24 Hours of KOREAN STREET FOOD in Seoul 🇰🇷 Tteokbokki, Gomtang, Hotteok & More!!

Welcome to South Korea, I'm Luke Martin, and this is 24 hours of eating Korean food in Seoul. So I've been to Seoul three times in the past, but I haven't been here in the last five or six years. So it's been a long time. I'm excited to see what has changed, what has remained the same in the last five years. And in this episode, in this series, we're going to be filming some of the places I've visited before, and of course we're going to be visiting some new places. But this morning we've come straight to the Namdaemun Market here in Seoul. This is a mecca for Korean street food. I believe it's the oldest and maybe the largest market here in Seoul. You can find everything you want to taste here in Seoul at the Namdaemun Market. So we're going to be exploring and eating a ton this morning. So our first street food here at the Namdaemun Market in Seoul is for hotteok. This is a very famous Korean street food, and you can get it in either a sweet version or a savory version from this stall. So this stall is super popular. I mean, there is a massive line. It does move pretty fast. I don't think this stall was here the very first time I came to Namdaemun Market. It's right at the gate number two entrance, and it is so popular. So basically hotteok is a Korean pancake. So it can be stuffed, like I said, with savory or with sweet. So we ordered one savory and one sweet. The savory version is with the japchae, so the Korean glass noodles, and then also with some veggies in there. I saw some carrots and maybe some bean sprouts. Basically, they just wrap it in a little bit of dough and then dunk it in the oil. It is just swimming in oil, and they squeeze it, they press it down into a flat pancake. And then the sweet version, you can either get red bean or you can get seed. So I think it's like pumpkin seed. Maybe I'm wrong, but it's like a sugar caramel with seeds on the inside. So we got one of both, and they are going to be super hot. But what makes, I think, this place so popular is the sauce that they're using for the savory hotteok. So he literally paints on the sauce. It's a soy sauce that has some apples, there's green chilies, dates, all kinds of different things floating in there, sort of marinating in that sauce. And then he paints a little bit onto the savory hotteok at the end. So this one, you can see the sweetness starting to sort of seep through. Let me tell you, if you don't want third degree burns, give that like five minutes. And then this is the savory version. He only puts a tiny little bit of that sauce on there, but I think, like I said, I think that's why they're famous. So let me try this. I hope I don't burn myself. Savory one first. That is awesome. Definitely a little bit greasy, but it's so fluffy. It's almost like a donut. It's like a fried donut on the outside. And then you've got those Korean glass noodles on the inside, the japchae, a little bit of green onion in there, maybe some leek as well. Okay, it's sort of peeking out there. Not as hot as I was expecting. Go for one more bite. That is lovely. You can taste that sort of fruity soy sauce that he painted on. That is awesome. Okay, let me try this, but I'm still going to wait a couple of minutes for it to cool down. You can see that molten sugar sort of seeping through the hotteok, but I think it's cooled down enough. Let's try it. Really good. Really, really good. It might be actually sunflower seeds, or maybe pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds are a mixture of different seeds. It's really fluffy, and there's actually not a lot of filling on the sweet one, as I was expecting, because you can see it's mostly just like the fried hotteok with a little bit of sugar on the top. Unlike this one. Look at how much filling is inside of there. It's just packed full of filling. Both very good, but yeah, I've got to give it up for this one. I think they put a little bit of cinnamon in there, too. Yeah, definitely. It was really good, too, but the savory version is definitely the reason why everybody's lining up there. What do you think? Which one's your favorite? I think I like the vegetable one, and so they say when there's a long line, that's a good sign, right? And at first, I judged it because it's really, really huge, but I kept eating it like I didn't know I'm going to almost finish it. It's so good. Really good hotteok. Probably not the best sweet version I've ever had, but definitely the best savory version I've ever had. We're going to keep going through the Namdaemun Market. There's just so much food to try here. Check out this thing right here. I think it's a dried skate or stingray. I don't think I've ever seen one of those before. Wow. So we just spotted a little street food stall that's selling a couple of classic Korean street foods, and my eyes immediately landed on the famous Korean ddeokbokki, the rice cakes that are swimming in this beautiful red sauce, piping hot, perfect for this cold winter weather here in Seoul. Let's give it a try. Always