Seoul’s got a rep. People think it’s ultra-cheap (“street food everywhere!”) or wildly expensive (“plastic surgery and rooftop bars!”). The truth? It’s both.
Seoul is a city where you can spend $3 on a bowl of noodles that slaps, then $15 on coffee poured through a filter blessed by monks in Seongsu (kidding–but not kidding). The key is knowing where your money actually goes—and where you’re being gently robbed by trendy gentrification.
This is your real Seoul price guide, broken down by travel style: Backpacker, Mid-range Explorer, and Luxury-ish Without Regret.
Reality check: A ₩13,000 meal in Seoul can feel more satisfying than a ₩40,000 one in most cities. This is the sweet spot for travelers who want value without sacrificing experience.
🍷 Luxury Traveler (But Not Stupid About It): ₩300,000+/day
Businesswoman brunette with glasses in white trouser suit flying in a plane business jets and drinking champagne from a glass
You want craft cocktails, boutique hotels with actual insulation, and dinners that make you consider staying in Korea forever.
Where Your Money Goes:
High-end hotel or hanok stay: ₩200,000–₩500,000/night (check out Seochon or Seongsu)
Spa day: ₩80,000+ for massages or Korean skincare experiences
Premium cocktails: ₩15,000–₩25,000 per drink in hidden bars with no signage and mysterious doorbells
Note: “Luxury” in Seoul doesn’t always mean better service—it just means quieter interiors, English-speaking staff, and less likelihood of running into a delivery guy while checking in.
Hidden Costs You’ll Want to Budget For
Late-night taxi fares: 20% surcharge after midnight
ATM fees: ₩3,600–₩6,000 per withdrawal unless you’re using Wise or Revolut
Hanbok rental: ₩10,000–₩20,000 for a few hours, not including hair
Coffee: ₩5,000–₩8,000 a pop—yes, even for iced Americano
Entrance fees: Palaces are ₩3,000; combo tickets save money
Where to Save Without Suffering
Lunch specials: Many restaurants offer cheaper lunch sets (~₩8,000–₩12,000)
Public transport: Skip Ubers; subways go everywhere
Bakeries: Korea’s French obsession = cheap sandwiches and pastries
Street food neighborhoods: Avoid Myeongdong. Head to Mangwon, Gwangjang (early), or university areas
Free things that don’t suck: Cheonggyecheon stream walk, Naksan Park hike, museum exhibits, open temples, department store rooftops
TL;DR – Seoul Can Be a Steal or a Splurge
Whether you’re rolling in on ₩50,000/day or burning ₩500,000 like it’s kindling, Seoul will meet you where you are. It’s a city where budget travel doesn’t mean boring, and high-end doesn’t always mean better—just quieter and with fancier light fixtures.
👉 Coming Up Next:
What Kind of Traveler Are You? – Find your Seoul match whether you’re a solo foodie, a K-pop pilgrim, a wellness nut, or someone just here for the BBQ and the vibes.
I’ve been writing about Korean food in Seoul since 2004 at ZenKimchi. I’ve consulted Anthony Bourdain, Andrew Zimmern, Lonely Planet, Conde Nast Traveler, The Travel Channel, and other world media in finding the must eat Korean foods. Here’s the ultimate list. These are foods you can find specific restaurants for. I’m not including foods that you’d find as side dishes, like Japchae and Kimchi.
Beginner’s Quest
This list is getting so hyuuuge that I’m dividing it into Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. Beginner is if you’re new to Korean food, or if it’s your first time in Korea. These are also the foods that are crowd pleasers–the greatest hits. The Top-40 music of Korean food.
Korean BBQ
The first must-eat Korean food that springs to mind. Cooking meat at your table and wrapping it in lettuce. There’s something primal about that. Korean BBQ is all about community and fun. In Korea itself, pork is king. Beef costs so much it’s for special occasions.
Where to eat Korean BBQ
It’s hard to screw up Korean BBQ in Korea. The competition is so fierce that mediocre places don’t hang out long.
Mapo Jeong Daepo 마포정대포
My go-to place is still Jeong Daepo in the Mapo neighborhood, near Gongdeok Station. The whole area is full of BBQ aromas. Most all the restaurants in that area are great. We made sure Anthony Bourdain went there the last time he was in Seoul. It’s the main place we go to on The Ultimate Korean BBQ Night Out.
