The History and Culture of Korean Food

Tag: what to eat in Korea

What to Eat in Korea: Daejeon’s Sungsimdang Bread (성심당) & Dubu-Duruchigi (두부두루치기)
Daejeon (대전) sits almost dead center on the Korean map, an hour south of Seoul by high-speed train, and for years Koreans half-jokingly voted it their most boring big city. Then a bakery changed the story. Today people ride the KTX down to Daejeon for two things that couldn’t be more different — a legendary 70-year-old bakery and a fiery bowl of tofu — and both hide in the same worn-in old downtown. If you only have half a day in central Korea, this is how to spend it.

Eunhaeng-dong, Daejeon’s old downtown in Jung-gu — home to the bakery that put the city on the food map.

⭐ Daejeon at a glance

🏛️ Sights & things to do ★★★☆☆

🍜 Food ★★★★★

🚆 Easy to reach ★★★★★

A personal take based on our own visits — how much there is to see, the food, and how easy the city is to get to. Daejeon is a transit hub more than a sightseeing headliner, so we rate it as a food stop first. Your mileage may differ.

The short version: Daejeon is a two-in-one food trip. First, Sungsimdang (성심당), a Catholic bakery founded in 1956 whose deep-fried streusel bun, tuigim-soboro (튀김소보로), pulls all-day queues — and which flatly refuses to open a single branch outside Daejeon. Second, dubu-duruchigi (두부두루치기), a Daejeon-born dish of tofu simmered in a bubbling gochujang broth, best finished by swirling kalguksu noodles into the leftover sauce. Both sit in the same old downtown. Here’s what to eat, where each came from, and how to get there.

What to eat in Daejeon

One dish is sweet, cheap and eaten standing up. The other is red, fiery and meant to be shared. Together they make the case for getting off the train in Daejeon.

Sungsimdang’s tuigim-soboro (튀김소보로) — the fried bun that built a city’s fame

Tuigim-soboro — a crumbly soboro bun packed with red-bean paste and then deep-fried, Sungsimdang’s signature.

Start with the bun everyone lines up for. A regular soboro bun is the Korean cousin of Mexican concha bread, topped with a sweet, crumbly streusel. Sungsimdang’s twist is to stuff it full of sweet red-bean paste and then deep-fry the whole thing, so the outside turns crisp and golden while the inside stays soft. That’s the tuigim-soboro, and it’s been the shop’s headline act since 1980.

It’s also almost comically cheap — a couple thousand won each — which is a big part of the charm. You’ll see people walk out with towers of pink boxes, and the smart move is to eat one warm on the spot before the crust loses its crackle. Beyond the soboro, keep an eye out for the fantalong buchu-ppang (판타롱 부추빵), a savory bun stuffed with garlic chives that locals are just as loyal to. In my experience the first bite of a warm tuigim-soboro explains the queue better than any review can.

Dubu-duruchigi (두부두루치기) — Daejeon’s fiery tofu, finished with noodles

Dubu-duruchigi — slabs of tofu simmered in a bubbling red gochujang broth, a Daejeon original.

Now for the opposite of a pastry. Dubu-duruchigi is thick slabs of tofu cooked down in a shallow pan of spicy, garlicky gochujang broth, often with a little squid, pork or greens thrown in. It arrives bubbling at the table and stays hot the whole meal. The tofu soaks up the sauce and turns silky, and the broth is deep and punchy rather than subtle. It’s a drinking-and-sharing dish more than a delicate one.

Here’s the part first-timers miss: you don’t stop at the tofu. In Daejeon, dubu-duruchigi is almost always ordered with kalguksu (칼국수), the thick knife-cut noodles. You eat the tofu first, then tip a portion of freshly boiled noodles into the leftover red sauce and toss it all together, so nothing goes to waste. Locals will tell you the noodle finish is the real point of the meal. A pot easily feeds two, so bring an appetite and a friend.

How Daejeon became Korea’s bread city

The Sungsimdang story starts with two sacks of flour and a steamed-bun cart at Daejeon Station.

From two sacks of flour to a bakery legend

Sungsimdang begins with a refugee. Im Gil-sun (임길순), born in 1912 in what is now North Korea, was a Catholic who fled south during the Heungnam evacuation of December 1950, one of the war’s great sea rescues. Years later, in 1956, the train he was riding broke down at Daejeon Station and he decided to stay. A priest at the nearby Daeheung-dong Cathedral, Father Oh Gi-seon, handed him two sacks of flour to get started — and with his wife, Han Sun-deok, Im began selling steamed buns from a stall in front of the station.

The shop moved to its Eunhaeng-dong home in 1970 and never really left. The name Sungsimdang means “house of the sacred heart,” and one habit stuck from those early Catholic roots: bread left unsold at the end of the day wasn’t sold the next morning — it was given away to struggling neighbors. That give-it-away ethic is still part of the brand’s story, and it’s a big reason Daejeon feels genuine affection for the place, not just appetite.

The bakery that refuses to leave town

What makes Sungsimdang unusual is what it won’t do. Despite nationwide fame, it has stubbornly refused to open branches in Seoul or anywhere outside Daejeon — a rarity in an era of franchise everything. If you want the real thing, you have to come to the city. That single decision turned a bakery into a reason to travel, and locals now proudly flip the city’s dull reputation on its head, calling Daejeon a “bread city” instead. One shop did that.