one of my favorites. That's a really good one, actually. Oh my gosh, that's awesome. It's a rice cake, so it's got the texture of mochi. It's really, really chewy, and that sauce just has so much flavor. It's a little bit sweet, definitely a little bit spicy, too. Not as spicy as it looks. It looks like it's going to be fiery hot, but I mean, it's just a moderate spice. Oh, I love the texture. So chewy. That sauce is awesome, too. I'm not sure it's just gochujang. I think it's like a mixture of different sauces, like a particularly ddeokbokki style sauce. Yum. Ming's first time trying real ddeokbokki in Korea. You can definitely get it in Thailand, but not the same. Not the original. Is it hot? It's hot, but it's not too bad. The color looks like it's going to be spicy, but it's not spicy at all. And one thing I want to say that it's not related to food is this kind of bowl is perfect for this kind of weather for me, because now in South Korea, it's probably like three degrees, four degrees, and it's really cold. And once you get this in your hand, it's like you're a personal heater and you can walk around. Yeah, that's, I guess, an added benefit of the ddeokbokki is that it's also hand warmer. It's good. Really good. So this dumpling spot is a place that I've visited before years ago. It's always packed in. Every time I come to the Namdaemun market, it's one of the most popular places. And they have all kinds of different types of steamed dumplings. And I believe they have boiled dumplings as well. They also have like donuts that they're frying up. And I just went for a classic kimchi dumpling. Anything with kimchi here in Korea is going to be good. You can see that orange kimchi just sort of seeping through the wrapper of the dumpling. And it looks like, yeah, we got some veggies in there, some onions. I'm not sure that's pork or chicken, but let's give it a try. It's really juicy actually. Oh my gosh. The kimchi has retained its crunch and a little bit sour too. Just a hint of spice. Some onions in there, green onions. Oh my gosh. Anything with kimchi. You can't go wrong in Korea. It's definitely a bit chilly here in Seoul in March. So I just bought myself a hat. Oh, I can't get it on with one hand. Oh no. Oh, there we go. What do you think? Represent Korea. So inside of the Namdaemun Market, you have the Kalguksu Alley, which is the knife cut noodle alley. It is absolutely packed here, just at lunchtime now and full of locals, but also lots of tourists as well. And they all specialize in kalguksu, which is the knife cut noodles. They have other dishes. And we just picked this lovely woman's stall here to sit down at. And she's brought out our kalguksu, made it right in front of us, counter side seating. And you can see this is the final result. Beautiful bowl of noodles. Look at them. All those uneven, non-uniform noodles, and then topped with a little bit of seaweed and some chili sauce. And this is like a fried fish cake, I believe, or maybe that's tofu, actually. And she asked if I wanted spicy, of course I said yes, so I gave it a mix. And then you've got the typical Korean banchan here too, the kimchi and then some pickled greens. And also back here she's given me another bowl of noodles, which is crazy because this is just service. This is the Korean naengmyeon, the cold noodles, buckwheat noodles, tossed in a spicy sauce and then some cucumbers in there with a half a boiled egg on top, some carrots, whatnot. But I really just gotta try out these kalguksu, hand cut noodles. That's what the alley's named after, that's what you gotta try here. The hand cut part of it is what makes the noodles taste so good. It's got such a bouncy texture, but the unevenness of each noodle makes it just a beautiful texture. The broth is like a fish kind of stock. She wants us to hurry up so she can get new customers. She's only got three seats and we're filming, so I better hurry up. It's definitely not easy eating these noodles with Korean chopsticks. Korean chopsticks are flat and metal, so they're really slippery, but these noodles are great. She keeps getting angry at us for filming because, not because of the camera, but just because it's a really busy market, so she could be getting customers over and over and over again. But we're sitting here, talking to the camera, so let me do this quick. Also, her kimchi is really, really good. Nice and sour, just how I like it. Okay, let's try the naengmyeon, the cold Korean noodles. These ones are extra hard. She's telling me to hurry up. It's delicious though. Maybe just not the friendliest. Look at her. This place is insane. She was just trying to make us hurry up because, like I said, she's only got a couple seats and there's just customers coming at all moments. Really good, but not the best naengmyeon, but the kalguksu was amazing. Okay, let's get out of here. How was that for an experience? Pretty crazy in there, right? It's like hectic and, okay, I understand that, okay, it's understandable because she needs as much customers as possible because her shop is small, right? But then