Are Korean side dishes really free?

Yes. At most Korean restaurants the small side dishes, called banchan, come free with your meal, and the basic ones like kimchi and bean sprouts are usually refillable at no charge. You did not order them and you will not be billed for them.

How many banchan is normal?

A simple home meal usually has three to five side dishes. A restaurant or barbecue spread can run anywhere from three to a dozen or more. Historically the Joseon-era cheop system set the number by rank, and the royal table had twelve.

How do you ask for more banchan in Korea?

Catch a server's eye and say 'jogeum deo juseyo' (조금 더 주세요), meaning 'a little more, please,' while pointing at the dish. Refills of the basics are free, though in practice people rarely ask more than two or three times.

Is it rude to leave banchan?

No. Leaving a little is completely normal and nobody expects you to finish every dish. The unwritten rule is the other way around: do not over-order refills of something you are not actually going to eat, since the refills are meant for sharing, not stockpiling.

What are the most common Korean side dishes?

Kimchi is the constant. Beyond that you'll often see seasoned bean sprouts (kongnamul), spinach, braised anchovies, seasoned zucchini or eggplant, and pickled radish. The exact line-up changes with the restaurant, the season, and what's in the kitchen that day.

Category: Food Guides

The Traditional Korean Diet That Kept a King Alive to 83 — Long Before It Was a Wellness Trend
The traditional Korean diet in one photo: a little rice, a lot of vegetables, and something fermented. Photo: Republic of Korea, CC BY-SA 2.0

Every few months the internet rediscovers the Korean diet. K-pop idols make being slim look effortless, wellness accounts swear by kimchi and fermented soybean paste, and everyone wants to know how Koreans eat so much and stay so lean. The honest answer is boring and beautiful: the traditional Korean diet is mostly a bit of rice, a lot of vegetables, something fermented, and not much red meat. It’s one of the healthiest ways of eating in the world — and researchers often point to it as one reason Koreans live so long.

But here’s the part the wellness feeds skip. The most famous person ever to eat this way wasn’t an influencer. He was a king — the longest-living king in five centuries of Korean royalty — and he did it surrounded by the most lavish feast in the country, by choosing, meal after meal, to push it away. First, let’s answer what everyone actually searches for: what is this diet, and what do Koreans really eat?

“He had the richest table in Korea. He ate like a monk on purpose.”

What is the traditional Korean diet?

Banchan — the many small side dishes that turn every Korean meal into a spread of vegetables. Photo: Matt @ PEK, CC BY-SA 2.0

A typical Korean meal follows a simple structure Koreans call bansang — rice at the center, a soup or stew, and a spread of small side dishes called banchan (반찬). Those side dishes are the whole trick. Instead of one big plate, you get a bowl of rice, a light broth, and anywhere from three to a dozen little dishes of vegetables, greens, and fermented foods to share.

So what do Koreans eat every day? Roughly this: whole or mixed grains instead of just white rice; a soup like doenjang jjigae; kimchi at nearly every meal; several vegetable side dishes (namul); and fish or legumes more often than red meat. It’s naturally high in fiber and vegetables and low in heavy, processed food — which is exactly why “healthy Korean food” and “Korean diet for weight loss” have become such popular searches. And crucially, unlike many modern diets, the traditional Korean diet isn’t built around restriction. There’s no rule banning carbs or fat. The balance just happens: rice, soup, ferments, and a table full of vegetables add up to a meal that’s filling without being heavy.

Why the whole world suddenly wants healthy Korean food

Fermented foods — kimchi, doenjang, gochujang — are the diet’s not-so-secret weapon. Photo: Nagyman, CC BY-SA

This isn’t just a trend hunch. A large 2017 study in The Lancet projected South Korea to reach one of the highest life expectancies in the world by 2030, and the country already sits near the top for healthy years lived. Longevity has many causes — healthcare, income, and lifestyle all matter — but researchers keep pointing at the same suspects on the Korean table: vegetables, and fermentation.

The star is namul (나물) — vegetables and wild greens quickly parboiled, then seasoned with sesame oil, garlic, and soy. Blanching them, it turns out, can strip away harsh or harmful compounds while keeping the good stuff, which is one reason Koreans eat an enormous variety of greens without it ever feeling like “eating your vegetables.” Then there’s the fermented backbone: kimchi, doenjang (fermented soybean paste), and gochujang, all rich in gut-friendly bacteria, some even generating vitamins as they age. Add moderate fish and legumes, keep red meat occasional, and you’ve basically described the traditional Korean plate. Today, nutrition experts would recognize many of these habits — but they’re actually centuries old.

The king who out-lived everyone by eating less

King Yeongjo waving away the lavish trays — small table, long life (playful illustration).

King Yeongjo — the longest-reigning, longest-living Joseon king, and an accidental diet icon. Photo: Chae Yong-sin / Jo Seokjin (public domain)

Meet King Yeongjo, who ruled Joseon Korea for 52 years and lived to 83. That number needs context: in an era when reaching old age was rare, living to 83 was almost science fiction — the rough equivalent of passing 100 today. And he did it from the one seat in Korea with unlimited access to rich food.