How a plain block of tofu got its kick

Dubu-duruchigi has humbler roots, and they’re local too. The story traces to a small Daeheung-dong eatery called Jinro-jip (진로집), which opened around 1969 serving plain tofu as a cheap snack to go with drinks. As the tale goes, a regular suggested seasoning it up instead of serving it plain, and the spicy, saucy version was born. The playful name comes from Korean words for beating and tossing the tofu around in the pan. From that one shop the dish spread across the old downtown to spots like Gwangcheon Sikdang and beyond, until it became what it is now — Daejeon’s hometown comfort food, forever paired with a swirl of kalguksu.

🗓️ Plan your visit

When: There’s no wrong season for Daejeon — this is an all-year, all-weather food stop. The one thing to plan around is the Sungsimdang line. The main store opens at 8 a.m., and mornings are far calmer than afternoons, which snake into long queues by lunchtime. Weekdays beat weekends. Get your bread early, then go hunt down tofu.

Getting there: Daejeon is one of the easiest trips in Korea. It’s roughly an hour from Seoul by KTX to Daejeon Station, which sits in the heart of the city. Coming straight from Incheon Airport, plan on about 2.5–3 hours all in — airport rail or bus up to Seoul (or a direct airport bus), then the fast train down. The old downtown around Eunhaeng-dong is a short taxi or bus ride from Daejeon Station, and the two food stops here are close together.

Costs: This is a cheap day out. Sungsimdang’s buns run just a couple thousand won each, and a shareable pan of dubu-duruchigi is modest for two people. Daejeon isn’t a resort town, so there’s no big seasonal tourist premium on hotels or food — most people simply fold it into a wider central-Korea trip or do it as a day return from Seoul.

Where to eat in Daejeon

Both institutions sit in Jung-gu, the old downtown, within a short ride of each other and of Daejeon Station.
- 📍 Sungsimdang, main store (성심당 본점): 15 Daejong-ro 480beon-gil, Jung-gu, Daejeon (대전 중구 대종로480번길 15, 은행동)
- 🕒 Hours: daily 08:00–22:00, open year-round (expect a line, shortest early)
- 🥐 Tuigim-soboro just a couple thousand won · also try the fantalong garlic-chive bun · cash-friendly, fast-moving queue
- 📍 Gwangcheon Sikdang (광천식당): 29 Daejong-ro 505beon-gil, Jung-gu, Daejeon (대전 중구 대종로505번길 29, 선화동)
- 🕒 Hours: Tue–Sun 10:30–21:30, break 15:00–17:00, closed Mondays (can change)
- 🌶️ Dubu-duruchigi around 18,000 won (a shareable pan) · add kalguksu noodles to finish · rice about 1,000 won
- 📍 Jinro-jip (진로집): the Daeheung-dong original credited with inventing the dish back in 1969, if you want to eat where it all started
One honest caveat: Sungsimdang’s lines are real, and popular items sell out, so go early and don’t set your heart on one specific bun. The tofu shops keep old-school hours with a mid-afternoon break and a weekly closing day, and prices drift up over time. Check before you go, especially on a Monday.

🔗 More Korean regional food worth the trip: if you like chasing dishes to their hometowns, read about chodang sundubu, Gangneung’s seawater-set tofu, Jeonju’s famous bibimbap, and Seoul’s Gwangjang Market street food.

A few quick questions

Why is Sungsimdang in Daejeon so famous?
It’s a 1956 bakery with a genuine backstory, wildly cheap signature buns, and a refusal to open branches anywhere else — so it has become a reason to visit the city. The deep-fried soboro bun draws lines all day, and the shop’s long tradition of giving unsold bread to the needy gives it real local goodwill.

Can I buy Sungsimdang bread outside Daejeon?
Not from a proper Sungsimdang shop — the bakery famously keeps all its stores within Daejeon and won’t franchise out. That’s exactly why people travel there for it. Buy it fresh in the city and eat the fried soboro warm if you can.

What does dubu-duruchigi taste like, and how do I eat it?
It’s spicy, garlicky and savory — soft tofu simmered in a bubbling gochujang broth, more of a bold sharing dish than a mild one. Eat the tofu first, then add freshly boiled kalguksu noodles to the leftover sauce and mix, which is the classic Daejeon way to finish it.

Is Daejeon worth a trip from Seoul?
For food travelers, yes, and it’s easy — about an hour each way by KTX, right into the city center. You can do Sungsimdang and a tofu lunch as a relaxed day trip, or make Daejeon a tasty pit stop on a longer journey through central Korea.
2026-07-09
What to Eat in Korea: Okcheon’s Saengseon-guksu (생선국수), a Spicy River-Fish Noodle Soup
Korea’s most surprising noodle bowl might be saengseon-guksu (생선국수) — a spicy soup of river fish, cooked down to nothing and poured over soft noodles. You’ll find it two hours south of Seoul, in a small river town called Cheongsan (청산) in Okcheon County (옥천). There’s no famous palace here, no shopping district — just a quiet lane where a handful of family kitchens have spent sixty years perfecting this one strange, wonderful bowl. If you’ve only ever had Korean noodle soup made from beef or anchovy, saengseon-guksu will surprise you.

Cheongsan, a sleepy river town in Okcheon — the unlikely home of Korea’s freshwater fish noodle soup.