Hongik Sutbul Galbi Sogeum Gwi 홍익숯불갈비소금구
I don’t know how long this will hold out against the pressure of gentrification. It’s a packed, packed, packed place. They give your meat a pre-cook over strong fire before finishing it at your table.
Chicken & Beer
“Chimaek” (Chicken + Maekju | beer) got its start in the early 1970s. It’s now such a great must-eat Korean food institution that we have more chicken restaurants than there are McDonald’s in the entire world. There’s something about this combination. Strangely, it works well with watered down Korean beers–preferably Cass. I swear. I’m more a fan of classic styles. Recent styles of fried chicken lean more to the American style–thick flour-based crust. I like the thin starch-based coating with the aromatic spicies.
Where to eat Chicken & Beer
I’d almost say it’s hard to go wrong, but it is. Chicken hofs are neighborhood haunts. There’s no exclusive I-gotta-try-this chicken pub with a line out the door. In fact, if there’s a line out the door stay far away from it. My rule of thumb is this. If it’s full of beautiful young women taking Insta-selfies, it’s not good chicken. If it’s grease stained and full of middle-aged men who look like life has kicked them in the teeth, great chicken.
Two-Two Chicken 둘둘치킨
You can’t go wrong with Two-Two (pictured above). You’ll likely be the youngest person in any of its locations. It’s a franchise, but each venue acts like a mom-and-pop shop. The basic recipe and yangnyeom (spicy sweet garlic sauce) are the same, but they put their own spins on the sauces. We include a stop at a Two-Two on our Authentic Korean Chicken & Beer Experience. They’re outside Gongdeok Station, and the couple who runs it is great and welcoming. I want them to get more love.
Chicken Baengi 치킨뱅이
They also do it classic style. Get their chicken 3-ways: fried, sauced, and garlic. Then go for the pa dalk, boneless chicken thighs on top of dressed ribbons of green onions. My favorite location is run by two ladies on the north of the main strip of Hongdae. Go out Hongik University Station, exit 7 (Holiday Inn) and head due south a couple of blocks. It’ll be on your right.
Nurungji Tongdalk 누룽지통닭
A new brand, they don’t do fried. Chicken is spit roasted over wood and served on sizzling platters of crispy rice. We also go to this on the new Authentic Korean Chicken & Beer Experience. The ones near Gongdeok and Sookmyung Women’s University kill.
Locations?
Since these are franchises, your best bet is to copy and paste the Korean names above into Google Maps, Naver Map, or Kakao Map.
Kimchi Jjigae
Okay, you fans of “Always Be My Maybe.” This stew sits on the pantheon of comfort foods, next to macaroni and cheese. It is so perfect on a chilly Seoul night. You want it chock full of tofu and pork. The canned tuna version is also quite good, though I like it better when it’s served at a drinking establishment in a beat-up tin pot.
Where to eat Kimchi Jjigae
Most Korean diners, like Kimbap Cheonguk, will have it on the menu. There are few places that make it the star of their menus, except…
Omori Jjigae 오모리찌개전문점
Go down to Jamsil, across the lake from Lotte World, and up to the second floor for this. It’s a chain, but this is the flagship store. Go to the second floor. The first floor is for black bean noodles. Here, you can get 3-year-old Kimchi Jjigae. You’d be surprised at how subtle and smooth it tastes.
Gwanghwamun Jip 광화문집
Tiny, tiny, tiny place near Gyeongbokgung Palace. They have two items, a very tart pork kimchi jjigae and gyeran mari (rolled omelet). Get both.
Bibimbap
(Gogung Jeonju Bibimbap)
The king of rice bowls. There are many kinds of bibimbap. There’s the dolsot sizzling kind. There’s the fancy Jeonju bibimbap. There’s your basic Korean diner bibimbap served in a plastic bowl with a fried egg. Contrary to what you may have had outside Korea, it doesn’t always come sizzling, and it doesn’t always come with an egg. There are infinite combinations.
Where to eat Bibimbap
Like Kimchi Jjigae, it’s available in most diners. There is a chain called Bon Bibimbap, the same as Bon Juk. It’s just fine and dandy. But if you want to go for something more serious…
Jeonju Yuhalmeoni Bibimbap 전주유할머니비빔밥
Respect, respect, respect. Grandmother knows how to make good bibimbap. This place has been around for over 50 years. Simple menu. Get the bibimbap and the Kongnamul Gukbap (Bean Sprout Soup).