You already know Korean kings ate like kings — five elaborate meals a day, meat at the center. Here’s what nobody mentions: Yeongjo refused almost all of it. Where other kings took five meals, he took three. His portions were so small that the royal cooks reportedly worried he wasn’t eating enough. He leaned toward seasonal vegetables and namul, plain broths, and restraint — he even preferred humble millet and barley to the polished white rice reserved for royalty. A frail young prince turned himself into the longest-living king in the dynasty, on purpose, one modest meal at a time. It’s a strange kind of willpower to picture: the one man in the country who could have anything, choosing barley over rice at every single meal for decades.

What was actually on the longevity king’s table

Barley and mixed grains over polished white rice — Yeongjo’s quiet preference. Photo: Dalgial, CC BY-SA 3.0

Strip Yeongjo’s habits down and they look strikingly like the advice a modern longevity doctor would give you: eat mostly plants, keep portions small, favor whole grains over refined ones, and don’t stuff yourself. He wasn’t counting macros — he was practicing restraint as a discipline. In old age he also leaned on ginseng as a restorative tonic, reportedly working through a remarkable amount of it in his later years, in a very Korean marriage of food and medicine.

The lesson isn’t that vegetables are magic. It’s that the healthy Korean diet everyone’s chasing today isn’t a hack invented for Instagram. It’s a way of eating that a weak prince used to outlast every strong king around him — a table built on greens, grains, and knowing when to stop.

What actually makes the Korean diet healthy

Doenjang, fermented soybean paste, turns humble vegetables into deeply savory, gut-friendly meals. Photo: Suohros (public domain)

If you want to actually eat this way, here’s what the traditional Korean plate is built on:
- Namul (나물) — parboiled, seasoned vegetables and wild greens, eaten in huge variety. The real engine of the diet.
- Fermented foods — kimchi, doenjang, gochujang. Gut-friendly bacteria, big flavor, near-zero effort once made.
- Whole grains — barley and millet mixed into rice, more fiber and slower energy than polished white rice alone.
- Fish and legumes over red meat — protein without the heavy saturated fat, most days of the week.
- Small rice, many sides (the bansang layout) — the shape of the meal itself nudges you toward vegetables and away from overeating.
3 easy ways to bring the Korean table home

Namul — quickly blanched, lightly seasoned greens and sprouts. The easiest Korean habit to steal. Photo: Laurel Fan, CC BY-SA 2.0

You don’t need a Korean grandmother or a pantry of special ingredients to eat a little more like this. Three simple habits get you most of the way:
- Make an instant namul. Take spinach, kale, or bean sprouts, blanch them for a minute, drain, and toss with a splash of sesame oil, a little minced garlic, and soy sauce. That’s a real vegetable side dish in five minutes.
- Keep a ferment in the fridge. A jar of good kimchi or a tub of doenjang adds instant gut-friendly bacteria and deep, savory umami to almost anything. When buying kimchi, check the label for a short, natural ingredient list (cabbage, chili, garlic, fish sauce) and few additives.
- Flip the plate ratio. Let vegetables and a light soup be the main event, with rice playing the supporting role instead of the star. That single switch is the quiet logic behind the whole Korean table.
Questions people ask about the Korean diet

What is the Korean diet? It’s a traditional way of eating built on rice, soup, kimchi and other fermented foods, and lots of vegetable side dishes (banchan), with fish and legumes more often than red meat. It’s naturally high in fiber and vegetables and low in heavy, processed food.

What do Koreans eat every day? A typical Korean meal is rice, a soup or stew (like doenjang jjigae), kimchi, and a few small vegetable side dishes — the bansang structure. Whole grains often replace plain white rice.

Is the Korean diet good for weight loss? The traditional version tends to be, because its structure does the work: a little rice, a bowl of soup, and a spread of low-calorie, high-fiber vegetables means you eat until satisfied without overloading. (Modern fried and processed Korean foods are a different story.)

What are banchan? Banchan (반찬) are the small shared side dishes served with almost every Korean meal — seasoned vegetables (namul), kimchi, pickles, and more. They’re what makes a Korean table mostly vegetables by volume.

Is Korean food healthy? Traditional Korean food — vegetables, fermented foods, fish, legumes, and modest red meat — lines up closely with what research links to long, healthy lives, and Korea is projected to reach one of the world’s highest life expectancies. As always, deep-fried and heavily processed dishes are the exception.

Did a Korean king really live to 83 on a simple diet? King Yeongjo did live to 83 and is remembered for eating modestly — three small meals, plenty of vegetables, and whole grains — despite having access to the richest food in the kingdom. Historians credit his careful health management, diet included.

Where to start eating the Korean way

The next time a wellness account sells you the “Korean diet” as a new discovery, remember the frail prince who quietly out-lived every king around him by pushing the feast away. The whole system is right there on any ordinary Korean table — you just have to load up on the little green plates.

Want to taste the vegetable side of it? Start with a mountain-herb rice bowl in our gondeure namul bap guide, see how a rainbow of vegetables becomes one perfect bowl in Jeonju’s bibimbap, or wander the endless side-dish stalls of Gwangjang Market.

