Tadpole Noodles - KOREAN STREET FOOD in RURAL Jeongseon, Korea | UNKNOWN STREET FOOD in KOREA 2018

What's up and welcome guys, I'm Luke Martin with ChopstickTravel.com and today is our second part of three-part series exploring some of the traditional Korean markets here in Gangwon-do, South Korea. So this is the site of the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics and today we are in Cheongsan. So we have come to a traditional Korean market, this is called Cheongsan Arirang and we are super excited to be eating today. There's a lot of good-looking food here and a lot of free samples as well. So let's go start eating. Okay just walking through the market now and this kind woman here gave us a little glass of tea and from what I understand this is actually made out of a lot of different mountain herbs and one of them being mistletoe. So as you can see it's kind of like a orangish kind of brown color and it is piping piping hot. It smells really good. Oh that just tastes so like healthy and really warming, kind of warms your whole body. It's a little bit bitter, a little bit earthy but it's very light at the same time. That's really good actually and she's a very friendly woman. This is so good. So we have another sample here and it is this here. This is a special type of mushroom from Cheongsan and she's given us a sample and she told us to dip it here into some oil and salt and this is just a raw mushroom but let's try it. Oh it's very good. It's actually really crunchy, doesn't have too much of a flavor but it has a really amazing texture, earthy kind of like fruitiness to it and then the salt and oil is really good, sesame oil. So we are here at the market but today is actually an off day for the market. Usually this market is really bustling on days that end with two and seven so unfortunately we are here on not one of those days but that's okay because there's still lots to see and lots of free samples and we're going to pop into a little restaurant and later we're going to head up to a very cool viewpoint of Cheongsan. So let's go find something to eat first. So we've been doing quite a bit of snacking this afternoon but now we've just popped into a restaurant for a proper meal and check this out, we have a tiny feast here. So I'm going to walk you through all our dishes and first up is a specialty from this market. This is the tadpole noodles and it derives the name from these tiny little noodles which are shaped like a tadpole. It looks like there's some kimchi in there and this is some seaweed on top and then over here we've got something that is called thistle rice. So this is a mountain herb on top and then we've got a ton of sesame seeds so we're going to mix that up in a little bit and there's a huge bed of rice. Over here we've got a soup, we've got some pickled peppers in soy sauce, some dried anchovies, some spicy pickled daikon, over here we've got some mushrooms, this is the sauce for our thistle rice and then over here of course we've got some kimchi. So let's dig into this, it looks awesome. Let's start with this thistle rice here. So as you can see underneath here we've got the thistle which is the mountain herb which is extremely popular from the market. They just get it from the mountains surrounding Jeongseon and then on top we've got some seaweed, some kind of ground up sesame seeds and I'm just gonna give this a nice little mixing and get that rice all mixed in and then once this is nice and mixed we will add some of this sauce. So let's grab a little bit of sauce over here. So I'm not exactly sure what this is, it looks like a sweet soy sauce, we will find it once we taste it and there's a ton of green onions in there. So let's put a hefty dollop of that in there, maybe one more. Alright now let's mix that in again. Oh yeah that'll give it tons of flavor and let's give that a nice try. I'm gonna make sure I get some of the thistle and some of everything. Alright looks like a good bite, let's try it out. That is actually much more flavorful than I thought. That thistle underneath just tastes amazing. I can definitely taste the seaweed in there and the sesame seeds are nice in there as well. It is really just like a hearty hearty meal. So let's move on to this. This is the tadpole noodles and just check that out, that is beautiful. Check out those noodles in there. We're gonna give this a nice mix too. There's some kimchi in there so it'll give a little bit of spiciness. Some kim seaweed and those noodles are crazy. So let's get that mixed up and grab a bite. Make sure I get some kimchi in there. Alright let's get a big bite. That's amazing. Okay those noodles are incredible. They just slide down your throat like instantly. There's no chewing required. They have a really like unique slippery texture to them. It's a little bit spicy from the kimchi in there and that