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Food in Korea
The one thing we hear most from our alumni after they leave Korea is how much they miss Korean food and the one thing we hear most of our new teachers say is how much they think Korean food stinks.
I for one love everything about Korean food. It is cheap, healthy and delicious. There is a great variety as well for those willing to try different things.
A typical meal in a Korean restaurant will cost about $5.00 USD, throw in an beer and you're looking at about $10 USD. Not too shabby. I eat out a majority of the time.
Breaky is at home though I always get a vending machine instant coffee for the wee bits of change in my pocket. For those more in tune with breakfast, there are loads of breakfast cereals and toast and spread and fruit selections available. Traditional Korean breakfast is seaweed soup with turnip and often fish, served with rice and kimchi.
Lunch for me is something from a "pojangmacha" (side street cart selling food stuffs) or a quick "ajima" (Korean mother) cafe or "shik dang" (hole in the wall restaurant) where I have a soup or noodles or kimbab (kimpop) or virtually any plate of food for anywhere from 2000 Won to 5000 Won ($2-5USD). You can do noodles or deep fried squid even cheaper or one of my favorites, oudaeng. Ask. Try. Enjoy.
Dinner is often a Korean BBQ house for me or a Chicken Hof (pub). I love the Korean chicken. The sauces are AMAZING. Do try. The bbq houses are also something to behold. Dinner there can be as cheap as 5000Won for one. Best to dine with a partner and get a couple orders. It will be served together, you cook together, you use scissors to cut the meat, you lay it on a lettuce leaf or catnip leaf and put on your special favorites to dress it, that could be kimchi or garlic or garlic cooked in seasame oil or bean sprouts or any number of combinations from the "pancheon" that is set on your table and constantly refilled each time a side dish plate empties.
YUM YUM YUM. Look to the bottom of this page for some favorites. |
Korean food is quite distinct from Japanese or Chinese cuisine. Short grain sticky rice is the staple food of the Korean diet, and virtually every meal is served with kimchi, a fermented cabbage, garlic and pepper dish (think sauerkraut with hot sauce). Some people develop quite an affinity for it and other people can’t stand it, but face it, if you choose to live in Korea you will be eating it a lot. Kimchi, the national dish, is served with breakfast, lunch and dinner and if you don't like it when you first get there, you may find yourself craving it only months after and upon your return home you might even drive 30 minutes out of your way just to get "good" kimchi. |
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Korean food tends to be spicy and includes liberal amounts of garlic. If you can’t eat spicy food I suppose you can ask for non spicy food, but that is similar to walking into KFC and saying you don’t eat chicken. Cheap nutritious food can be bought everywhere in Korea. Popular dishes include kimbap- which is the Korean version of the California roll- vegetables and egg rolled in a seaweed wrap, mandu, which are meat dumplings which are steamed, deep fried or served in soup, kalbi, or Korean short ribs, pulgogi, which is grilled marinated beef, and bebimbap which is fresh vegetables and an egg mixed with rice. Korea also has a fantastic array of soups and stews, including naengmyon- cold buckwheat noodles- perfect on a hot summer day, kalbi tang, or beef soup, tubu chigae, tofu soup, samgyetang, ginseng chicken soup and kong kuk su, a noodle dish made in a soy milk broth. There is also a vast array of seafood dishes in Korea, including raw fish, or sashimi.Generally before a meal in Korea you will be given a hot, wet towel to wash your face and hands with.
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Koreans eat their rice with a spoon and everything else with chopsticks- if you don’t know how to use chopsticks you will learn. The degree of difficulty is ratcheted up in Korea because they use slick metal chopsticks rather than bamboo or wooden ones. Personally I love this concept because they are recycled. This is one of the few environmentally friendly practises you will see in Korea - a country where cookies are INDIVIDUALLY wrapped inside a box of cookies... a genuine source of frustration for any person concerned about our environment. |
Vegetarians in Korea
Although Korea is officially a Buddhist country and although practitioning Buddhists are meant to be vegetarians, it is difficult to get a dish that doesn't include meat in some form.
Koreans rarely understand what "vegetarian" means and although there is a word (Chae Shik Joo We Ja) they usually don't believe you or don't think it's possible. |
Here is a snippet on Vegetarianism from one of our teachers in Korea, Reid Wilson:
"Despite what one would think, a county with Buddhist influences such as South Korea has very little to offer for vegetarians and vegans. Your own personal definition of “vegetarianism” will reflect the ease or difficulties you will have eating in Korea.
For those who consider vegetarianism to mean not eating land animals such as cows, chickens, and pigs, you won’t have a hard time eating in Korea. Your options for finding food to eat will be a little limited, but you will still be able to eat well.
If you don’t eat seafood as a part of your definition of vegetarianism, it will be even harder to find food to eat. Korea seems to be overflowing with animals from the sea in it’s markets, restaurants, and grocery stores. As a result, a lot of dishes in restaurants contain some form of seafood. |
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If you also do not eat eggs as a part of your definition, this will cause some further problems. Eggs are served far more often than just for breakfast such as in many Western cultures. It is usually easy to ask for no egg in restaurant dishes, however, so it isn’t that big of a problem.
If you do not eat land animals, sea creatures, or eggs then you will find out upon arriving here that it is really hard to eat well in Korea. There is food to eat, but the lack of variety will get to you sooner than later. Actually, the lack of variety is something that is very hard for vegetarians in Korea. Also, it can be difficult to stay healthy when there is only a limited amount of food that one can eat.