Longevity projections from a 2017 study in The Lancet; the roles of namul and fermented foods drawn from published nutrition research and Korean culinary scholarship. Life expectancy has many contributing factors beyond diet. King Yeongjo’s reign length, lifespan, and modest eating habits are recorded in Korean historical sources; some details of his portions and ginseng use survive as court accounts and are noted as such.
2026-07-26
BLACKPINK’s Lisa Just Got a Documentary — Here’s What’s Coming Next, and the Korean Stew She Fell For

A film festival red carpet, a year before a film festival premiere of her own. Photo: Outhere505, CC BY-SA 4.0

On Monday, Sony Music Vision announced that BLACKPINK’s Lisa is getting a feature documentary. It’s called Always Lalisa, it premieres in the gala programme at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, and it follows the year she stepped away from BLACKPINK for the first time since she was a teenager.

Two months after that, she opens a Las Vegas residency. First K-pop artist ever to do it. Tickets went in ten minutes.

So here’s the short version: the next four months are the biggest stretch of BLACKPINK Lisa’s career so far, and both halves of it — Toronto in September, Vegas in November — were built during a year she spent, by her own management’s description, away from the group that made her famous. What’s strange is what that year was actually for. And that away from all of it, BLACKPINK Lisa keeps going back to one Korean dish that nobody would guess. We’ll get to that.

“Four members. One of them spent this year proving she didn’t need the other three.”

‘Always Lalisa’: The Lisa Documentary Premiering at TIFF 2026

The wall of lenses that follows her everywhere. Photo: Outhere505, CC BY-SA 4.0

The BLACKPINK Lisa documentary announcement landed on 20 July. Always Lalisa, directed by Sue Kim, will have its world premiere at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival, running 10–20 September. It goes into the gala programme, which is the slot festivals reserve for films they expect people to line up for.

The framing in the announcement is the part worth reading twice. The film follows Lisa through a year when, for the first time since childhood, she steps away from BLACKPINK for a stretch of independence. Not a hiatus. Not a break. A deliberate year of finding out what she is on her own.

That’s an unusual thing for a K-pop documentary to admit out loud. The genre normally sells the opposite: the group as family, the members as one organism. This one is built around a member walking out of the frame to see what’s left.

Viva La Lisa: Inside Her Historic Las Vegas Residency at Caesars Palace

Caesars Palace. In November, the marquee reads VIVA LA LISA. Photo: Christian David, CC BY-SA 4.0

In March, Caesars Entertainment announced VIVA LA LISA at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace — four shows across two November weekends, on the 13th, 14th, 27th and 28th. It makes her the first K-pop artist to hold a Las Vegas residency.

If you don’t follow Vegas, that word “residency” does a lot of work. The Colosseum is the room built for Celine Dion. Elton John played it. Adele. Rod Stewart. It is not a tour stop. It’s a stage a city hands to performers it considers permanent. Handing it to a performer from Buriram province in northeastern Thailand is not a normal booking.

Tickets went on general sale on 23 April. They were gone in ten minutes.

A street that has never had a K-pop name on a residency marquee before. Photo: Dietmar Rabich, CC BY-SA 4.0

What BLACKPINK did in 2026 — and then didn’t

The four of them, back when the calendar belonged to the group. Photo: @aanglerrr (aang), CC BY

To understand why the documentary exists, you have to look at what the group’s year looked like, because it stopped early.

BLACKPINK’s Deadline World Tour was their first all-stadium run: 33 shows across Asia, Europe and North America, opening at Goyang Stadium outside Seoul and closing on 26 January at Kai Tak Stadium in Hong Kong. In February they released the EP DEADLINE. All four turned up at this year’s Met Gala together, which for a group that spends most of its time in four different countries counts as a reunion.

And then the group calendar went quiet. No announced dates. Four solo careers running in four directions.

Jisoo, Jennie, Lisa, Rosé — four members, now four separate schedules. Photo: Newsenstar1, CC BY

The year Lisa spent on her own

Here’s what she did with the quiet.

BLACKPINK Lisa performed at the opening ceremony of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. She landed the cover of Vanity Fair‘s summer issue. She sat on the Met Gala host committee, the first K-pop artist ever invited onto it, which is a different thing from being invited to the party. And she has been working on the follow-up to Alter Ego, her debut solo album.

Read that list again and notice what isn’t on it. Not one of those things is a K-pop event. None of them needed BLACKPINK at all.

The year she stopped being introduced as a member of something. Photo: Outhere505, CC BY-SA 4.0

Which is what makes a September film festival and a November residency land the way they do. Neither is a K-pop milestone. They’re the milestones of a solo performer, and they arrive within eight weeks of each other, at the end of the exact year the documentary was filming.

LISA — ‘MONEY’ performance video. Official clip via BLACKPINK’s YouTube channel.

Where the group still shows up

Four solo careers, one shared history. Photo: RAS 99, CC BY

None of this reads as a breakup, and nobody involved has framed it as one. Jennie is headlining festivals across America and Europe this summer. Jisoo is leading a Netflix drama and has told fans a solo album is coming. Rosé is at Saint Laurent’s table at the Met. They’re not drifting apart so much as running four separate races and meeting at the finish line for photos.

But Lisa’s year is the one somebody pointed a camera at. And when a documentary crew follows a person for twelve months, it doesn’t only get the stadiums. It gets hotel rooms, airports, and what she eats at one in the morning when the day is finally over.

