Written by hand, not generated. Dishes, markets, timing and prices for Seoul.
Seoul stacks six centuries of capital-city cooking, postwar alley diners, and food from every corner of the world into one city. What makes it unusual is the range: you can eat at a restaurant that has been open for a century and at a place that opened last month on the same afternoon.
Beef bones simmered for hours into a milky broth. It arrives unseasoned, so you salt it and add spring onion yourself at the table.
Buckwheat noodles in a deliberately restrained beef broth. Locals add only a drop of vinegar or mustard and drink the broth as it is.
Pork ribs marinated in soy sauce and grilled over charcoal. The meal usually ends with cold noodles or soybean paste stew rather than rice.
Mung beans ground and fried thick in oil. Eaten at a market counter with makgeolli rice wine.
Dried baby pollack grilled over briquettes, eaten as a beer snack. After dark the alley fills with folding tables on the pavement.
A century-old market of pancake, raw beef and kimbap stalls where you sit and eat on the spot.
Old bars and rice-and-side-dish diners tucked between print shops. Busiest in the evening.
A run of charcoal grill houses specialising in marinated pork.
Converted factory buildings now full of roasteries and brunch spots.
A neighbourhood market for street snacks — fritters, sweet-and-spicy fried chicken — eaten while walking.
What it costs — A bowl of soup or noodles runs about KRW 9,000-12,000, and grilled pork is roughly KRW 15,000-20,000 per person.
KR