⭐ Okcheon at a glance

🏛️ Sights & things to do ★★★☆☆

🍜 Food ★★★★☆

🚆 Easy to reach ★★★☆☆

A personal take based on our own experience — the range of things to see, the food, and how easy it is to get to. Okcheon is a slow, rural detour, not a headline stop; that’s rather the charm. Yours may well differ.

The short version: Saengseon-guksu is a spicy noodle soup made from freshwater river fish — crucian carp, catfish and the like — simmered for hours until the bones dissolve into a thick, savory broth, then served over thin wheat noodles. Its home is Cheongsan, a river village in Okcheon, where the original shop, Seon-gwang-jip (선광집), has been serving it since 1962. Pair it with dori-baengbaeng-i (도리뱅뱅이), a plate of crisp little fried fish. Here’s what to eat, where saengseon-guksu came from, and how to get there.

What to eat in Okcheon

Two dishes carry this town, and they’re almost always ordered together. One is a bowl, one is a plate, and both start with fish pulled from the same rivers.

Saengseon-guksu (생선국수) — the river-fish noodle soup

Saengseon-guksu — thin noodles in a deep, brick-red broth cooked entirely from river fish.

The name is plain. Saengseon means fish, guksu means noodles. But the making is anything but simple. Cooks take a mix of freshwater fish (crucian carp, catfish, skin carp, pale chub) and simmer them for hours until the flesh and even the bones melt down completely. The broth is then strained, so you never actually see a fish in your bowl. What’s left is a thick, ruddy, gochujang-spiced soup with a deep savory backbone and, yes, a faint muddy-river sweetness that locals swear by.

Into that goes somyeon (소면), the thin wheat noodles. There’s a reason for that. Cooks here say they tried rice, they tried sujebi dough flakes, they tried thick knife-cut noodles, and the delicate somyeon was the one that soaked up the spicy broth best without fighting it. In my experience the first spoonful reads as “spicy fish stew,” and then the noodles turn it into something you can’t stop eating.

It’s cheap, it’s filling, and it’s the kind of regional dish most Korean city-dwellers have heard of but never actually traveled out to try. That’s exactly why it’s worth the trip.

Dori-baengbaeng-i (도리뱅뱅이) — the fish you can see

Dori-baengbaeng-i — small river fish fried crisp, fanned into a ring and glazed with sweet-spicy sauce.

If saengseon-guksu hides its fish, this dish shows them off. Small freshwater fish — pale chub, or smelt in the colder months — are laid out in a neat circle in a shallow pan, fried until crisp, then brushed with a sweet-spicy gochujang glaze. The name comes from the way they’re arranged, fanned round and round (baengbaeng) in the pan.

You eat them whole, bones and all, like a savory cracker with a chili kick. A plate of dori-baengbaeng-i next to a bowl of saengseon-guksu is the standard Cheongsan order, and honestly the crunch is the perfect foil to the soft noodles. It’s the kind of pairing that makes the long drive out feel earned.

How river fish became a bowl of noodles

The dish began as riverside fishing feasts — a pot, a fire, and whatever the stream gave up that day.

From a riverbank pot to the table

Okcheon sits in river country. The Bocheong Stream (보청천) runs through Cheongsan, and the wide Daecheong Lake (대청호) and Geum River (금강) are close by, so for generations people here lived off freshwater fish. The old custom was cheollyeop (천렵). A group would head to the riverbank in warm weather, catch crucian carp, catfish and whatever else was biting, hang a pot right there over a wood fire, and boil it all into a rough, hearty stew.

At first they thickened that pot with rice, closer to a fish porridge called eojuk (어죽). The switch to noodles came later, as people tried different things to bulk the broth out — and the thin somyeon simply won. That riverside pot is the direct ancestor of the saengseon-guksu you order today.

The shop that started it all

Saengseon-guksu became a proper restaurant dish in the 1960s, when cheap wheat flour made noodles an everyday food across Korea. Around 1962, a Cheongsan shop called Seon-gwang-jip (선광집) began serving spicy river-fish soup with somyeon in it — and it stuck. Locals credit that little kitchen with turning a fisherman’s stew into the town’s signature dish, seasoned simply with gochujang and nothing fancy.

What grew up around it is a small food street. Along a lane in Cheongsan, roughly half a dozen family-run shops now cook saengseon-guksu their own slightly different ways — some richer, some spicier, a few sweeter. Fishermen with proper licenses still deliver crucian carp, carp, skin carp and pale chub to the shops every couple of days, so the fish really is local river fish, not a supermarket stand-in.

A poet’s hometown, too

There’s one more reason Okcheon holds a soft spot in the Korean imagination. It’s the hometown of Jeong Ji-yong (정지용, born 1902), one of the country’s most beloved modern poets. His most famous poem, “Nostalgia” (향수, first published in 1927), aches for a rural home village of streams and wide fields — the exact kind of countryside you’re driving through to reach the fish noodle shops. His restored birthplace and a small literary museum sit in the old town, and for many Korean visitors a bowl of saengseon-guksu and a stop at the poet’s house make one neat little day trip.

🗓️ Plan your visit

When: Saengseon-guksu is served year-round, and the hot, spicy broth is especially good in cool weather. If you can, aim for spring — Cheongsan holds a small fish-noodle-soup festival around April, when the food street is at its liveliest. The town runs on a slow, rural clock, so go earlier in the day; some shops close by mid-afternoon.