BLACKPINK — ‘Pink Venom’. Official M/V via BLACKPINK’s YouTube channel.

What Is Gamjatang? The Korean Pork Bone Soup Lisa Loves

Gamjatang (감자탕) — pork spine simmered for hours, eaten with rice and a pile of side dishes. Photo: SteFou!, CC BY 2.0

You’ve just read the version of Lisa that everyone knows: the Colosseum, the Toronto gala, the World Cup stage. Here’s the part that doesn’t fit any of it.

Lisa moved to Seoul from Buriram, Thailand, as a teenager to train. Ask her what she eats and the answer isn’t Thai, and it isn’t the tour-bus salad you’d expect from someone whose job is a stage in Las Vegas.

It’s gamjatang (감자탕) — pork spine boiled for hours with potatoes, perilla leaves and enough chilli to fog your glasses. She’s said she’d never come across it in Thailand and tried it for the first time in Korea, and that it was completely her style from that first bowl.

Koreans hear that and smile a little, because gamjatang isn’t anybody’s elegant answer. It’s what you eat hunched over a metal pot at midnight, sleeves pushed up, picking meat off bone with your fingers because chopsticks are useless for the job. It’s a construction-site lunch and a 2 a.m. hangover cure, the same late-night register as jokbal, the braised pig trotters Koreans eat with their hands. Nobody puts either on a list of dishes to impress a visitor with. In November she walks onto a stage built for Celine Dion. Her comfort food is the one you eat off a bone, with your fingers, at midnight.

When the meat’s gone, ramyeon goes in the broth. That’s the part regulars come for. Photo: bryan…, CC BY-SA 2.0

Which is exactly why the answer says something. A teenager arrives from another country, doesn’t speak the language yet, and the dish she attaches herself to isn’t the polished one. It’s the one Koreans eat with their hands when they’re tired. You don’t pick that from a menu photo. Somebody has to take you.

And there’s a limit, which is the part that surprises people most. Asked on a variety show what she won’t eat, she said eel. So the woman who went on Hot Ones and climbed the scoville ladder for Thai national pride draws her line at a slippery fish, while happily wrecking a pot of bones that most first-time visitors won’t go near. Everyone remembers the one who conquered the hot sauce. Nobody mentions the eel.

Questions people keep asking about BLACKPINK Lisa

Since the announcement, the same handful of questions keeps coming up about BLACKPINK Lisa in 2026. Here they are, short and straight.

When does the BLACKPINK Lisa documentary come out?
Always Lalisa, directed by Sue Kim, holds its world premiere in the gala programme at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), running 10–20 September 2026. A wider release hasn’t been announced yet.

When is Lisa’s Las Vegas residency?
VIVA LA LISA runs at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace on 13, 14, 27 and 28 November 2026: four shows over two weekends. It’s the first Las Vegas residency by a K-pop artist.

Has BLACKPINK broken up?
No. The group renewed with YG for group activities, released DEADLINE in February and finished a 33-show stadium tour in January. There are simply no announced group dates right now while all four run solo schedules.

What is BLACKPINK Lisa’s favourite Korean food?
Lisa’s favourite Korean food is gamjatang (감자탕), a pork bone stew simmered for hours with potatoes, perilla leaves and chilli. She has said she never came across it in Thailand and took to it immediately after moving to Korea. She’s also said she doesn’t eat eel.

Is BLACKPINK Lisa Korean?
No. She’s Thai, born in Buriram province, and moved to Seoul as a teenager to train. She’s the only non-Korean member of BLACKPINK.

If you’re going to eat like her

There’s a pattern here worth noticing. Ask almost any Korean star what they actually eat and you get the same kind of answer Lisa gives: not the diet-plan version, but the pot-on-the-table version. We went through it member by member with what BTS actually eats when the cameras stop, and the list reads like a normal Korean week.

If your entry point to Korea was a screen rather than a menu, the other direction works too. Try the dalgona candy from Squid Game has a backstory the show never bothered to explain. And when you want the whole map rather than one dish, start with our guide to what to eat in Korea.

September in Toronto, November in Las Vegas. Somewhere between the two there’ll be a night that ends late, and if the documentary crew is still rolling, there’s a decent chance it ends over a pot of bones.

And if a hot Korean stew in the summer heat sounds like her kind of thing, wait until you meet samgyetang — the boiling ginseng chicken soup Koreans line up for on the hottest days of the year, on purpose.

2026-07-23
BTS Favorite Food: What BTS Actually Eats in Real Life
Seven members, seven very specific food orders. Photo: Dispatch, CC BY 3.0

The internet has convinced millions of people that K-pop idols survive on chicken breast, sweet potato, and pure determination. Then Jungkook orders grilled pork belly. Jin starts daydreaming about cold noodles. V puts on an apron and cooks glass noodles on live TV. The fantasy falls apart fast — because the people famous for impossible diets keep craving exactly what everyone else in Korea eats.

So here’s the honest answer to the BTS favorite food question: it’s not a diet plan. It’s Korean comfort food, the everyday kind — grilled meat, bubbling stews, cold noodles in summer, fried chicken at 2 a.m. There is no lettuce sadness here. Anyone hoping for a strict diet plan is going to be disappointed, and in the best way. Below, all seven members, and what they actually reach for.