Gogung 고궁
I love Gogung (pictured above). The original location is in Jeonju. It’s a case of franchising out and collapsing. It’s hard to find a Gogung in Seoul anymore. Thankfully, there is one in the Starfield Mall in Gangnam. This is classic refined royal Jeonju bibimbap served in brass bowls.
Naengmyeon
Chilled. Buckwheat. Noodles.
It’s in my top ten of favorite Korean foods. All the chilled buckwheat noodle dishes are. Naengmyeon itself comes from North Korea. The classic Pyongyang style is light with a clean sophisticated broth. Can you believe that before the 20th century, northern Korea was known for more fancy artistocratic cuisine than the south?
Naengmyeon always hits the spot at the end of a barbecue meal, with a few squirts of vinegar and hot mustard from the bottles sitting next to you. That may be why places like Woo Lae Oak are famous for the naengmyeon. Fancy BBQ must follow with refined naengmyeon. There are usually two types available, noodles in soup (mul naengmyeon), and noodles mixed with a spicy gochujang sauce (bibim naengmyeon). Of course, there are many more varieties, like there are of bibimbap. Baby steps.
Where to eat Naengmyeon
If you’re in Korea for a short while, just order a bowl at the end of your BBQ dinner. The one pictured above was just a W5,000 (~$4.25 USD) lunch special at a little BBQ joint near my regular jogging route. Otherwise, try these places.
Woo Lae Oak 우래옥
Famous, famous place. Almost too famous for being too famous. I like it, but it feels a bit stodgy. It’s where you take your grandma after church. The prices are premium, but it’s worth it for the naengmyeon.
Dongmu Bapsang (Comrade’s Table) 둥무밥상
He used to cook for officers in the North Korean army before defecting to the South. Now his cozy shop serves dishes that he misses from home. Yes, definitely eat the naengmyeon here. Also try the soondae sausages.
Jeongin Myeonok 정인면옥
Watch out for the lunch lines here. It gets crowded. The naengmyeon is great, but it may also be because it’s one of the few good restaurants in Yeouido.
Street Food
When in Asia, tourists want street food. Seoul has good street food, but don’t expect what you’d find in Southeast Asia. Street food in Korea primarily acts as a snack and late night starch filler for an alcohol-laden stomach. Most carts serve the same exact thing. There are variations, but those are in areas that cater to tourists and college students.
Tteokbokki
Don’t call it “topoki!” That was some hare-brained scheme concocted by a government agency ten years ago. They’re chewy rice cakes in a spicy sauce. I personally think the stuff on the street is sweeter because it’s more suited for kids. Tteokbokki in bricks-and-mortars, like Jaws Food and Mimine (pictured above), tend to be better. Spicier and more savory.
Odeng/Eomuk
Fish cakes on sticks soaking in MSG-saturated broth. Just go and grab a stick, brush on a few happy dabs of sauce with the brush Bob Ross style, eat, and pay. The proprietor counts the number of sticks you have left over.
Hot Ba
Or Hot Bar? It’s fish dough shaped into logs on sticks and deep fried like a corn dog. In fact, they come with hot dogs and other ingredients in them. That’s one of my favorite street foods.
Twigim
Fried stuff. Usually sweet potatoes, shrimp, sesame leaves. It’s like tempura but heavier.
Soondae
The proper romanization is sundae, but I don’t want you to confuse this with ice cream. They’re blood and glass noodle sausages. The traditional version uses rice instead of noodles, but the street version uses the glass ones, giving them a bouncy texture. It’s served with pig liver and offal. What I like to do is make Kim-Tteok-Soon. Mix the Twigim and Soondae together with Tteokbokki sauce. It’s what Harold and Kumar would crave if they lived in Korea.
Hotteok
Fried dough stuffed with brown sugar, nuts, and other goodies. They are delicious and make great hand warmers. They emerge in high numbers during winter.
Bungeobbang
Sweet cakes stuffed with sweet red bean or custard. Another great hand warmer and quite good.
Gyeranbbang
Literally, “egg bread.” Sweet pancake batter cooked in a cup like a muffin with an egg cracked inside. Sweet and savory. Protein and carbs. It’s the breakfast you never knew you needed.
