Korean Streetfood My Favourite Korean Streefood

South Korea is a true mecca for delicious and flavourful food. In this blog post I’m showing you my top favourite Korean street food. Korea’s popular food culture cannot only be found in restaurants, but also in the small street food stalls that open up in the evening,  where you can get vegetables, fruits, meat, sweets as well as fish and seafood. The variety is so big that it’s sometimes difficult to leave something out. Most images are taken in the South Korean capital Seoul by me. 

Savoury street food

Lobster-Gui

Unlike in Europe, where lobster is a luxury food item, you can get the best part of this crab in South Korea’s street food stores for less than 5 Euros. Lobster tail is grilled with or without cheese – depending on your preference.

Tteokbokki

Tteokbokki is one of the most famous Korean street foods and is popular around the world. The main ingredient of this snack is Tteok (rice cake), that is cooked in a hot sauce and refined with fish cake, spring onions and other spices. The price for a small portion is between 1 and 3 Euros. Some street-food stores sell extremely hot Tteokbokki and others offer milder versions. 

Eomuk Tang

Eomuk Tang is a very popular street-food snack. Fish cake strips are put on a stick and cooked in a fish broth. You can also take a small cup (see image – far left) and fill it with fish broth. This small soup / drink is included in the cheap price and you don’t have to order it. One portion Eomuk Tang costs between 900 and 1500 Won.

Gyeran Bbang

Gyeran Bbang is a warm small soft bread and an egg is is cooked in the bread. It doesn’t really has a sweet taste but makes a fantastic breakfast option. On cold days this snack will warm you up. I’ve eaten quite a lot of those yummy treats and really liked them. You can get such a Gyeran Bbang for about 1 Dollar

Gimbap

Gimbapis is a typical Korean street food. Those rice rolls are filled with many ingredients such as vegetables (perilla leaves, pickled radish, chillies and kimchi) and meat, fish as well as seafood. These Korean rice rolls are often falsely named sushi (please don’t make that mistake). 

Mayak Gimbap

Mayak Gimbap is the smaller version of the regular Gimbap rice roll. Those small rolls are short, thin and are only stuffed with very little ingredients apart from the rice. Here you can see how big the variety of the Mayak Gimbap is. This store was selling 22 different flavours. 

Yangnyeom Tongdak – Spicy deep-fried chicken 

Yangnyeom Tongdak is a dish that you’ll often see at street-food stalls. It’s very delicious and easy to make for the vendor. It’s usually served in a paper cup with a small stick that serves as a “fork”. Rice cake is additionally fried with this meal, and together with the spicy sauces, this also will satisfy your taste buds. One cup of this dish goes for about 2 Dollar. 

Dakkochi - spicy chicken kebabs

Dakkochi is a spicy chicken kebab. Thin chicken slices are put on a skewer and then grilled. The meat is spiced with a flavourful hot-sweet sauce. I got this kebab for 1 Dollar. 

Jeon - Korean Pancakes

Jeon are Korean pancakes, that mainly consist of vegetables, meat, fish and seafood. The flour actually just serves as a binding agent. Jeon is a very popular street-food snack. Sometimes Jeon are available in form of a side dish. Jeon are often sold in portions as a take-away - as pictured 

Sweet street food

Kkwabaegi

Kkwabaegi is a kind of donut in form of a swirl. The dough consists of sticky rice flour, regular flour and water or milk. Kkwabaegi are deep-fried in hot oil and are fattier than other street snacks. It’s very delicious and I love those sticky rice flour snacks. Kkwabaegi drizzled with a bit of honey is especially yummy. This swirl went for 0,50 Pennies

Gun Goguma

Gun Goguma (sweet potato) is an old traditional street-snack. A whole sweet potato is roasted in a metallic stove with hot air. Especially during winter, you can smell the scent of the roasted sweet potato on the streets in the cities. I got this very healthy and sweet treat for about 0,90 pennies. 

Bungeo bbang

This fish-shaped pastry is one of the oldest Korean snacks. With its warming effect, it’s very popular in winter and it has got a healthy-sweet taste. The dough consists partly of sticky rice flour and the filling is either a red bean paste or vanilla custard. 

Dalgi Tteok - Erdbeer Reiskuchen

Rice cake and especially sweet rice cake is one of my favourite Korean snacks. A whole strawberry is wrapped in sweet thin rice-cake flour and sold in a pretty packaging. This makes the perfect gift but they are expensive on street-food markets. The stall on the picture is on the main tourist shopping street in Myeongdong and very expensive. 

Hotteok

Hotteok is one of my favourite snacks. Hotteok is a variety of filled rice flour pancakes. Those pancakes are either stuffed with sweet fillings (the traditional version with honey, cinnamon + sugar is delicious) as well as with veggies or glass noodles. There are two ways of preparing them. Pancakes are either cooked in metallic shapes or fried on hot plates with lots of fat. 

The prices are based on our own personal experience and can change with time.