“Foreign fans see a feast. Koreans just see dinner.”

BTS members and their favorite foods

On stage, the tightest act in pop. Off it, they argue about pork belly like everyone else. Photo: Korea.net, CC BY-SA 2.0

Here’s the quick BTS favorite food cheat sheet — the dishes each member has talked about over the years:
- Jungkook — samgyeopsal (삼겹살, grilled pork belly) and kimchi jjigae (김치찌개, kimchi stew)
- Jin — naengmyeon (냉면, cold noodles), especially in summer
- V (Taehyung) — japchae (잡채, glass noodles) — he’s even cooked it on TV
- J-Hope — kimchi fried rice (김치볶음밥), and kimchi (김치) in general
- Jimin — kimchi jjigae (김치찌개)
- RM — famously easy to please; happy with almost anything good
- Suga — has never hidden his love of meat (고기)
Don’t just take our word for it. Here are the members in full mukbang mode, on their own official channel:

Jungkook: the samgyeopsal ambassador

Samgyeopsal — Jungkook’s not-so-secret weakness. Grilled golden, crisp at the edges. Photo: jinsoo jang (CC0)

Jungkook has probably done more to promote samgyeopsal than the Korean tourism board. Fans have watched him happily demolish plate after plate of grilled pork belly, talk about it on livestreams, and rank it at the top more times than anyone can count. If you had to bet on one member’s comfort food, this is the safe money. He’s also named kimchi jjigae — a hearty stew of aged kimchi, pork, and tofu — as a go-to. Between the two, you’ve got his perfect night in: something sizzling, something spicy.

Jin, and BTS when the cameras stop

Off duty, they’re seven guys who get hungry like anyone else. Photo: The White House (public domain)

Jin’s answer changes with the weather. When Seoul’s humidity turns cruel, he reaches for naengmyeon — chewy buckwheat noodles in a chilled, tangy broth, the dish Koreans live on all summer. It’s the exact opposite of “idol salad.” He’s also an open, unapologetic kimchi lover. And that’s the thing about all of them: strip away the stage, and BTS eat like any other Korean twenty- and thirty-somethings — big shared meals, late-night cravings, comfort food from home.

V: the member who actually cooks

Japchae: sweet-savoryglass noodles — V plated these for real customers on TV. Photo: Korea.net, CC BY-SA 2.0

Most idols talk about food. V (Taehyung) got handed an apron. On the tvN variety show Jinny’s Kitchen (2023) — set in a tiny Korean restaurant abroad, with Lee Seo-jin running the kitchen and Park Seo-joon and Choi Woo-shik on staff — V joined the crew as the youngest worker and spent whole episodes plating Korean dishes for real, paying customers. Japchae (잡채), the sweet-savory glass noodles tossed with sautéed vegetables, is exactly the kind of dish that show turned into an assembly line — and it has its own royal-court backstory, which we unpack in our full japchae guide (잡채). Watching a member of the world’s biggest boy band professionally toss noodles is its own small joy.

RM, Suga, Jimin & J-Hope: different plates, same table

The energy on stage; the appetite off it. Photo: Carolin von Petzholdt, CC BY 3.0

The other four round it out. J-Hope has talked about loving kimchi fried rice — the genius Korean move of turning leftover kimchi into a fast, satisfying plate. Jimin has mentioned kimchi jjigae more than once. RM is famously easy to feed; he’ll happily eat almost anything as long as it’s good. And Suga has never pretended to be anything other than a meat person. Different favorites, different moods — but the table underneath keeps looking the same.

The one table they all come home to

Kimchi jjigae — Jungkook’s and Jimin’s pick. Photo: miyagawa, CC BY-SA 2.0

Line up the favorites and the main dish keeps changing — pork belly, cold noodles, japchae, fried chicken — but the supporting cast never does. Every one of those meals arrives with the same quiet crowd of little dishes: kimchi, seasoned greens, a pickle or two. Those are banchan (반찬), Korea’s free side dishes, and they’re the base layer under everything Koreans eat, idols included. That’s the real BTS favorite food story: not a diet, a dinner table.

From their BBQ Chicken (비비큐) ad days to Jungkook’s viral 60 Chicken (60계치킨) live — chicken follows BTS everywhere. Photo: Francesc Fort, CC BY-SA 4.0

And the one order that unites all seven? Fried chicken (치킨) — and with BTS, that’s practically official. For over two years the group were the faces of BBQ Chicken (비비큐), one of Korea’s biggest chicken chains, filming commercials for it from 2016 to 2018. Chicken is basically on their résumé.

And it still follows them around. In early 2023, Jungkook casually ate fried chicken on a Weverse live — the “크크크 (LOL)” set from 60 Chicken (60계치킨), with cheese and corn-mayo dip and a side of pickled radish (치킨무). The clip went so viral that fans flew to Seoul just to order the exact same box. One idol, one late-night snack, and a chicken shop’s best-seller was reborn. Foreign fans see a feast. Koreans just see dinner — with extra sauce.

