Seoul is a city packed with mouth-watering delights waiting to be discovered by hungry travellers and none are better than the incredible street foods you’ll find in Seoul’s markets and food alleys. The Myeongdong street food is known as one of the best in the city. The Korean capital is a melting pot of tastes, flavours and textures – from spicy, sweet and chewy tteokbokki, to crispy, crunchy and gooey hotteok. Whatever kind of taste-experience you’re looking to sample, you’ll find it from the street food in Seoul.
The best place to find street foods in Seoul has to be Hongdae, the city’s youth-culture hub where all the latest fashion, food, and fun trends start, or Myeongdong, the ever-popular tourist district in the heart of Seoul that’s packed with markets, shopping, and street food alleys. In both areas you’ll find crowded street food stalls selling both traditional Korean snacks and more modern, often zany fusion foods that have to be tried to be believed. Don’t forget to head to Seoul’s traditional markets, such as Gwangjang Market – it’s a true food-lover’s paradise that’s got some of the best street food you’ll find in Seoul.
If you travel to Seoul in winter, then definitely try some of the hot and warming Korean winter street foods such as gun-goguma and eomuk – they’re the best way to stay warm inside, even when it’s below zero outside. Of course, any time of year is a perfect time to try Seoul’s street food. It’s cheap, easy to find, and will give you lots of energy to explore this most incredible and captivating capital city. Whichever street food you try in Seoul, I wish you 맛있게드세요 (mash-it-ge doo-se-yo), which is Korean for ‘enjoy your meal’.
Here are the 10 best street foods in Myeongdong, Seoul you definitely shouldn’t miss out on:
Tteokbokki – Sweet & Spicy Rice Cakes
Tteokbokki, a simple blend of rolled rice cakes, fish cakes, and scallions in a bright red sauce that’s both sweet and spicy, is one of the most sought-after street food in Myeongdong that people simply have to try when they visit Korea. This is a truly uniquely Korean street food that packs a punch – the tteokbokki sauce gives a powerful kick thanks to the spicy red chili peppers that have become ubiquitous in Korean cooking.
Tteokbokki is best enjoyed as a street food, but it can also be served as a meal, with extra ingredients like ramyeon noodles, eggs, and cheese added in to make it a heart-warming traditional Korean dish. However, you enjoy tteokbokki, be sure to eat it carefully. It’s very messy and the squishy rice cakes roll around easily and like to jump out of the bowl. Head to the street food stalls at the end of the Insadong Art Street in central Seoul for a good selection of tteokbokki stalls.
Gyeran-Ppang – Eggy Bread
Gyeran-ppang is a savoury street food delight that’s been popular in Korea for generations. This simple snack is basically an egg plopped on top of a slice of toasted bread that’s small enough to grab in one hand, but will also fill you up pleasantly. This is another messy street food that’s best eaten fresh from the stall and is best enjoyed in winter when it’s cold outside.
This is one of the prettiest looking street foods in Seoul as the egg yolk sits neatly on top of the oval-shaped piece of toast, like a little eye looking out to the sky. If you want a cheap breakfast snack, these are a great substitute for a plate of eggs and toast and will cost a lot less than a hotel breakfast in Seoul. Gyeran-ppang are really cheap, so it’s hard to say no to one when you’re exploring Myeongdong’s Street Food Alley, which is the best place to grab these.
Hotteok – Sweet Pancakes
Another hot street food you can find in Seoul that’s perfect during winter in Korea is hotteok, a fried pancake that’s crispy, chewy, and full of sweet goodness inside. Hotteok are balls of dough packed with honey, seeds, cinnamon, and spices that are fried on a large metal plate, squashed and shaped into a disk, and served up with a small piece of cardboard at the bottom to stop you burning your fingers.
You’ll be mesmerised by the hotteok cooks working hard to press and shape dozens of doughy disks for waiting customers all day long. Eat hotteok slowly and nibble it at the top first. The sweet fillings can be scalding and creating a little air hole at the top helps to cool it down. When it’s ready, take big bites and savour the crispy fried pancake outside with the gooey fillings inside. Hotteok stalls can be found on many street corners in Seoul during winter, often with one person working inside, frying hard all day long.
Bungeo-Ppang – Fish Bread
Bungeo-ppang are delicious baked snacks that are arguably the cutest and most popular street food in Seoul for both tourists and locals. This goldfish-shaped snack is baked in a special fish-shaped mould and stuffed with sweet red-bean paste – an ingredient that’s popular in Korea and other parts of East Asia. Bungeo-ppang are best enjoyed fresh from the hot plates that they’re baked in when they’re still steaming.
You can have a fun time watching these fishy-snacks getting made in the small street food stalls that make them. Each one is small enough to enjoy as a quick snack when you’re shopping in Myeongdong or Hongdae, and not that unhealthy that you can have another one without feeling guilty. Grab a bag of bungeo-ppang and share them with your friends when you’re in Seoul, they’re very cheap and a great way to try red bean if you’ve never had it before.
Eomuk – Fish Cakes
With its distinctively fishy smell and taste, eomuk (odeng) might not be for everyone, but for those who want a chewy, strong tasting street food snack that’s great year round, you’re sure to love it. Eomuk is extremely simple – it’s just a slice of fish cake that’s been skewered on a long chopstick or metal stick and boiled in a fishy broth, folded up in waves for you to bite your way through. Not only do you get the fish cake to eat, but you can also get a little cup of the broth to drink.