Where to eat Seoul Street Food
You can get it most anywhere. Here are some areas that have a unique touch.
Myeong-dong
It’s one of the few times I’ll say Myeong-dong has better food. The street food scene there is competitive. But Myeong-dong is like Times Square in New York. There are more tourists than locals. It’s here that you’ll find the Frankenstein creations, like lobster with cheese. The Tornado Potato was born here, as well as many street food staples and flashes in the pans.
Insa-dong
It’s another touristy area. Here you’ll find the famous Insa-dong Hotteok, which puts a bit of cornmeal in its dough, giving it a super crunchy texture. Other highlights are the fire-grilled chicken on a stick and my beloved egg breads. Insa-dong’s street food scene took a bad hit from both COVID-19’s tourism dearth and the relentless bulldozing to make way for bland shopping malls.
Hongdae
Carts with the basics camp outside Hongik University Station, exit 9. Further down, past the buskers, you can find what I call Crazy Street Food Alley. It’s a series of stalls that are always rotating with new street food ideas. It’s like a market research lab throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks.
Noryangjin Cup Rice Road 컵밥거리
Now this is food that is meant to be eaten like a meal. These stands cater to young adults studying for professional exams. The cram schools to help them prepare for these career tests congregate here. Cup Rice Road sprouted as a bunch of carts to feed these poor hungry young professionals-to-be. Here’s a map of all the places I’ve mentioned.
Patbingsu
Dessert! We don’t really have desserts in the Western sense in Korea. We do have this shaved ice treat. The competition each summer with Bingsu makers gets more intense each year. It’s a war! The goal is to shave ice so perfect it’s fluffy fresh fallen snow. The ice itself usually comes from frozen milk, but I’ve seen other ice sources, including coffee and makgeolli (Korean rice ale).
Where to eat Patbingsu
The margins make this lucrative, so everyone is trying to get into the game. Most all bakery chains, like Paris Baguette and Tous Les Jours, get all into this. Most coffee shops do this. There are some places that specialize in it.
Sulbing 설빙
Sulbing is a franchise that popped up a few years ago. I wondered how risky such a venture would be–as in, who would order bingsu in winter? But they’ve done well. They’re crowded in the summer. Sulbing specializes in Instagrammy bingsu, and that’s a good thing. They’re showstoppers. Don’t worry about how large they are. Remember they’re just shaved ice. When melted the liquid would fit into a grande Starbucks cup. If you’re traveling with kids this is the treat they’ll remember. Since it’s a franchise, just copy and paste 설빙 into your map app of choice to find your closest location.
Mealtop 밀탑
Odd name. Odd location. It’s hidden on the 5th floor of Hyundai Department Store in Apgujeong. Well, not really hidden. It takes up a lot of space. But you have to go up a bunch of escalators to get there. They have a big variety of bingsu. What I like is that the portions or smaller, so you can try different flavors in one go. They are starting to franchise out.
On Sept. 11, I spent an hour of my day interviewing Roy Choi of Kogi BBQ. Choi discussed his soon-to-be-released biography, Flavor! Napa Valley and his opinion on pairing Korean foods with wine, the marketing of Korean cuisine and advice for the next generation of chefs and food writers.
Choi is preparing for the Nov. 5 release of his book, L.A. Son: My Life, My City, My Food. The book, co-written by Tien Nguyen and Natasha Phan, is the second publication from celebrity chef and TV personality Anthony Bourdain’s line of books for Ecco.
“You can count on one hand the chefs who have tilted the world with their innovation,” said Michael Chiarello, event founder and owner-chef of Bottega in the heart of California’s Napa Valley. He also owns the lifestyle brand NapaStyle. “Roy (Choi) and his Kogi BBQ truck have forever changed the landscape of cooking in America. Flavor! Napa Valley was created to celebrate great chef innovators like Roy.”
Click here to read Tammy’s complete interview with Korean-American Roy Choi.
BIFF Square gets its name from the Busan International Film Festival. This annual film festival is one of the most prestigious film festivals in Asia. BIFF Square was the original location of the BIFF, which started in 1996.
