Korean Customs, Seoul

We lived near Namsangol Hanok village which was full of restaurants and cafes around. As it was my 21 Birthday, we decided to go the Korean BBQ restaurant. This type of restaurants is more expensive than usual Korean restaurant, but we loved this place!

Korean BBQ restaurant means that you will cook meat by yourself ( System: customers decide, how meat will be prepared, half-ready or ...)On every table you can find heat source with a ventilation pipe directly above the table.

We ordered :
1.Rice with fish eggs served in earthenware bowl. Cost - 5,000 Won.
2. Pork , 4 pieces. Cost - 16,000 Won.
3. A bottle of soju ;-) Cost - 3,000 Won.

They took a lot of side dishes and meat, so we started to cook it...
But of course we don't look like a local so weitress helped us .
It was a great experience as it was our first time in this type of restaurants.

I payed around 26 dollars for our dinner.

Overall experience - 5+

You have to try Korean BBQ while you are in Seoul. There are so many restaurants for all budgets in the city. Most of them have Korean names that I can't pu in as tips so I made a general tip without a specific address. Some of these restaurants have seating on the floor and some have tables with the grill in the middle. You can prepare your barbeque on your own or you can ask some help from the waiters. After choosing your meat which can be beef or pork, the plate comes with appetizers and kimchi and the feast starts. You can also get grilled fish in some of these restaurants. I put three pictures from different restaurants to give you some ideas.

Favorite Dish: Beef and kimchi

Attached are photos of the local Korean food which I tried while in Seoul in Oct 2007. Essentially, Korean food consists of a lot of hot pot dishes (e.g. fish, meat, vegetables), soup based (e.g. ginseng chicken soup), vegetables and grilled seafood (especially squid). There are also many small side dishes that come with every meal (e.g. Kimchi, vegetables, beancurd etc).

The dishes can be quite big and filling, so do not order too much or else you cannot finish them :-)

Korean use a spoon to eat rice, soup and stews and chopsticks for rather dry side dishes, but the spoon and chopsticks are not used simultaneously. Korean also do not hold their bowls and plates while eating. When the meal is over, the spoon and chopsticks are places on the table. Korean generally believed that sharing food from one bowl makes a relationship closer.

Favorite Dish: gimbab: rice with vegetables wrapped in dried seeweed

bibimbab: rice mixed with vegetables

djeon: fried pancakes

mandu: dumpling

tteokbbokki: spicy rice cakes

Korean cuisine has unique tastes and aromas. Korean food is low in calories but high in nutrition. Sometimes it is simple,at other times almost too decorative to eat. From luxurious palace food to humble temple food, korean cuisine has a wide range of taste and styles. Foods like soybean- paste, red pepper paste and Kimchi contain traditions passed on for thousands of years, and their vibrant tastes are making Korean cuisine globally popular.

Favorite Dish: dolsotbibimbab: Steamed rice mixed vegetable and egg (sometimes beef) with chili paste in a hot stone pot

bulgogi: marinated barbecued beef (sometimes pork), served with boiled rice and various side vegetables

bimin-naengmyeon: buckwheat noodles mixed with hot pepper sause.

galbi: barbecued beef ribs

kimchi jjigae: kimchi stew

dakgalbi: stir-fried chicken and vegetables with spice (no 1 Chuncheon's dakgalbi)

While you're in Korea, you might as well go for the full throttle food experience. Try kimchi. You might like it. It's probably good for you and and it's real spicey so it'll raise your metabolic rate.

Kimchi is a spicey pickled vegetable dish that contributes to short (or long) term bad breadth.

After eating a bunch of this, your lips will be burning for a while. I found that cola was able to neutralise the effect of the spices.

Kimchi and other Korean spicy foods are somewhat popular in Japan and I've tried it. It's not so bad as eating goes but, when your loved one eats it you'll want to encourage them to brush well or give them an extra strength tick-tack.

Favorite Dish: I liked the buns the best.

You have to try the traditional Korean Barbecue, better know as Galbi. It is absolutely delicious. We wandered the streets of Seoul and visually inspected the endless Galbi restaurants. We were even surprized by a very friendly group of men enjoying their Galbi dinner when they insisted that we sample from the table. I was hooked. Basically we picked a spot that had lots of locals crowding the tables. No English was spoken but sign language did the trick. We had barbecued ribs and all the side dishes as well as a couple of baked potatoes that where tossed in with the coals. Including drinks we spent about 20 dollars US. We visited that restaurant several times.

Just look and smell for the right place. If it looks good, crowded, and smells good give it a try. What do you have to lose.

Favorite Dish: Try the ribs, they are the best. There are many other dishes but I kept going back to the ribs.