Getting there: Okcheon is in North Chungcheong, roughly two hours south of Seoul. If you’re coming straight from Incheon Airport, plan on about 3.5–4 hours all in — airport rail or bus to Seoul (or Daejeon), then a KTX down. From Seoul it’s roughly an hour by KTX to Daejeon (or straight to Okcheon town), then a local bus or taxi out to Cheongsan, a further rural stretch east. A rental car makes the whole trip far simpler — this is countryside, and buses are infrequent.

Costs: The meal itself is a bargain — a bowl of saengseon-guksu runs around 8,000 won as of 2026, with dori-baengbaeng-i a bit more. Okcheon isn’t a resort town, so there’s little seasonal price swing; the main “cost” is the travel time out and back, which is why most people fold it into a wider Daejeon or Chungcheong trip.

Where to eat it — Cheongsan’s fish-noodle street

The shops all cluster in Cheongsan-myeon (청산면), a short lane of family kitchens. Two are easy places to start.
- 📍 Seon-gwang-jip (선광집), the original: 26 Jijeon 1-gil, Cheongsan-myeon, Okcheon (충북 옥천군 청산면 지전1길 26)
- 🕒 Hours: roughly 10:30–16:00, closed Mondays (hours can change)
- 🍜 Saengseon-guksu ~8,000 won · Dori-baengbaeng-i ~10,000–20,000 won (small/large) · seasoned with gochujang only
- 📍 Jjinhan Sikdang (찐한식당): 14 Jijeon-gil, Cheongsan-myeon, Okcheon (충북 옥천군 청산면 지전길 14) — a popular alternative on the same street, open a little later in the day
One honest caveat: these are tiny rural kitchens, so hours are short and can shift, some close on their weekly rest day, and prices creep up over time. Call ahead or check before making the drive — and don’t count on a late lunch, as several shops wrap up by mid-afternoon.

🔗 More Korean food worth leaving the city for: if you like tracking regional dishes to their source, read about gondeure namul bap, Jeongseon’s mountain-herb rice, chodang sundubu, Gangneung’s seawater-set tofu, and Jeonju’s famous bibimbap.

A few quick questions

What does saengseon-guksu taste like?
Spicy, savory and surprisingly rich. The broth is river fish cooked down for hours with gochujang, so it’s thick and deeply flavored rather than fishy — the fish is strained out entirely. Soft thin noodles soak it all up. If you like Korean spicy stews, this is a gentler, noodle-friendly cousin.

Is there actual fish in the bowl?
Not visibly. The freshwater fish are simmered until they fall apart, then strained, so what you get is a smooth spicy broth over noodles. If you want to see (and eat) the fish, order dori-baengbaeng-i, the crispy fried plate, on the side.

Is saengseon-guksu worth the trip from Seoul?
It’s a genuine detour — a couple of hours each way into rural Chungcheong — so most people pair it with a Daejeon trip or a stop at Jeong Ji-yong’s birthplace nearby. For food travelers who want a dish they can’t get in the city, that quiet river town and its one-of-a-kind bowl are the reward.
2026-07-08
What to Eat in Korea: Sokcho’s Ojingeo Sundae (오징어순대), the Refugees’ Squid Sundae
On the far northeast corner of South Korea, right where the Seoraksan mountains tumble into the East Sea, sits a small port city called Sokcho (속초). Cross a tiny hand-pulled ferry there and you land in Abai Village (아바이마을), a low huddle of houses built by war refugees from the North. This is home to one of Korea’s most inventive dishes: ojingeo sundae (오징어순대), a whole squid stuffed like a sausage and steamed. It’s comfort food born out of homesickness, and once you know the story, it tastes different.

Sokcho’s Abai Village, reached by a small hand-pulled ferry across the channel.

⭐ Sokcho at a glance

🏛️ Sights & things to do ★★★★★

🍜 Food ★★★★☆

🚌 Easy to reach ★★★★☆

A personal take based on our own experience — the range of things to see, the food, and the travel time from Seoul. Yours may well differ.

The short version: ojingeo sundae is a squid stuffed with a savory filling of vegetables, glass noodles and a little meat, then steamed and sliced into rounds. It was created in Sokcho by refugees who fled the North during the Korean War and rebuilt their hometown cooking with what the East Sea gave them. Here’s what it is, why the squid, and where to eat it.

First — what exactly is ojingeo sundae?

Start with the word. Sundae (순대) is Korea’s classic stuffed sausage, usually a pork casing packed with glass noodles, rice and seasoned blood, then steamed. It’s a beloved street food, sold by the plate at markets all over the country. Now swap the pork intestine for a whole squid, and you’ve got ojingeo sundae — ojingeo just means squid.

Ojingeo sundae, sliced into rounds — squid on the outside, a savory stuffing within.

How it’s actually made

The cook cleans out a squid body so it becomes a hollow tube, then dries the inside and dusts it with a little flour so the filling grips. The stuffing does the heavy lifting: finely chopped vegetables — carrot, onion, chili, scallion — plus glass noodles, tofu, a bit of minced meat, and seasonings like garlic and sesame oil. The squid gets packed full but not tight (it shrinks as it cooks), sealed, and steamed for around twenty minutes. Some shops then slice it, give the rounds an egg coating and lightly pan-fry them. That’s the version I like best — a soft, springy bite with a golden edge.

