Korean street food at Namdaemun Market ft. Hotteok

Annyeong chingu! It is Monday afternoon, about 1, 2 p.m. I just did a little bit of shopping at Namdaemun. I'm going to show you guys the street food here. Namdaemun can get kind of crazy. We have a lot of tourists and locals alike shopping. I'm getting quite thirsty so I'm going to get a Korean rice drink, also known as sikhye. Not overly sweet, just sweet enough. It tastes like the age 25. Here we have all sorts of hot bar. And here we have donuts. This place is called Kim Jin Ho Hotteok. And if you guys are big on hot dogs, well here you go. This is a potato hot dog. I got a hot bar and it comes with four types of sauces. Ketchup, mustard, less spicy, and super spicy. I know I can't handle super super spicy, so maybe less spicy? Wow, it's quite thick. The outer parts are slightly crunchy. Inside is super jiggly. The outer ring is fish cake. Inside is a lot of seaweed. And if you look closely, the inside noodles, that's the same noodles that's used to make japchae. And it's stuck on chopsticks. As a tourist, as well as local, like more grandmas, you can order from here. I found another shop that sells hot bar. And here they have sausage, octopus, shrimp, chili, razor clam, sesame leaf. I ordered the octopus hot bar and that was 3,000 won, less than $3 USD. I just got my octopus hot bar. I love the colors on this one. So here they also have a sauce station. This one's chili, garlic cheese. That sounds good. There's mustard, but I am gonna go with garlic cheese. The guy at the second hot bar stall, he's like, mine's better. So let's test it out. Sauce-wise, his stall wins. But when it comes to like the actual, you know, the hot bar, it's still on like the bland side. There's some carrots in there and a little bit of a scallion. Previous place we went to, like when you shake it, it's like really jiggly, but this one's much firm. If you look in a lot of these little alleyways, they're just like restaurants lined up, like literally hole-in-the-wall type of restaurants. But right now I'm just focused on street food. And it's easy to get lost at Namdaemun because there's so many little side streets here and there. But that's the beauty of being at Namdaemun, just getting lost. Some streets like this one, they sell jokbal, which is pig feet. There's another stall that sells jokbal. And over there, there's another place that sells jokbal. I could choose three of these pastries and it'll cost 2,000 won, which is less than $2 USD. And my finger is sinking into the bread right now, it's so soft. Outside of the bread, it's crispy. And on top of that, they coat it with sugar to make it crunchy. And inside though, it's very chewy, kind of rubbery. Even if you don't mind shopping, but you like people watching, you'll enjoy your time here. Last bite. Let's see what else we could eat around here. It looks like... Oh, we have udon. This here is mini gimbap. The ladies cut it up in halves for me. Thankfully, they have little hooks where I can put my shopping bags. And the customers next to me, they got odeng and tteokbokki. Inside, we have a little bit of cucumber. It looks like fish cake and radish and little sprinkles of sesame seeds. It's slightly sweet. And that sweetness comes from the radish. So I got really lucky because I met one of my viewers. And what's your name? Kevin. When I vlog, I usually go like this. But he's really tall, so I have to go like this. Kevin's gonna help me eat for the rest of this vlog. I'm gonna try this tteokbokki, the rice cake, and the fish cake. It's very sweet and even spicier. Yeah, spicy. When this gentleman was eating this, he did not make it look spicy. But it's really spicy. I love tteokbokki. You wanna try tteokgalbi? Okay, sure. Okay. Wow, look at those sizzles. Each one is 2,000 won. It's really easy to bite into. Yeah, yeah. It tastes meaty and sweet. Yeah, I like it. I wanna put it in a bun though. It's easy to get lost in Namdaemun. We're back at the food stall that we met. I guess we just made a circle. Do you smell that? Yeah. How do you describe that smell? Strange. That smell comes from... Oh, I've seen that before. You've seen that before? Silkworm. Yeah, silkworm pupae. Pupae. You wanna try? Have you ever tried it? All right. We met some of my viewers. And they're gonna eat beondegi with us. All right, you guys. Let's do it. You guys go first. You guys are my guests. Okay, let's go. Let's go. Go for it. Oh my god. Okay, your turn. Pretend it's chocolate. It's chocolate. It's not that bad. Have you had bugs before? Yeah. Maybe that's why. Have you had bugs before, Kevin? Okay, that's why. It's your first bug. Okay, your turn. Should I get the brown one or the white one? Both. Cheers. It's like chocolate. It's chocolate. Oh, it's not that bad. It's a vegetable. Have you had bugs before? Yeah. I'm not gonna chug that. I'm not chugging that. I think you should have some more though. Yeah? One more time then. Did you have the black one or the white one? I'll have a white one this time. All right. Where's their nearest Coke machine? All right. It's like a bean, right? Like a... Oh, it is like a bean. Like a protein bean. I still taste it in my mouth. Do you still taste it too? Yeah, me too. Yeah, we need to eat something fast. Hey, the closest thing right here is a... Egg bread. One of these guys is 1,000 won, which is less than $1 USD. And we're gonna wash out that toothpaste taste out of our tongue. Ta-da! Just tastes like yogurt cake with an egg inside. But it's good. Oh, there's that yolk. I caught it with my hand. Yeah, this is like a sweet bread with the egg, oiled egg inside. Oh, they have hotteok here. Should we eat hotteok here? Or should we walk around? As you want. I want to try everything, so... Okay, okay. How about we walk down that street, see what's there. And if there's nothing there, we'll come back to this hotteok stand. I didn't give you a close look at the egg bread, so this is what it looks like. Are you getting full, Kevin? I could eat more. You know how I started this vlog off with the sikhye? Well, we're back here at that same stall and Kevin is rehydrating himself. And then after that, right away, we're gonna go eat hotteok. This one is kimchi japchae hotteok, which means it has kimchi, glass noodles inside. If you're blindfolded and someone gave you that, can you tell there's kimchi in it? No, I can't tell. Because usually kimchi is very spicy. And here, you don't see, you don't feel the spicy. No, you're right. You can't really taste the kimchi. Yeah. I get very little hints of spiciness. What I like is the glass noodles are very soft in that, so it's easy to bite. And over here, we have a lot of hungry customers who want to eat the bindaetteok. That has mung bean in it. We're currently walking through a food alley. And trying to figure out which one we want to eat at. Uh, anything that interests you? Yeah, everything looks good. Here we have fish. So Kevin and I wanted to eat bindaetteok and more food, but we are so full. It's too full. So thank you once again, Kevin, for joining me on this food adventure. Thanks to you, it was so cool. High five! And I'll see you guys in the next travel vlog.