it's kind of, I feel like I was forced to eat and I was eating like crazy and then at the end I was telling her, like, I can't eat anymore, like I'm so full because I feel pressure. So I didn't chew. I didn't chew, like, for one minute. I swallowed and then after a few, look, and then she was saying, like, she's saying in Korean, she's like, keep eating, keep eating, and then sometimes we have to do that. Yeah, we were secretly trying to film in between her doing her kitchen duties. Every time she turned her back, I'd be like, Ming, film me, and then she'd turn around and she'd see us and she'd be like, eat, what are you doing, eat, eat, eat. I do feel a little bit bad, but we were fast and, well, we were paying customers, so it's crazy in there. When we walked through there, they're literally punching people, like, on the arm, telling them, come, come, come, and then pushing people out of the way, yeah, it's insane in there. It's really insane, but if you come to Korea, you have to, what is this street called? Called Guksu Alley. Yeah. You have to experience this. It's really good. It's so confusing because in there, people were not the friendliest. I wouldn't say they were rude, but they were definitely pushing us out of the way and not happy with us filming, and then as soon as we go outside the door, though, another woman comes up to us and goes, oh, you're so handsome, you're so beautiful, and she's like, do you want to eat? Do you want to eat? Super friendly, so. Yeah. You get both, best of both worlds. We are absolutely stuffed after those kalguksu noodles. This Namdaemun Market is definitely one of my favorite places to come in Seoul for eating because it's still very authentic, unlike some of the other markets I won't say named here in Seoul. They get really touristy. Not the Namdaemun Market. It's a real local spot, so we're going to go jump in a taxi and head to the famous Gyeongbokgung Palace to burn off some calories before we keep eating. To Gyeongbokgung. This is the Gyeongbokgung Palace. To be honest, I'm not very familiar with Korean history, so I'm not even going to try to get into it, but basically there's a ton of palaces here in Seoul, but Gyeongbokgung is probably the most famous one. It is beautiful. You can see the mountains in the background. I think that's what makes Seoul so unique and such an interesting city is all these mountains that surround it. It's kind of built in the mountains, unlike other big metropolises like Tokyo, for example, which are usually really flat. There's a ton of mountains here in Seoul, which really adds to the beauty and this palace is incredible. I love Korean architecture. It's so colorful and vibrant with all the different paintings along the archways and whatnot and you can pay 3,000 won, so about less than $3 to come in, or if you're wearing a hanbok, the traditional Korean dress, you can actually enter for free. And if you're new to traveling in Asia or in Korea and you come here and you're like, wow, Korean people still wear the traditional dress when you come here to Gyeongbokgung Palace, don't be fooled. I can almost guarantee you they're Chinese or some other tourist that's probably not a Korean person, but to dress up in the hanbok and then take the pictures, really, really cool. So we've left the Gyeongbokgung Palace and we've come to this hanok village, a very small one. It's called Ikseondong. We're going to be visiting Jeonju on this trip, which is famous for its hanok village, so we're just taking a quick peek here and we are heading to eat some more Korean street food. Here in Seoul, they have many alleys dedicated to different types of Korean food, so we've come to another food dedicated alley. This time, it's the Korean jeon or pancake, basically all kinds of different fried things, not just pancakes, and we grabbed a little basket and then you just fill it up with whatever you want. They have so many different choices, it's crazy. I've never seen so many different types of different fried things all in one place and basically they're going to chop them up into little pieces and then it's traditionally enjoyed with a glass of makgeolli, so we're going to sit down and try some of the jeon, Korean jeon. So I guess it's not really only jeon served here, they serve pretty much everything deep fried, but this is the actual Korean jeon, this is the pancake, what they usually look like anyway, and they didn't cut them up for us, so we're going to cut it ourselves. This is like a vegetable version, but maybe there's some, oh no, those are carrots, I thought that might have been shrimp in there, so I'm just going to chop this up. This is the typical jeon, like I was saying, but there's all kinds of other things we've got. So we've got like a tempura, shrimp tempura, I'm just going to chop it all up, and this is like a pork roll. This one is, what's this one, kimchi with something, kimchi, I'm just going to cut it in half, and then we've got a crab cake underneath there, there's even these peppers, which look really good, and then we've got an omelette, omelette, I'm