Here is the reason why I chose kimchi for the most recommended food. First, this is the Korean food.
Well, Fermentation processed foods include Kimchi, Ko Chu Gang, Dwen Gang, are higly associated with Korean history. As we all know in the past, during winter time, it is extremely hard to get fresh vegeteble. Acutally, it is impossible except King and few noble peoole. However, The other life must carry on. Therefore, Korean come up the solution which is Kimchi. Acutally, current form of Kimchi is not original style of Kimchi. What you might see at Korean restaurants will have lots of ingredients which are hot peper, fermentated crap or anchovi and couple of different veges.
Seond, it's unique. I don't know the better way to put my explanation. Try Kimchi in korean otherwise where are you gonna experience the kimchi in the world?

There are lots of Korean restaurants and eateries along the streets selling Korean dishes. Perhaps the biggest problem is to understand what the dishes mean as they are mostly in Korean. However, there are some who display photographs of the dishes.

Favorite Dish: Personally, I like the Korean hot and spicy beef soup with rice which is extremely good if the weather is cold outside. They are normally served with Kimchi as in other Korean dishes. Other popular dishes include the ginseng soup, hot plate meat with kimchi, seafood (especially squid which is a must try in Korea) etc

Now, what would any of these Korean meals be without the dozen of side dishes (Banchan in Korean)? These side dishes abound in a variety of forms, but the most famous is the traditional spicy fermented cabbage dish known as kimchi.

Thanks to hotsauce28 for mentioning the right name for the side-dishes, "banchan."

Seoul is teeming with good, small traditional Korean restaurants. You definitely should try one while you're in Seoul. Of course, you will have to take your shoes off and leave them at the door, so if you plan on doing this I wouldn't wear your most expensive shoes (they rarely get stolen, but it has happened to a friend of mine). You will also have to sit on the floor. Some resurants (like the one pictured) have gone soft and supply some pillows with back support, but many don't. Since I'm one of the softies that gets back pain if I sit too long on the floor, I will usually look to take a seat along the wall. This is okay if you're dining informally, but if you're going out with Koreans don't count on being able to do that. Koreans will usually insist on assigning you a seat -- there is no unassigned seating in Korea!

The menu will consist of the standard and delicious bulgogi, kalbi, pork and chicken, and your table will be covered with small bowlswhen you're finished. Enjoy!

Ginseng Chicken Soup or Samgye-tang is the famous Korean soup.

The body cavity of a small chicken is stuffed with glutinous rice, young ginseng shoots, and jujubes. The chicken is then boiled in a clear stock and served in an individual earthenware pot. It is highly recommended for those new to Korean food.

This dish is famous as summer dish. Koreans try to survive the summer heat with hot stamina food. This wonderful dish is gradually being recognized by the rest of the world.

Even if you are skeptical about the properties attributed to ginseng, you will enjoy this dish which is said to give stamina during the steamy Korean summers.

Kimchi represents Korea's best known food.

Koreans serve kimchi at almost every meal, and few Koreans can last more than a few days before cravings get the better of them.

During the 1988 Summer Olympic Games, thousands of foreigners were introduced to it for the first time.

Despite a reputation for being spicy, most people usually develop a taste for it, and many foreigners also find themselves missing it after returning to their home country.

When you take a picture in Korea, trying asking the people to say KIMCHI instead of CHEESE;p

Korean food is delicious. They're so flavoursome. Look at the colour that's in the Bibimbap - and this ony cost $10 000won. Cheaper than burger and fries.

You must try the Sondeubu - Chilli beef soup

One of my greatest passion is to collect recipes from all over the world. And when I replicate the dish back home in Singapore, the taste brings back vivid memories of the place I've visited. Here's a recipe that will bring back a little bit of Itaewon to where ever you are. Try it, it's ridiculously simple but delicious

Favorite Dish: Try buying the instant BBQ marinade from an Asian supermart or a Korean grocery store if you're from LA or Singapore. Any brand will do. Just look out for the words "Galbi sauce". Altenatively, make the sauce from scatch if you're a fussy purist.

Ingredients

4 lb. beef ribs
1 bottle of instant Galbi BBQ marinade or..

Ingredients for the sauce
1 tbsp. Sesame seeds
1 cup Soy sauce
3 Tablespoon Sugar
Roasted sesame oil
9 tbsp. minced green onion
2 tsp. minced ginger
5 cloves of garlic, minced
sesame salt
China pear juice
other vegetables (chopped onion, scallions)

->There's only one tricky part to this recipe and that is to debone the moo flesh. Lay the ribs flat down and insert your sharpest knife under bone. Slice, leaving the end uncut. Open out flat and make a slit along the center of each bone. This eases the membrane and helps the meat separate from the bone.

->After de-boning the meat, marinade the meat with the bottled sauce or mix all the ingredients with the beef overnight. To eat, grill under a hot fire...