A few quick questions people always ask

What is BTS’s actual favorite food? There’s no single group answer — it splits by member. The most-cited BTS favorite food picks are Jungkook’s samgyeopsal and kimchi jjigae, Jin’s naengmyeon, V’s japchae, and J-Hope’s kimchi fried rice. Fried chicken is the group’s shared late-night weakness.

Do K-pop idols really diet that hard? They do watch what they eat around comebacks, but the “only chicken breast and lettuce” image is mostly internet myth. What they talk about loving is ordinary Korean comfort food — stews, grilled meat, noodles — served the normal way.

Did a BTS member really work in a restaurant? Yes. V appeared on Jinny’s Kitchen (tvN, 2023) as the youngest staff member, cooking and serving Korean food — including japchae — to actual customers alongside Lee Seo-jin, Park Seo-joon, and Choi Woo-shik.

Which chicken brand is connected to BTS? Two. BTS were official brand ambassadors for BBQ Chicken (비비큐) from 2016 to 2018. Separately, Jungkook made 60 Chicken (60계치킨) go viral in 2023 when he ate their “크크크 (LOL)” set on a live stream — fans then flooded the shop to copy his order.

Want to eat the way they actually do?

Strip away the fandom, and the whole BTS favorite food list points the same way: toward an ordinary Korean table. You don’t need a stylist or a schedule — just a table with a few small plates on it. Start with the free side dishes themselves — the rainbow of banchan at Gwangjang Market is the fastest crash course in what Koreans actually snack and share. Then see how a humble side dish becomes an entire beloved meal in Jeonju’s bean-sprout rice soup, or plan a whole trip around it with our what-to-eat-in-korea food guide.

Skip the chicken-breast fantasy. Grill some pork, ladle out a kimchi stew, and let the little plates pile up. That’s not a cheat meal. In Korea, that’s just Tuesday — and it’s exactly what the people you’re watching on stage are hurrying home to eat.

Member food preferences drawn from published interviews and variety appearances as compiled by Mashed, Koreaboo, and Sportskeeda; Jinny’s Kitchen (tvN, 2023) cast and V’s role are a matter of record. Video: BANGTANTV (BTS official), “[BANGTAN BOMB] BTS’ Mukbang!”

And since we’re talking BTS and food, here’s a seasonal one: on Korea’s hottest days, known as boknal, the country eats boiling samgyetang (ginseng chicken soup) to beat the heat — and yes, a certain member was once spotted at a samgyetang place on the hottest day of the year.
2026-07-22
“We Didn’t Order These” — The Truth About Korea’s Free Side Dishes (Banchan)

The little plates you see in every K-drama — this is banchan. Photo: Brian Johnson & Dane Kantner, CC BY-SA 2.0

You’ve seen the tables in a hundred K-dramas — so crowded with little plates there’s barely room for the rice. It looks like a feast laid on for guests. Then it happens to you, at a real Korean restaurant, and for a second you’re sure there’s been a mistake.

You order one thing. A single bowl of soup. The server disappears. Then the rice comes. Then the soup. Then five small dishes you never asked for. Then another. Then another. You check the menu again — you only ordered one thing. Nobody asks whether you wanted the rest. Nobody mentions a price. Because there isn’t one.

Those little plates are banchan (반찬), Korea’s side dishes, and yes — they’re free, and the basics are usually refillable. That’s the part that stops people. The part the dramas never explain is everything after: how many you’re “supposed” to get, how to ask for more without looking clueless, and the one habit that quietly annoys every Korean server.

First, That K-Drama Dinner Table

Think of almost any home-cooked meal scene — the family in Reply 1988, a late dinner in Something in the Rain, a hangover breakfast in half the rom-coms you’ve watched. The camera pans across the table and it’s a mosaic of small white dishes: something green, something red, something braised and glossy, kimchi in the corner. Foreign viewers see a feast. Koreans see Tuesday night.

What foreigners usually assume is that this is a special spread, put on for guests. It isn’t. That wall of little plates is just how a Korean meal is built — rice and soup in front of you, and a rotating cast of side dishes in the middle for everyone to pick at. Once you know that, you start seeing banchan in every drama you watch. You can’t unsee it.

Wait — Are Korean Side Dishes Really Free?

You didn’t order these. You won’t be billed for them either. Photo: egg (Hong, Yun Seon), CC BY 2.0

You already know the surprise from the moment you sat down: yes, they’re free. There’s no separate “sides” charge on the bill, and — while we’re at it — no tipping either. The little dishes are simply how a Korean meal is served, not a bonus you have to earn.

What actually trips people up is which ones get refilled. The free top-ups apply to the humble everyday stuff — kimchi, seasoned bean sprouts, pickled radish — not to premium items like a good marinated crab. When in doubt, the basics are the safe bet. To a foreigner it can look like reckless generosity. To a Korean, it’s just how dinner arrives.

How Many Small Dishes Is “Normal”?

More than you’d think, and it scales with the occasion. A quick weeknight dinner at home might have three to five banchan. A proper restaurant or a Korean barbecue place can push that to a dozen or more, especially the countryside spots that pride themselves on the sheer number of plates.