How to eat it

It arrives already sliced, so you don’t have to do anything clever. Dip a round in the soy-and-vinegar sauce on the table and go. The squid is chewy in that satisfying way; the filling is savory and a little sweet. Locals often eat it alongside a bowl of sundae-guk (순대 soup) or the sharp, cold myeongtae-hoe naengmyeon — pollock in chilly noodles. My honest advice? Order it as part of a spread rather than a single plate. It shines next to other Hamgyeong-style dishes.

The story behind the dish

This is where ojingeo sundae stops being just a clever snack. It’s a piece of the Korean War, still on the plate.

A village built by refugees

In 1951, refugees from the North settled the Sokcho sandbar and waited for a way home that never came.

During the war, in the great retreat of early 1951, thousands of people from Hamgyeong Province (함경도), a region now in North Korea, fled south with the retreating troops. Many got as far as Sokcho and stopped on a spit of sand at Cheongho-dong (청호동), certain the fighting would end soon and they’d cross back home in a few months. The war ended in a stalemate. The border froze. And they stayed.

The settlement they built became known as Abai Village. Abai (아바이) is a Hamgyeong dialect word for “father” or, more broadly, an older man, the way these northerners addressed one another. So the name itself is a fragment of a lost dialect, kept alive on a signboard. Walk the lanes today and you’ll still hear it in the shop names.

Why squid? Because home was gone

Back in Hamgyeong, a prized local dish was myeongtae sundae, fresh pollock stuffed with a seasoned filling and steamed. When the refugees tried to recreate it in Sokcho, two things had changed. Pollock wasn’t always easy to come by, and neither were the pork casings for ordinary sundae. But squid? The East Sea off Sokcho was full of it. So they used what the new sea offered, stuffing the squid the way they’d once stuffed the fish back home.

That’s the quiet genius of it. Ojingeo sundae isn’t a chef’s invention or a marketing idea. It’s a memory of the North, rebuilt with the ingredients of the South. A hometown recipe adapted so it wouldn’t be lost. I find that quietly moving. You’ll find its cousin, Abai sundae (아바이순대), the heartier pork-casing version, in the same village, but the squid one is Sokcho’s own signature.

The village that a TV drama made famous

The galbae — a ferry with no engine. You pull the boat across yourself on a steel cable.

To reach Abai Village the fun way, you ride the galbae (갯배), a flat little ferry with no motor. Passengers grab a hooked pole and haul the boat across the narrow channel on a steel cable, hand over hand. It costs only a few hundred won and takes about a minute, and honestly, it’s half the reason people come.

If the crossing looks familiar, there’s a reason. The galbae featured in Autumn in My Heart (가을동화), the hit 2000 Korean drama that aired across Asia, and fans have been making the pilgrimage ever since. There’s a little photo spot by the dock. So you get a bowl of refugee history and a K-drama backdrop in the same fifteen minutes.

🗓️ Plan your visit

When: Sokcho is a year-round base for Seoraksan National Park, and each season has its pull. Autumn (roughly October) is the showstopper, when the mountain turns red and gold, though it’s also the busiest. Summer brings beach crowds; late spring and early winter are quieter and mild. The squid, happily, is good in any weather.

Getting there: From Incheon Airport, plan on roughly 3–4 hours. The simplest route is an express bus from Seoul straight to Sokcho (about 2.5 hours over the mountains); intercity buses also run from other cities. From Sokcho’s bus terminal, Abai Village is a short taxi ride, then the galbae ferry across.

Costs: A plate of ojingeo sundae runs roughly ₩15,000–17,000, and a bowl of sundae soup a bit less. Solid value for a regional specialty. For the trip, autumn foliage season and summer weekends are the priciest and most crowded times for east-coast rooms, so book ahead or aim for the shoulder months.

Where to eat it

Both of these sit right inside Abai Village, a short walk from the ferry dock:

Dancheon Sikdang (단천식당) — the village classic

This is usually the shop with a line out front, and for good reason. The name is a homesick nod to Dancheon, a city up in Hamgyeong that the founding family left behind. Order the ojingeo sundae, and add a bowl of the Abai-style sundae soup if you’re hungry. The pairing is the whole point.
- 📍 Address: 17 Abai-maeul-gil, Sokcho, Gangwon (강원 속초시 아바이마을길 17)
- 🕒 Hours: 08:30–19:00 (last order 18:30)
- 🦑 Ojingeo sundae: from around ₩15,000 · Abai sundae-guk around ₩10,000 · pollock naengmyeon around ₩10,000 · parking near the beach lot
2-dae Songnim Sundae-jip (2대송림순대집) — two generations in

The “2-dae” in the name means “second generation,” and that’s the draw: a family shop passing the recipe down. They do both the squid version and the classic pork-casing Abai sundae, plus a mixed plate if you can’t choose — which, the first time, you probably can’t.
- 📍 Address: 12 Abai-maeul-gil, Sokcho, Gangwon (강원 속초시 아바이마을길 12)
- 🕒 Hours: weekdays 10:00–19:00 · weekends 08:00–20:00
- 🦑 Ojingeo sundae: from around ₩17,000 (small/medium/large) · mixed sundae plate available · public parking nearby (limited)
One honest caveat: prices and hours are accurate as of July 2026, but small family restaurants change both more often than you’d expect, and busy ones sometimes close early when they run out. A quick check before you go never hurts.