kimchi was sour as well. I'm just gonna try just some of the noodles here. Just check those out. They're so unique like it really does look like a tadpole. So let's try this. So this whole meal is really good. It's extremely hearty and filling and these side dishes are awesome too. I'm gonna try a couple more of them out here and here we have the same mushrooms that we tried earlier. It looks like there's some onions as well and they're in an oil and let's try that out. Oh yeah those are sweet and really nice with the crunchy onion. Again in quite a bit of sesame oil. Little anchovies as well. Crunchy, fishy and a little bit salty as well and we've also got a soup over here and it looks like there's some water spinach in there and let's take a drink of that. Oh that's really nice. It's almost like a miso and that spinach in there is completely like saturated with all that juice. Oh this is such a hearty meal. I'm getting extremely full but this is delicious. Okay finished off with that meal and that was awesome but we're gonna go have some fun right now and we're actually gonna head up to the top of a mountain where apparently there's some amazing views and actually there's a picture of it right here so that's where we're going. Okay so we have driven about 15 minutes away from the market and we have come up to an incredible view. We are on a skywalk here so we just put on our little blue booties and we are checking out this incredible view. There is the river bending around the mountains and these incredible peaks off in the distance. You got to check this out. This is absolutely incredible. The view of the entire town is right in front of us and I mean it's gorgeous out today. The weather is beautiful. So we are back down at the market after our nice time at the skywalk and we have come to try a traditional Korean drink called makgeolli. So we're gonna find a the skywalk and we've ordered up some food and it looks really really good. So right here we have something called mamiljeonbyeong and it is a buckwheat thin flour batter that is fried up and then filled with a ton of kimchi. Just check that out. It's like pouring out the other side. So it is very similar to what we tried last time in Pyeongchang but this is different because it's stuffed. Then over here we have a kimchi jeon which is not buckwheat but the gochujang sauce is mixed with a flour batter and then made into a pancake. Korean jeon pancake. And then over here of course some kimchi and then also some sauce. And then right here we have something very interesting. This is called makgeolli which is a unfiltered rice liquor. So I'm going to mix this up a little bit and as you can see it has a completely like milky cloudy appearance and I'm going to very carefully open this so it doesn't pop. Okay we're good and she's given us these little metal bowls so I'm going to pour some in here and apparently this goes really well with the kimchi jeon. Alright I'm going to start with this buckwheat pancake the mamiljeonbyeong and it is just stuffed with kimchi. Check that out. And I'm just going to try it first without the sauce. Try not to drop any of that kimchi. Oh that is stuffed full of spicy and crisp kimchi and then that buckwheat wrapper on the outside is really kind of soft and fluffy. That is awesome. So next let's try this kimchi jeon. Very similar but as I mentioned the gochujang Korean red pepper paste is mixed with the flour batter and fried up. So let's try that. That doesn't have much of a difference from the other except for it's less crisp because it's not stuffed with kimchi and also less spicy. Again just really simple and delicious and of course we'll chase that with our makgeolli and just check that out. Another popular drink here in Korea is soju so I'd imagine this tastes similar. Oh that's pretty good. It actually doesn't have too much of an alcoholic taste and it's really nice and cold. Refreshing and it's kind of a little bit sweet and almost a little bit kind of bitter. So here I have something called an onori gift certificate. These are available at most of the major banks here in Korea and this is 10,000 won but you can buy these for 9,500 so you get a 5% discount and they're accepted at most of these traditional markets that we've been visiting and that was some really good food. So we're going to pay for ours now and you're given cash as change. So that was really good. Let's go inside. Okay guys just finishing off our food tour here today at the Jongseon Arirang market and it was so good. We had a lot of fun making it and I hope you enjoyed it. There's a part three coming up so make sure you stay tuned for that and I hope you've enjoyed this video. If you did make sure to give it a big thumbs up, leave me any questions you have in the comments, and subscribe for more videos like this and I'll see you next time guys. Bye!