just going to chop everything up. And then, like I was saying earlier, you've got to have it with makgeolli, which is this right here, so this is the Korean unfiltered version of soju, I guess you could call it, I think that's safe to say, and it's not served in a cup, it's actually served in this little bowl. It's very traditional. We'll make a glass here, you can see just how milky white that is, and that is what you definitely need to enjoy your jeon with, or anything deep fried, with makgeolli, let's dig in. We have a feast of fried delights, Korean delights, and we've got a little sauce here, I think it looks like a soy sauce, maybe with some vinegar and onions. It's not as crunchy as I was expecting, it feels like it was fried maybe yesterday, it's not crispy whatsoever, the inside is really creamy too, the sauce is good though. Okay, let me try this one instead, that wasn't my favorite actually, let's try this, I think this is kimchi, yeah, this is a soy sauce, there's the onions, that one's got a little bit of spiciness, omelette, look at that, the omelette might be better than the fried thing. Okay, let's try the pepper, this is a green pepper, you can see the inside there, I think some of them have been sitting out longer than others, oh, that green pepper one's really good, it's got a nice kind of sweet, spicy green pepper flavor, I'm going to chase it with some makgeolli, so it's carbonated, it's definitely not as strong as soju, it's more of like beer, but carbonated, but it's got the flavor of like sake, that's super refreshing, there's nothing healthy about this, but it is tasty, kind of. Just a little snack before our actual dinner, I think we need some real food, let's go. For dinner tonight, after a long day of eating, we've come to have a Korean beef bone soup called beomtang, this is similar to another famous dish here in Korea called seolleongtang, I think I'm definitely saying that wrong, but what makes a difference is that dish is like a milky broth using ox bone, this is using beef brisket, and this place is really famous, this is the dish right here, the beomtang, so what's really cool about this is there's actually rice in the soup, you can see, it's also sort of similar to another Korean dish called gukbap, which is famous from the south of Korea, south of South Korea, Busan, but this is also served with noodles, which is really interesting, there's rice and noodles in there, and then I ordered the large size, which comes with six, looks like six strips of beef brisket, and then of course kimchi on the side, different types of kimchi, the Koreans are just master picklers, anything that comes to your table like this is going to taste delicious, but I'm just going to give this a little bit of a mix, and try some of the soup with some of the rice first off, really really light actually, super beefy, but it's not salty, it's a very light flavor, the rice is interesting in the soup, but I like it because whenever I eat like a kimchi jjigae or something here in Korea, I always like to put my soup into my rice and just kind of get it all soupy, but here they've already done it for you, you see these beautiful pieces of beef brisket, a little bit of green onion flavor in there, but it's really a light light broth, very tender, oh my gosh that's good, definitely the first dish I've ever seen in my life that has noodles and rice in the same bowl, and like I was saying earlier, Korean chopsticks make eating noodles super difficult because they're so thin, perfect winter dish, and it's freezing cold outside, and that is nice and warming, good kimchi, oh man so beefy, the soup is awesome, like really light, healthy, clean flavor, the soup is awesome, but seriously, their kimchi might be even better, I know that's probably just because I've been away from Korea so long, but the kimchi here just hits the spot, so good, sour, crunchy, a little bit spicy, but this one here is the best yet, oh man, so I'm nearly done, my bowl of gamtang that was really good, and what I've realized is that if you take the beef, and you can go for a little dip in the kimchi sauce, makes it even better, it's not the most tender beef, but it's got an amazing beefy flavor, I feel like I can taste the fermentation in that kimchi, almost like it's carbonated, like little bubbles or something, I love it, finished off with our gamtang, that was really good, definitely the first time I've ever had rice and noodles in a soup before, but any soup here in Korea really hits the spot, especially on a cold winter's day here in Seoul, we ate a lot today, and this city is just full of amazing food, I love coming back here, it's a really amazing place, what did you think of your first time in Korea Ming? I like it, the weather changed from too hot to too cold, yes it's really cold tonight, but that soup was super warming, and I hope you guys enjoyed watching this episode of 24 hours of eating Korean food in Seoul, if you did make sure to subscribe if you haven't already, and stay tuned because we've got more episodes coming from South Korea, bye bye!