🔗 More Korean food to explore: stay on the east coast for Gangneung’s seawater tofu, chodang sundubu, head into the Gangwon mountains for gondeure namul bap in Jeongseon, or go back to Seoul for the street food of Gwangjang Market.

A few quick questions

Is ojingeo sundae the same as regular sundae?
No. Regular sundae is a pork casing stuffed with glass noodles, rice and blood. Ojingeo sundae uses a whole squid as the casing and a milder vegetable-and-noodle filling, with no blood. Different texture, different flavor, same idea of stuffing and steaming.

Does it taste very fishy?
Not really. The squid is clean and springy rather than strong, and the savory filling balances it out. If you like calamari, you’ll be fine here. The dipping sauce adds a little tang.

What’s the difference between ojingeo sundae and Abai sundae?
Both come from the same refugee community in Sokcho. Abai sundae is the hearty pork-casing sausage; ojingeo sundae is the squid version. Many Abai Village shops serve both, so you can compare them side by side.
2026-07-08
Chodang Sundubu (초당순두부): Gangneung’s Seawater-Set Soft Tofu
On Korea’s east coast, about two hours from Seoul, there’s a seaside city called Gangneung (강릉) — all pine-lined beaches, a mirror-flat lagoon, and cafés stacked along the water. Tucked just behind Gyeongpo Beach is a small neighborhood named Chodang-dong (초당동), and it’s famous for one unlikely thing: tofu. Not the bland stuff, but silky, warm Chodang sundubu (초당순두부), soft tofu set with real seawater from the sea a few minutes’ walk away.

Gangneung’s east-coast shoreline — the sea that sets Chodang’s tofu is right here.

⭐ Gangneung at a glance

🏛️ Sights & things to do ★★★★☆

🍜 Food ★★★★★

🚄 Easy to reach ★★★★☆

A personal take based on our own experience — the variety of things to see, the taste, and the travel time involved. Yours may well differ.

The short version: Chodang sundubu is soft, freshly curdled tofu that gets its gentle, faintly briny flavor from being set with clean seawater instead of the usual bittern. A whole village of tofu restaurants grew up around it in Gangneung. Here’s what makes it different, the scholar behind the story, and where to eat it.

First — what exactly is sundubu?

Sundubu (순두부) means “soft” or “uncurdled” tofu — the loose, custardy stage before the curds are pressed into a firm block. Scoop it and it barely holds together, more like warm silken clouds than the tofu you slice for a stir-fry. Eaten plain, it’s about as gentle as food gets. That’s the base. What sets Chodang sundubu apart is the way it’s made.

Warm Chodang sundubu, served soft and plain with a light soy-and-scallion sauce.

Why seawater is the whole trick

To turn soy milk into tofu, you need a coagulant — something that makes the proteins clump into curds. Most tofu uses gansu (간수), refined bittern. Chodang does it the old way: with clean seawater drawn straight from the East Sea. That single swap is the whole point. The sea salt sets the curds more softly and leaves a faint, savory brininess and a nutty sweetness you just don’t get otherwise. Locals will tell you the tofu tastes like the sea it came from. After a bowl or two, I understood what they meant.

Plain, or fired up? Two ways to order

You’ll mainly see two styles. The classic is chodang sundubu baekban — a bowl of the warm plain tofu with a bowl of rice, a light soy-scallion sauce for dipping, and a spread of Gangwon side dishes. Quiet, clean, comforting. Then there’s the local twist that took over the internet: jjamppong sundubu (짬뽕순두부), soft tofu swimming in a spicy seafood broth borrowed from Korean-Chinese noodle soup. One is a hug, the other’s a wake-up call. My advice? If you’re with someone, order one of each and share.

Jjamppong sundubu — soft tofu in a fiery seafood broth, the local twist that took Chodang national.

The story behind the bowl

Most street foods have murky origins. Chodang tofu, by contrast, comes with a name attached — and it belongs to one of the more remarkable families in Korean literary history.

A scholar named Chodang

As the story goes, a Joseon scholar set his tofu with seawater and gave it his pen name.

As the story is told in Gangneung, the tofu traces back to Heo Yeop (허엽, 1517–1580), a Joseon-era official whose pen name was Chodang (초당), meaning “thatched cottage.” Serving in the area, he is said to have made tofu using the sweet spring water near his home and seawater from the coast to set it. The result was so good it took his pen name, Chodang tofu, and the very spot where that spring stood is the neighborhood still called Chodang-dong today.

Here’s the detail I love: Heo Yeop was the father of two of Korea’s most famous writers. His daughter was Heo Nanseolheon (허난설헌), the brilliant, tragically short-lived poet, and his son was Heo Gyun (허균), author of Hong Gildong, often called Korea’s first novel in the vernacular. Nanseolheon’s memorial park sits right there in Chodang-dong, so you can visit the poet’s home and eat the family’s tofu on the same afternoon.

How one dish became a whole village

Whether or not every line of the legend is literal, the tradition stuck. Over generations, Chodang-dong households kept grinding soybeans and setting the curds with seawater, and after the Korean War the little cottage industry grew into something bigger. Today the lanes of Chodang-dong hold close to twenty tofu restaurants, many run by second- and third-generation families who still use domestic soybeans and real seawater. Koreans call the area the Chodang Tofu Village (초당두부마을), and it’s a genuine food-pilgrimage stop.