Although BIFF Square no longer plays hostess to the prestigious film festival — it was moved to the newly built Busan Cinema Center (영화의전당) in 2012 — the square is still a busy place, lined with a wide variety of shops, movie theaters, movie paraphernalia and lots of street food stalls and restaurants.
After arriving in Busan from Daejeon during our recent tasty tour of Korea, Hubby and I scouted the square one weekday mid-morning with a profound craving for some 호떡 hotteok. Thanks to the Internet, we knew there’s something special about the hotteok sold at BIFF Square food stalls.
Like the child of a doughnut and a cinnamon roll, hotteok starts out with a base of wheat flour, water, milk, sugar and yeast. After the dough rises for a few hours, golf-ball sized lumps of dough are filled with a mixture of brown sugar, honey, chopped peanuts and cinnamon. Then it’s fried on both sides to golden brown and piping hot.
Most hotteok stands will set them aside and serve as-is. Buyer beware of the sticky, hot, sweet cinnamon syrupy filling.
However, Busan-style hotteok, called ssiat hotteok (씨앗호떡), or “seed hotteok,” brings a bit more to this street treat. A regular hotteok cake is cut from the side about half-way down and stuffed with a spoonful of pine nuts, sunflower and pumpkin seeds.
Deep fried dough generously stuffed with nuts, seeds, sugar and cinnamon is always good eats. The additional seeds and nuts may give the illusion of healthiness but who eats hotteok for their health?
BIFF Square is pretty easy to find. It’s in the same neighborhoood as the Jagalchi fish market and Nampo-dong shopping area.
BIFF 광장 (Square) Plaza and Flea Market
중구 남포동5가 18 (Joong-gu, Nampo-dong 5-ga, 18) 부산광역시 (Busan), 600-045
Directions: Take subway line 1 to Jagalchi Station. From station exit 7, the plaza is a five-minute walk.
Every now and then I get the craving for junk food–Korean junk food. Rather than ordering some rabokki from my local kimbap shack, I decided to make my own while cleaning out my refrigerator in the process. Yeah, it’s more bunsik than street food, but semantics were never my strong point. Rabokki is Ddeokbokki with ramyeon and other goodies. And I threw in the goodies. Check it out.
This is best eaten hot with company–and without white shirts. It’s messy and oh so junky! It won’t win any beauty contests. It also doesn’t keep well, so eat it right away.
I passed carts offering bibimbap, bulgogi hot dogs, deopbap, omurice, hamburgers, bokkeumbap, and something that one cart called poktanbap (폭탄밥), or ‘bomb rice.’
This last one was something new to me, so I definitely had to give it a try, especially as the sucker for anything that screams ‘spicy!’ that I am.
What I got was a decent-sized bowl of rice with ground beef, sesame oil, a slice of ‘cheese,’ a fried egg, two different kinds of dried seaweed, some fish roe, two generous dollops of gochujang, and a sprinkling of sesame seeds. Total cost: 2,000 won, less than a plate of tteokbokki will cost you at most stalls. A large serving is just an extra 500.
And how was it? Pretty much as you might imagine all those ingredients thrown together tasting – which is to say it falls squarely under the rubric of comfort food.
With a name and description like that, it’s a dish I just had to try to recreate in my kitchen.
Two kinds of seaweed and flying-fish roe certainly bring the ocean to your bowl. (Tammy Quackenbush photo)
The fish roe is indispensable for the recipe. The snap of each egg as you chew creates a popping sound like that of firecrackers or crispy rice. I think Pokjukbap (폭죽밥), or “Firecracker Rice,” may be a more accurate name for this fun, uncommon Korean comfort food.
*The processed stuff that comes wrapped individually in plastic. It’s not very healthful, but it’s “authentic.” If you have access — and the money — to buy the good stuff, use it. I’d advise using a mild, subtle-flavored cheese though. This is not the recipe for trying out that sharp cheddar.
Please read more about the Noryangjin neighborhood on Seoul-Suburban and snoop around a little bit to discover other underexposed and under-appreciated areas of Seoul to visit vicariously.
Korean taco trucks are no longer limited to America’s West Coast cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco and Portland. Now Atlanta, the largest U.S. Southeast city, has Yumbii. It’s one of the latest such roving restaurants to follow in the wake of intense popularity for Kogi, which has more than 67,000 listed followers on Twitter.