Outside of Seoul, it will be more difficult to find restaurants that specialize in dishes for those who do not eat animals. One dish that is readily available most anywhere is bebimpop. However, eating bebimpop once a day for a year is something that most people won’t be able to do.
I recommend doing much of your eating at home, and in turn much of the cooking as well. This can be a time consuming process, but if one is steady in his or her values of vegetarianism/veganism it will not pose much of a problem. There are beans, grains, tofu, noodles, and plenty of seasonal vegetables that will supply your body with it’s needed nutrients. However, don’t expect to find non-traditional vegetarian items that would be easily found in groceries and co-ops throughout your home region. Tempeh, filafel, veggie burgers and other protein-based options are hard to come by in Korea.
In conclusion, don’t believe the Buddhist hype. Korea is not an easy place to be a vegetarian. It will require much work and patience. The best way to overcome these difficulties is to have a Korean write down on a piece of paper what you don’t want in a dish, and hope for the best. Sometimes, it will still contain animal products, and it seems easier not to know and hope for the best rather than drilling the cook about what the dishes contents are. If you are an extremist when it comes to vegetarianism, I would recommend not eating out. People here are not afraid to just take the animal product out of the dish while the taste and partial remains still exist. Unfortunately, it will probably happen that you will accidentally eat animal products here, even if you are careful. If you decide to pursue Korea despite it’s lack of vegetarian options, you are going to have to be creative in where, how, and what you eat. It’s possible, but far harder than it is to do back home. |
Here are two restaurants I found over the internet that are in Seoul that may be of help to those in the greater Seoul area:
Vegan: Country Life Tel: 02-785-6429 (7th Day Adventist Restaurant)
Vegetarian: San Chon - Insadong - this is a very well known restaurant in downtown Seoul. This picture was taken from that restaurant. They serve amazing food and they also provide entertainment that is FANTASTIC. This is a must visit for all teachers." |
Water - to Drink or Not to Drink
Tap water in Korea’s cities, although not necessarily overly tasty, but in general will not make you sick. It may not be the best stuff in the world, but it probably won’t kill you. Many Koreans, particularly in the summer time get water from local mountain springs. You can get bottled water delivered to your home quite cheaply- with a delivery service a five liter bottle of water will cost you around USD $6. |
Restaurants in Korea
Korea has all kinds of eating establishments, ranging from street vendors (pojangmachas) and hole-in-the-wall shikdangs (small restaurants) to high-priced, formal restaurants will full-course meals. In between you can find many types of medium-sized places offering a wide range of food types, including traditional Korean food, fast food, Western and other non-Korean dishes. Happily, tipping is not customary in Korea. |
Foreign Food in Korea
Chinese and Japanese are the foreign cuisines most common in Korea. Most Chinese restaurants in Korea are modest affairs that serve jajangmyung (noodles with black sauce) and tang su yuk (sweet and sour pork). Japanese restaurants are generally more expensive and dishes usually include twigim (tempura) and sashimi (raw fish).
Western food is becoming more and more prevalent in Korea. Fast food joints such as KFC, McDonalds, Subway, Popeye’s and Baskin Robbins are becoming more and more common in Korea, and not surprising, waistlines are expanding as well. Fast food isn’t cheap in Korea compared to local fare. In larger cities such as Seoul and Pusan more ‘upscale’ Western dining establishments such as Bennigan’s and TGI Friday’s are available, but will burn a hole in your wallet. In Seoul, particularly in the Itaewon district, there are a number of western style restaurants and other ‘Ethnic’ restaurants as well, including Italian, Indian and Hong Kong style Chinese food.
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Drinking in Korea
Drinking is virtually a national sport in Korea, and there seems to be virtually no stigma attached to getting stinking drunk in public, particularly for men.
It is not an uncommon site to see men in business suits passed out in gutters on a Sunday morning, and piles of vomit in the subway stations. Beer is cheap and plentiful, although virtually all beer available in Korea is a light pilsner.
There are no shortage of drinking establishments, from sidewalk tents to trendy nightclubs, and this seems to be the recreational activity of choice for many English teachers in Korea.
Besides beer, the other most popular drink in Korea is soju, which is akin to cheap vodka. Beware- soju, which comes in small clear bottles, will get you very drunk and violently ill very quickly. Many English teachers still bear physical and emotional scars from the ‘soju experience.’
More traditional drinks include makkoli, a milky white rice drink and dong dong ju, another traditional rice based alcohol. Alcohol is usually served with anju, or side dishes, which usually include nuts, dry squid tentacles and dry seaweed.
Important Note: In Korea, if you invite someone out, you are expected to pay. If you are invited out, don’t expect to pay, or attempt to contribute to it. The bill for a group is always paid by one person only, if you attempt to pay for the bill in front of your host you can seriously embarrass him or her.
Furthermore, it is quite rude to fill your own glass with alcohol in Korea, or to leave another person’s glass empty. Everyone is continually filling each other’s glasses. To show respect, hold the bottle or pitcher with two hands when pouring and hold your glass with two hands when receiving.
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Cooking Korean Style
What better way to immerse yourself in Korean culture than learning how to cook Korean food? Korea has a culinary tradition distinct from Japanese and Chinese cuisine- traditional Korean cuisine is heavily influenced by Mongol culture. Koreans are the only Asian culture that eats rice with a spoon. Interestingly, the pepper, a mainstay of all Asian cuisine, was introduced to Asia by the Dutch in the 17th century- the pepper plant comes from the Americas. It is hard to imagine any Asian cuisine without this mainstay.
For the serious cook, you may want some first hand instruction. This web site lists the contact information for Korean Cooks Association: http://www.food-expo.or.kr/
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