The lanes of Chodang Tofu Village, lined with soft-tofu shops passed down for generations.

🗓️ Plan your visit

When: Gangneung is a year-round coast town, but summer is peak beach season, and the shoulder months of late spring and early autumn are calmer and mild. Tofu is a warm, all-seasons comfort, so honestly you can’t go wrong — just expect weekend crowds and waits at the best-known shops.

Getting there: From Incheon Airport, plan on roughly 3–4 hours via Seoul — take the airport railroad into the city, then a KTX high-speed train to Gangneung (about two hours). From Gangneung Station, Chodang-dong is a short taxi or bus ride toward Gyeongpo Beach.

Costs: A tofu meal runs roughly ₩11,000–15,000 a person, which makes this one of the better-value regional specialties. For the trip itself, midsummer and any long weekend are the priciest and busiest times for east-coast rooms — book ahead, or come off-peak for calmer beaches and softer rates.

Where to eat it

Two very different bowls, both in the Chodang Tofu Village:

Chodang Halmeoni Sundubu (초당할머니순두부) — the traditional one

If you want the plain, old-fashioned bowl, this is the address. “Halmeoni” means grandmother, and the name fits — it’s one of the village’s long-running shops, into its second generation, still making the soft tofu by hand the traditional way. Order the sundubu baekban and let the tofu speak for itself.
- 📍 Address: 77 Chodang-sundubu-gil, Gangneung, Gangwon (강원 강릉시 초당순두부길 77)
- 🕒 Hours: 08:00–19:00 (Tuesdays 08:00–15:00)
- 🍲 Sundubu baekban: around ₩11,000 · whole-block tofu (modu-bu) around ₩15,000 · parking available
Donghwa Garden (동화가든) — the spicy original

This is the shop credited with inventing jjamppong sundubu, the spicy-seafood version that turned Chodang into a national craze. Expect a line, since it’s been a Blue Ribbon Survey pick for years, but the queue moves, and the deep, fiery broth over that soft village tofu is worth the wait.
- 📍 Address: 15 Chodang-sundubu-gil 77beon-gil, Gangneung, Gangwon (강원 강릉시 초당순두부길77번길 15)
- 🕒 Hours: 07:00–19:30 (break 16:00–17:00), closed Wednesdays
- 🍲 Jjamppong sundubu: around ₩15,000 (spicy seafood soft-tofu stew) · made with 100% domestic soybeans
One honest caveat: prices and hours are accurate as of July 2026, but small family restaurants change both more often than you’d think, and popular ones sometimes close early when they sell out. A quick check before you go never hurts.

🔗 More Korean food to explore: still in the Gangwon mountains, try gondeure namul bap in Jeongseon. Or head elsewhere for Jeonju’s famous bibimbap and a warming bowl of Seoul’s ox-bone soup, seolleongtang.

A few quick questions

Does Chodang sundubu taste salty?
Not really — just faintly savory. The seawater sets the curds, but it isn’t seasoning the tofu like a brine. You get a gentle, clean, slightly nutty flavor, and you add saltiness yourself with the soy-scallion dipping sauce.

Is sundubu vegetarian?
The plain tofu is plant-based, so sundubu baekban is usually a good vegetarian bet — though it’s worth checking the side dishes. The spicy jjamppong sundubu, however, is made with a seafood broth, so it isn’t.

Is this the same as sundubu-jjigae?
Related, but not identical. Sundubu-jjigae is the bubbling red soft-tofu stew you’ll find all over Korea. Chodang’s specialty is the tofu itself — often served plain to show off its texture — though the local jjamppong sundubu is its own spicy, souped-up cousin.
2026-07-07
What to Eat in Korea: Jeonju’s Bibimbap (비빔밥), Korea’s Famous Mixed Rice
There’s a city about two hours south of Seoul that Koreans travel to specifically to eat. It’s called Jeonju (전주), and it’s a place of curved-tile hanok roofs, old shrine walls, and — since 2012 — a UNESCO-designated City of Gastronomy. People come to wander the Hanok Village, but the dish they really come for is one you’ve almost certainly seen: bibimbap (비빔밥).

Jeonju’s Hanok Village — the home of Korea’s most famous bibimbap.

⭐ Jeonju at a glance

🏛️ Sights & things to do ★★★★★

🍜 Food ★★★★★

🚄 Easy to reach ★★★☆☆

A personal take based on our own experience — the variety of things to see, the taste, and the travel time involved. Yours may well differ.

The short version: Bibimbap is Korea’s famous “mixed rice” — a bowl of rice topped with seasoned vegetables, beef, and a spoon of chili paste, all stirred together before you eat. Jeonju does the most celebrated version, and the city is the place to try it. Here’s what it is, the story behind it, and where to eat it.

First — what exactly is bibimbap?

The name says it plainly: bibim means “mixed,” bap means “rice.” At its heart it’s a bowl of warm rice crowned with an array of namul (seasoned vegetables), often some beef, a raw or fried egg, and a spoonful of gochujang (red chili paste). You mix all of it together, thoroughly, right before eating.

Before the mix — Jeonju bibimbap arrives almost too pretty to stir.

Why Jeonju’s version is special

Jeonju bibimbap is the deluxe one. It’s traditionally served in a gleaming brass bowl, piled with a small mountain of toppings — sometimes thirty-odd of them, from mountain greens to yukhoe (raw beef) to a delicate egg. Old records even call bibimbap hwaban (화반), “flower rice,” and one look at a proper Jeonju bowl tells you why. It’s genuinely beautiful.

