Korea is a paradise for the adventurous eater, with an amazing variety of dishes you’re aware of, many you aren’t, and local takes on food from around the world. You can also enjoy everything from fine dining with set meals to amazing street food, all of it high quality (even though you may not know exactly/entirely what you’re getting due to the language barrier).
We made an effort to sample a wide variety of food during our time in Korea – so much was available that we couldn’t enjoy everything, but we did our best. I’ll break down the variety here as best I can.
Korean Fried Chicken
Famous, also ubiquitous, and also excellent. Simple menus – bone-in or boneless fried chicken, sauces, fries, and beer. We kept coming back to these places:
Kimbap
Saying this might be blasphemy, but Kimbap is basically korean sushi rolls. They can have fish, but are usually filled with meat or vegetables along with rice. Also, the seaweed is always on the outside. you can enjoy these at restaurants, from street food stalls, or even from the convenience store:
Bibimbap / Bulgogi
Another Korean favorite, one we knew of before coming to the country. Bibimbap is a dish of rice, meat, and vegetables topped with a fried egg – if Dolsot Bibimbap it will be served in a stone bowl. Bulgogi is a spiced and slow cooked ground beef dish, either served with rice or with lettuce for wrapping.
More Korean Restaurant Dishes
Like I said, the variety off foods you can find in Korea is staggering (we aren’t even to the international dishes yet). Some more dishes we tried in Korea included Dwaeji-Gukbab (Pork Soup local to Busan), Eomuk (Fish Cakes), spicy ramen, dumplings, and more. A few times we accidentally went to the wrong restaurant (via outdated Google Maps or translation error – sometimes there is no English) but just had what they were serving anyways!
This is not even to mention the unreal grilled shellfish feast we had by the seaside in Busan.
Street Food
Even beyond the wide variety of restaurants, the street food scene in Korea is out of control. You can find a huge variety of foods in most open air markets. Trust me, the below is just a fraction of what you can find throughout the country.
We even found some of the honeycomb candies from Squid Game – much less high stakes to break them out in this case:
International Foods
Finally, our list of Korean cuisine wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the international foods available. Korea is a metropolitan country and highly connected to the global market, so it makes sense you’re able to find cuisine from all different places. During our visit we sampled Indian food, Mexican food, some of the best Detroit pizza we’ve had outside of Detroit (plus some average normal pizza), and amazing fresh sandwiches.
You can truly find whatever you’re in the mood for in Korea!