Here’s the fun part the dramas skip. The number wasn’t always random — it used to signal rank. In the Joseon dynasty, a table was described by its cheop (첩) count, meaning how many side dishes it carried beyond the staples: a 3-cheop table for commoners, 5, 7, or 9 for the better-off. The king’s table? Twelve. So the next time a period drama shows a royal feast groaning under tiny dishes, that’s not set decoration — it’s a status number you can literally count.

More plates than you’d expect — bean sprouts, kimchi, greens, all at once. Photo: ProjectManhattan, CC BY-SA 3.0

How to Ask for More Without Looking Clueless

The free refills are the everyday basics — kimchi, seasoned bean sprouts. Photo: Jerine Lay, CC BY 2.0

You finished the kimchi and want more. Easy. Catch a server’s eye, point at the empty dish, and say “jogeum deo juseyo” (조금 더 주세요) — “a little more, please.” That’s it. They’ll top it up and think nothing of it.

The unspoken limit is common sense. In practice people ask maybe two or three times, not ten. The refills exist so the table never runs dry, not so you can build a personal stockpile. Ask for what you’ll actually eat and you’ll be a model customer — which brings us to the one habit that does get side-eye.

Is It Rude to Leave Banchan?

Leaving a little is fine. Piling up refills you won’t finish is the real faux pas. Photo: ayustety, CC BY-SA 2.0

Good news: no. Leaving a bit of banchan behind is completely normal, and nobody expects you to clean every single plate. You’re sampling, not obligated.

The actual etiquette runs the other direction. Since the refills are shared and free, ordering a mountain of something and then leaving it untouched is the move that quietly bothers people — it’s waste, and it defeats the whole “help yourself, we’ll keep it coming” spirit of the thing. So the honest rule of thumb is simple: take what you’ll eat, ask again if you want more, and don’t treat the free refill like a challenge.

The Quick Version

Same idea, all vegetables — a temple-style spread. Photo: magicinprogress, CC BY 2.0

Banchan are Korea’s free side dishes — the little plates in every K-drama meal. Expect three to five at home, up to a dozen at a good restaurant, and free refills on the basics. Say “jogeum deo juseyo” for more, leave what you don’t finish, and don’t over-order refills you won’t eat. The number once signaled rank, all the way up to the king’s twelve-dish table.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are Korean side dishes really free?

Yes. Banchan comes free with your meal at most Korean restaurants, and the basics like kimchi and bean sprouts are usually refillable at no extra charge. There’s no separate sides charge and no tipping.

How many banchan is normal?

Three to five at a simple home meal, and anywhere from three to a dozen-plus at a restaurant. In the Joseon era the count signaled rank — the royal table had twelve.

How do I ask for more?

Say “jogeum deo juseyo” (조금 더 주세요) — “a little more, please” — and point at the dish. Refills of the basics are free, though most people only ask a couple of times.

Is it rude to leave banchan?

No — leaving a little is normal. The real faux pas is over-ordering refills you won’t finish, since the free refills are meant for sharing, not stockpiling.

So the next time you put on a Korean drama, watch the table instead of the actors. Those little dishes aren’t set decoration — they’re one of the oldest habits in Korean dining, a whole quiet language of rank and hospitality laid out in white bowls. Nobody in the show will ever explain them. They don’t have to. Every Korean at that table already understands exactly what those little bowls are saying.

Where to Try It Yourself

Want to experience it outside a drama? Skip the screen and head to a traditional market — the stalls at Gwangjang Market in Seoul lay out banchan like a painter’s palette. And if you’re curious how one humble side dish can headline a whole meal, the seasoned bean sprouts you meet as banchan grow up into kongnamul-gukbap, Jeonju’s bean-sprout rice soup. For the bigger map, our guide to what to eat in Korea shows where each dish fits.

Photos are Creative Commons (CC BY-SA), credited under each image — Wikimedia Commons and Openverse. Sources: everyday Korean dining custom on complimentary, refillable side dishes; the Joseon-era cheop (첩) table system, with the royal table at twelve dishes. Restaurant practices vary, so treat refill rules as the general norm rather than a guarantee.

2026-07-21

Korea’s Slow Aging Diet (저속노화): The Rice Bowl Koreans Are Switching To

The ‘slow aging’ bowl — lentils, oats and brown rice in place of plain white rice

If you eat at a Korean friend’s home this year, look at the rice. There is a decent chance it isn’t plain white rice anymore. It might be flecked with brown, studded with something orange, a little chewier than you expected. Ask about it and you’ll probably hear the same phrase: 저속노화, jeoksok-nohwa. It means “slow aging”, and the slow aging diet is what half the country seems to be cooking right now.

The slow aging diet is the Korean food story of the moment, and it’s a strange one. It isn’t a celebrity diet. It didn’t come from a beauty brand. It came from a doctor who spent his career with elderly patients, and it spread through home cooking — one rice cooker at a time.

The short version

The slow aging diet means swapping plain white rice for a mixed bowl built around lentils. The usual ratio is lentils 2 : brown rice 1 : oats 1 : white rice 1. The idea was popularised by Jung Hee-won, then a geriatrics doctor at Asan Medical Center in Seoul, who framed it as a Korean version of the MIND diet — a way of eating built around whole grains, beans and vegetables rather than refined grains and red meat. It is an everyday-cooking trend, not a weight-loss programme.