Yumbii chef Tomas Lee fuses Korean, Mexican and Southern cooking traditions onto a small plate. He is the former executive chef of Atlanta’s ritzy Buckhead Diner.
Lee calls Yumbii, “the result is the best damn meal you’ve had out of a food truck east of the Mississippi.” The menu includes Korean barbecue tacos and burritos as well as pulled pork sliders topped with cucumber kimchi.
Using an increasingly common marketing method for rolling restaurants, Yumbii updates Atlanta-area residents on the truck’s latest location via Twitter.
ZenKimchi would like to hear about your experiences with this newcomer to Korean fusion gourmet on the go.
Namu is a Korean and Japanese fusion restaurant owned and operated by three Korean American brothers — chef Dennis Lee and his brothers, Daniel and David — who have established a presence at the Thursday and Saturday farmer’s markets at the San Francisco Ferry Building. They serve what they call “cutting-edge new California” cuisine.
The market menu (PDF) features kimchi fried rice, okonomiyaki and their own spin on Korean tacos (ssam in Korean), using toasted seaweed as the wrap.
Korean seaweed topped with rice, bulgogi and kimchi.
While there a recent Thursday, I tasted the Korean tacos, which cost $5 for two. Each have two sheets of Korean or Japanese seaweed with some sushi rice topped with teriyaki-marinated beef and kimchi salsa on top. Each taco is two or three bites of Korean fusion genius and more healthful than those wrapped in soft or fried tortillas.
Korean french fries topped with chopped kalbi and gochujang will fill you up.
The gamja (Korean for potato) fries are made from “hand-cut potatoes” and topped with kimchi relish, gochujang (Korean spicy red pepper paste), sweetened mayonnaise (Namu uses the popular Asian brand Kewpie), teriyaki, chopped short ribs and green onions. Orders for the fries were flying off the grill, especially in tandem with the Korean tacos.
The okonomiyaki, or Japanese savory grilled pancake, was in demand as well. Namu makes its “crispy and gooey flour pancake” with kimchi and market vegetables, topped with bonito flakes, okonomiyaki sauce and sweet mayo. Most ordered it with a sunnyside-up fried egg. I saw one brave soul pass me with a plate of okonomiyaki with a raw egg on it though.
The dish’s name comes from okonomi, which can be translated “as you like it,” and yaki, for “grilled” or “cooked.” A thinner version is similar to the Korean flatcake dish panjeon.
The okonomiyaki were made fresh and to order.
Namu, whose Korean name means “tree,” is at the Ferry Building on Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. — get there before the 1 p.m. rush — and Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
The brick-and-mortar restaurant is located at 439 Balboa St. in the city, near Golden Gate Park. The menu there also includes Korean fried chicken, ramen, bibimbap and additional Japanese-influenced items. Also served there are more than 30 selections of wine, sake and soju.
If you find yourself in the San Francisco Bay area, go to the other side of the bay for some Korean style good eats at Seoul on Wheels. Photo couresty of http://www.flickr.com/photos/arndog/ / CC BY 2.0
ABC7 News TV morning program View of the Bay featured Chef Julia Yoon of Seoul on Wheels. Chef Yoon taught ABC7 new’s TV anchor Leigh Glaser (and the entire San Francisco Bay Area) how to make Korean-style Chicken Tacos for Cinco de Mayo slathered in gochujang and sour cream. The recipe and Seoul on Wheels scheduled stops are posted on ABC7’s page.
There are a lot of hotteok recipes online. Based on my blog stats, there are even more people looking for hotteok recipes. It surprised me that a street food, a simple fried pancake stuffed with brown sugar and nuts, is so sought after. And then I remembered what it tastes like.
My friend Diane and I agreed when we started working on our cookbook that we would focus on home cooking. There were people who really wanted us to do a cookbook of Korean royal palace-style food, but we wanted to focus on the kind of food we like best: hearty, simple, and homey.
So where does something like hotteok (pronounced “hoe dduk”) fit in? It’s not something Koreans generally make at home, though premade mixes are popular. For all the food trends that come and go in Korea, hotteok has staying power. The dough might change—one year, corn is in, another green tea—and the cooking contraptions change sometimes, too. I’ve had hotteok that are practically deep-fried and hotteok that are airy, light shells around a thin film of sugar. (They don’t taste as good as the greasy ones.) But you can find it wherever young people are hanging out on the streets, even in the dead of winter, at rest stops all over the country, and even in chi-chi department store basement food courts.