This is another street food that’s been popular in Korea for decades and is still a must-have for Koreans when they’re out and about in Seoul or hiking in nearby Bukhansan National Park. This is one of Seoul’s cheapest street foods, which is probably why it’s still so popular. You can find eomuk for sale in small street food stalls, at markets, and even in convenience stores. Grab a stick from the metal pan, which looks like an umbrella holder, dip it in some soy sauce for some extra flavour, and wash it down with a paper cup of the broth.
Lobster Tails With Cheese
Cheesy lobster tails are one of the most eye catching street foods in Seoul that you can find in several places on Street Food Alley in Myeongdong. These bright red lobster tails are cooked on a hot plate and stuffed with cheese, which slowly melts along the ridges of the tail and oozes out over the sides. The lobster meat is cut up while it cooks, mixing with the cheese and making an easy-to-eat but hard to believe street food that’s perfect for a photo memory of your time in Seoul.
Of course, lobster isn’t a cheap meal at any time, and this is one of the most expensive street foods you can buy in Seoul, but certainly worth the money for the taste and experience. Share one with friends late at night after visiting the N Seoul Tower and bring it with you as you explore the night markets of Myeongdong, sampling other street foods and checking out the many bargains on offer.
Gimbap – Seaweed-Wrapped Rice Roll
Gimbap is a traditional Korean meal or snack that’s loved by students and bargain hunters as it’s cheap and filling. It’s a seaweed-wrapped roll of rice stuffed with various ingredients, like a Korean sushi roll, but more often served with fillings like tuna and mayo, scrambled egg, pork cutlet, and loads of other fillings. You can find gimbap in long rolls or short rolls. The long rolls are cut into slices, like a California roll, while the short rolls are bite-sized and can be eaten in one go. Both are delicious and packed full of flavours.
You can find gimbap for sale in convenience stores, including a triangular version that’s really cheap, but the best way to enjoy gimbap is from the street food stalls. When you buy it fresh, you’ll get it coated in a layer of sesame oil with sesame seeds sprinkled on top – this really adds more flavour to the gimbap and a bit of crunch.
Gun-goguma – Roasted Potatoes
There’s nothing better than a hot, freshly baked potato on a cold day in Korea, and that’s exactly what gun-goguma is. Except it’s not a regular potato, this is a sweet potato and comes with a dark purple skin on the outside that peels away easily, revealing its soft, fluffy bright yellow insides. These roasted sweet potatoes are served hot, very hot, and wrapped in a piece of paper to keep your hands safe while you begin to take off its skin to get to the good stuff inside.
Gun-goguma, along with gun-bam (roasted chestnuts), are a street food you’ll usually smell before you see, thanks to the smoky scent wafting off the hot rocks and roasting pans they’re cooked in. Look for the smoking street food stalls to on Seoul’s street corners to find gun-goguma, or pick one up from a convenience store where they keep them hot on a bed of rocks.
Dak-kochi – Chicken Skewers
Another skewered street food in Myeongdong, dak-kochi is like a kebab made with just chicken meat and cooked with what looks like a handheld flamethrower by the street food chefs. The chefs spray the meat with clouds of flame, quickly searing the meat, cooking it well and giving it a smoky taste. Some really put on a performance as they cook, giving a pyrotechnic display that you’d normally expect to see in a circus, not on the street.
Kochi is the Korean word for skewer and there are other types of kochi besides dak (chicken) kochi, including yang-gochi, which are lamb (yang) skewers. These are really popular with people out to party in Seoul and go perfectly with a Korean beer or two. You can find dak-kochi and other kochi in popular party areas, such as Hongdae Street Market, and the Jonggak Avenue of Youth near Myeongdong.
Bindaetteok – Mung Bean Pancakes
When it comes to the best street food in Seoul, I’ve saved the best for last. Bindaetteok are large, fried pancakes that are very different from the aforementioned hotteok. Instead of being a sweet snack that you can take with you, bindaetteok are thick and heavy and best eaten as a meal with a bottle of Korean rice wine, makgeolli. Bindaetteok are made from mung-beans, which might not sound too appealing, but are actually very tasty when fried. Dip it in the dish of soy sauce with chili peppers to add some taste, and then eat. Simple.
If you want to try bindaetteok in Seoul, head to Gwangjang Market, which has dozens of tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurants that will squeeze you at a table, with other people crammed in next to you, and serve up a big plate of these filling pancakes. These places specialise in making this delicious street food, and you’ll get to experience the best bindaetteok in Seoul from chefs who have years or decades of practice making this one dish. Definitely grab a bottle of makgeolli to wash it down, the combination is simply perfect.
Final Thoughts
There are many more delicious street foods in Seoul to try than just these 10 introduced here. From foreign-inspired treats like tornado potato and mochi strawberry, to classic Korean snacks such as mandu and sundae, there’s so many tasty treats to discover when you explore Seoul. It’s hard to resist them all and definitely worth visiting the street food stalls of Myeongdong and Hongdae several times to see what’s on offer and spending and afternoon or evening in the traditional markets getting the most authentic street foods. Why not skip lunch or even dinner and fill yourself up on street food snacks instead.
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