Where the Slow Aging Diet Came From

Korean health trends usually arrive through television or celebrities. This one arrived through a book. Jung Hee-won, at the time a geriatrics doctor at Asan Medical Center in Seoul, published a book on what he calls the slow-aging way of eating, and the core idea was simple enough to repeat at a dinner table: eat the way people ate when rice was expensive.

That framing landed. He described going back to what Koreans sometimes call the poor household’s table — barley and beans stretched the rice, vegetables filled the bowls, meat showed up rarely. For a generation that grew up being told white rice and grilled beef were the reward for working hard, hearing that the older, humbler table was the better one hit differently.

What he presented is a Korean adaptation of the MIND diet — short for Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay. It borrows from two established patterns: the Mediterranean diet and DASH, which was designed around blood pressure. The Korean version keeps the structure but puts it in a rice bowl instead of on a plate of bread and olive oil, which is why it travelled so easily here.

The Slow Aging Diet Grain Ratio Koreans Actually Cook

Lentils 2 : brown rice 1 : oats 1 : white rice 1 — the ratio Koreans actually cook

Here is where it gets practical. Korean recipe sites and home cooks converged on one ratio, and you’ll see it repeated almost word for word:

Grain	Share	Why it’s in there
Lentils (렌틸콩)	2	The largest share — plant protein and fibre
Brown rice (현미)	1	Whole grain in place of refined
Oats (귀리)	1	Texture and fibre
White rice (백미)	1	Kept in — this is still a Korean rice bowl

You’ll also see the same thing written as 4:2:2:2. Don’t let that confuse you — it’s the identical proportion, just not reduced. Lentils always carry the largest share.

The detail I find most telling is that white rice stays. Nobody is being asked to give up rice, which in Korea would be a hard sell no matter how good the argument. It just stops being the whole bowl. That single compromise is probably why the trend spread instead of fizzling out like most health fads here.

Cooking it is ordinary rice-cooker work. Lentils and oats soften faster than brown rice, so most people soak the brown rice ahead of time and add a bit more water than they would for white rice alone. Korean recipe communities are full of people trading notes on exactly this — how much water, how long to soak, whether the lentils turn to mush.

It Changes the Whole Table, Not Just the Rice

The rest of the table shifts too — more beans, tofu and greens, less red meat

The rice gets the attention, but the rest of the meal moves with it. The pattern leans on beans, tofu and vegetables for protein and calories, and pulls back on red meat, processed food and sugar. If you’ve eaten a traditional Korean home meal, you’ll notice this isn’t a foreign structure at all — it’s close to how the table already worked before grilled meat became an everyday thing.

That’s the quiet joke in all of this. In my experience most of what the slow aging diet recommends is just old Korean home cooking with a new name. Gondeure namul bap — rice steamed with mountain herbs — has been eaten for generations and fits the pattern almost perfectly. So does a bowl of kongnamul gukbap, and so does a properly loaded bibimbap, where the vegetables outnumber everything else.

Food companies noticed too. Walk through a Korean supermarket now and you’ll find zero-sugar gochujang and lower-sodium kimchi sitting next to the standard versions. Whether those taste as good is its own argument — Koreans have strong opinions — but the shelf space tells you where demand went.

Trying the Slow Aging Diet Outside Korea

The good news is that the slow aging diet needs no Korean ingredients for the rice itself. Lentils, oats, brown rice and white rice are in any supermarket, and the ratio travels. Start with a smaller share of lentils if the texture is new to you — plenty of Koreans did the same and worked up.

Where it becomes genuinely Korean is everything around the bowl. Seasoned vegetable side dishes, tofu, a soup that isn’t heavy on meat. If you’re already cooking Korean food at home, you’re most of the way there, and you probably didn’t think of it as a health project.

One honest note to close on. The slow aging diet is a food trend, and I’ve described it as one — what Koreans are cooking, where it came from, and the ratio they use. It isn’t medical advice, and nothing here should replace a conversation with your own doctor, especially if you have a condition that affects what you eat.

FAQ

What is Korea’s slow aging diet?

Jeoksok-nohwa (저속노화) literally means “slow aging”. In practice it describes eating built around whole grains, beans and vegetables instead of refined grains and red meat. The version Koreans talk about was popularised by Jung Hee-won, then a geriatrics doctor at Asan Medical Center in Seoul, who presented it as a Korean take on the MIND diet.

What is the slow aging diet grain ratio?

Lentils 2 : brown rice 1 : oats 1 : white rice 1. You’ll also see it written as 4:2:2:2 — same proportion, just not reduced. Lentils take the largest share, and white rice stays in the bowl rather than disappearing.

Is this the same as a K-pop idol diet?

No. Idol diets are usually about dropping weight fast before a comeback. This is close to the opposite in spirit — it’s about what ordinary households put in the rice bowl every day, and it came out of a hospital rather than an entertainment agency.

Can I cook it in a normal rice cooker?

Yes — that’s how most Korean households do it. Lentils and oats cook faster than brown rice, so many people soak the brown rice first and add a little more water than they would for plain white rice. Korean recipe sites are full of people comparing notes on exactly this.