I think this is why people outside of Korea are searching for the recipe online. It might not be something you eat at home, but it’s still intensely familiar. When it’s gone, there is a big hole in your life. Like peanut butter for American expats in Europe, or Vegemite for Australians.
Having tried a couple of different recipes online, though, I have to say most of them are not quite right. The biggest challenge is getting the perfect chewiness right. It may be hard for you to find glutinous rice flour (also called sweet rice flour), but if the recipe you’re looking at only uses regular all-purpose wheat flour, you are going to wonder how these hockey pucks are supposed to resemble hotteok. Gluten develops through kneading, and that can make an all-flour dough chewy to a certain extent, the way certain pizza doughs are chewy. But hotteok aren’t tough-chewy, they’re tender-chewy, like Japanese mochi, Korean tteok, and other foods made with, you guessed it, glutinous rice flour.
The problem, though, is a recipe with a lot of glutinous rice flour is going to be ridiculously sticky. I found one recipe that made a really wet, spongy dough, very similar to the dough from the mixes, and this one certainly resulted in a chewier pancake, but the dough was so sticky, my hands looked like those of a monster from the deep. I had to practically sling the dough, misshapen as it was, into the pan, since it wasn’t going to separate from me otherwise.
So the following recipe is my two cents in the discussion of how to make good hotteok at home. The ratio of glutinous rice flour to wheat flour is almost 1:1, but I keep the liquids low enough that the dough is still manipulable. As lazy as I am, I’ve found it’s worth it to finely chop the nuts in the filling. Otherwise, they take up too much space and not enough brown sugar ends up in the pancake. It’s not as super-crispy as the almost deep-fried hotteok I saw last winter in Seoul. Instead, it’s chewy with a crust that’s still a bit like bread, and the look is more traditional, a golden-brown center ringed with a paler crust. Knowing me, I’ll probably tinker with it some more before it gets published in the cookbook, but if you get a chance to try it, I’d love to hear what you think.
호떡
Sticky rice pancakes filled with brown sugar and nuts
Hotteok
Makes 8 small pancakes.
¼ cup lukewarm water
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon active-dry yeast
1 cup flour
¾ cup glutinous rice flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup milk
3 tablespoons canola or vegetable oil
filling:
¼ cup brown sugar
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons finely chopped walnuts or peanuts
Stir together the lukewarm water, one tablespoon of sugar, and active-dry yeast in a small bowl until the sugar and yeast dissolve. Let it sit for 10 minutes, during which time it will start to bubble and foam.
Combine the flour, glutinous rice flour, salt and remaining tablespoon of sugar in a large bowl. Add the yeast-sugar mixture and the milk.
Using your hands, bring the dough together into a sticky ball. Knead it a couple of times, for about two or three minutes. The dough will be sticky, but it should still come off your hands and stay together. Cover with plastic and place in a warm spot for 3 hours. (I put mine on top of my heater.)
After 3 hours, the dough will have doubled in size. It will look pretty puffy. When you knead the dough, the dough will almost puncture and let out some air, but remain relatively airy and spongy. Knead the dough a couple times until it becomes more elastic, but keep in mind that it will never become a smooth, elastic ball of dough.
Combine the sugar, cinnamon, and walnuts in a small bowl.
Heat the oil in a large pan on medium-high heat. Make sure your pan is hot before you start — your pancake should sizzle when it hits the pan or it won’t form a good crisp crust. Oil your hands and pinch off a piece of dough, about 2-3 tablespoons. Knead it into a smooth ball and then stretch it out into a loose circle, creating a depression in the middle. Fill the depression with the sugar mixture, about a tablespoon worth. (Ignore how large the walnut pieces are in this photo — this was an earlier draft experiment.) Stretch and seal the dough around the sugar mixture and flatten it between the palms of your hands.
Drop the flattened ball of dough into the pan. The oil should be hot enough to sizzle. Smooth some oil on your spatula and press down on the ball of dough, flattening it further. Continue making balls of dough until the pan has 3 or 4 pancakes in it. Be careful not to crowd the pan.
Fry the pancakes until golden-brown, about 3 minutes on each side. Remove from the pan and let them drain on a paper towels or a wire rack. Serve warm.
