted to learn some techniques for choosing, ordering and eating traditional street food before we jumped into Gwangjang Market by ourselves.
From the outside, the market is more blandly modern than we expected. Like Namdaemun Market, Gwangjang Market offers a huge range of consumables. It was first established in 1905, and today is the oldest remaining daily market in Korea. In about 10 acres, the market includes over 5,000 shops and stalls, which employ around 20,000 people.
As soon as we stepped into the building, its vastness was obvious. We didn’t see any food yet; only clothes, appliances, hardware, plastic stuff, mattresses, and on and on. We walked for awhile before arriving at a sort of crossroads. There we found a couple of chipper young people in uniforms. They knew what we were looking for without our having to say more than a word of two. Very helpful; they embodied the kindness that we encountered quite a lot during out visit to Seoul.
Then we walked into a Netflix episode. But we were prepared! You can only eat so much (even us), so we tried a few things. While we enjoyed all that we tasted, we were surprised that there was less variety than we expected. But still plenty to eat!
We tried a few things!
Mung bean and meat pancakes
Mandoo with pork, soy ginger garlic sesame chili sauce
A few choices for noodles