How to eat it like a local

Add as much gochujang as your spice tolerance allows — you can always add more — then mix, and I mean mix. Turn it over and over until every grain of rice is coated and the colors blur into one. The way I see it, that unruly-looking mixed bowl is the whole point: bibimbap isn’t meant to be admired, it’s meant to be stirred into something greater than its parts.

The story behind the bowl

Here’s something that surprised me: for a dish this iconic, nobody is entirely sure where it came from. And honestly, I find that kind of charming.

A dish with many origin stories

One theory: bibimbap began as a practical way to feed many from one big bowl.

Historians float several theories, and none has a smoking gun. Some trace it to eumbok — the tradition of eating the food offered at ancestral rites, mixed together. Others point to royal court kitchens, or to farmers mixing rice and vegetables in the fields at harvest, or even to feeding crowds during the Donghak Peasant uprising. What we do have is the name: a cookbook from the late 1800s, the Siuijeonseo, records it, and the old Chinese term goldongban (골동반) simply means “rice with many things stirred in.”

How Jeonju became the home of bibimbap

Whatever its murky beginnings, Jeonju is where bibimbap became a legend. Sitting in Korea’s rice-and-vegetable heartland, the city had the ingredients and the culinary pride. Through the 1900s, cheap, hearty bibimbap thrived around Jeonju’s Nambu Market, and by the 1960s and 70s a whole “bibimbap alley” had grown up near the old provincial office. That’s the lineage the city’s famous restaurants still carry today.

🗓️ Plan your visit

When: Jeonju is a year-round destination, but the Hanok Village is loveliest in spring and autumn, when the tiled roofs and courtyards look their best. It gets busy on weekends, so a weekday visit is calmer.

Getting there: From Incheon Airport, plan on roughly 3–4 hours via Seoul — take the airport railroad into the city, then a KTX high-speed train from Yongsan to Jeonju (about two hours), or an intercity express bus. Jeonju itself is walkable once you’re there.

Costs: A bowl of Jeonju bibimbap runs around ₩14,000–17,000. For the trip, spring and autumn are peak season nationwide, so flights and rooms climb and book out early — reserve ahead; winter outside the holidays is gentler on the budget.

Where to eat it

One in the heartland, one for when you’re staying in Seoul:

Gajok Hoegwan (가족회관) — Jeonju

One of Jeonju’s celebrated “big three” bibimbap houses, Gajok Hoegwan has been at it since 1973, now into a third generation. Its founder is recognized as a master of traditional food and an official holder of Jeonju bibimbap’s intangible-heritage craft — which is a long way of saying this is the real thing, a short walk from the Hanok Village.
- 📍 Address: 17 Jeollagamyeong 5-gil, Wansan-gu, Jeonju (전북 전주시 완산구 전라감영5길 17)
- 🕒 Hours: 10:30–20:00 (last order 19:50)
- 🍲 Bibimbap: ₩14,000 (yukhoe bibimbap ₩17,000) · No lot; nearby paid lots give 1 hr free with validation
Jeonju Jungang Hoegwan (전주중앙회관) — Myeongdong, Seoul

Can’t make it to Jeonju? This Myeongdong institution has been serving Jeonju-style bibimbap since the 1960s, when its founder moved the family restaurant from Jeonju to Seoul. It’s an easy, central stop if you’re sightseeing around Myeongdong.
- 📍 Address: 21 Myeongdong 8na-gil, Jung-gu, Seoul (서울 중구 명동8나길 21)
- 🕒 Hours: 09:30–22:30 (last order 22:00), open year-round
- 🍲 Bibimbap: a Jeonju-style bowl in central Seoul · nearest to Myeongdong Station
One honest caveat: prices and hours are accurate as of July 2026, but restaurants change both more often than you’d expect. A quick check before you go never hurts.

🔗 More Korean food to explore: in Seoul, don’t miss Gwangjang Market’s street food and a bowl of seolleongtang, the city’s ox-bone soup. Or head to the mountains for gondeure namul bap in Jeongseon.

A few quick questions

Is bibimbap spicy?
Only as spicy as you make it. The heat comes from the gochujang you stir in yourself, so you’re fully in control — add a little, taste, add more.

Is bibimbap vegetarian?
It can be. The base of rice and seasoned vegetables is plant-based, but many versions add beef, egg, or yukhoe — and some seasonings aren’t strictly vegetarian, so it’s worth asking.

What’s the difference with dolsot bibimbap?
Dolsot bibimbap is served in a scorching-hot stone bowl, so the rice at the bottom crisps into a golden crust as you eat. Same idea, extra texture — and be careful, the bowl is very hot.
2026-07-07
What to Eat in Korea: Jeongseon’s Gondeure Namul Bap (곤드레나물밥), Mountain-Herb Rice
Deep in the mountains of Gangwon Province, in Korea’s rugged northeast, there’s a small county that people travel a long way to reach: Jeongseon (정선). They come to coast down old railway lines on rail bikes, to wander the stalls of its famous five-day market, and to catch a few wistful notes of Jeongseon Arirang — one of Korea’s most beloved folk songs — drifting between the peaks.

Jeongseon, deep in the mountains of Gangwon — the home of gondeure namul bap.

⭐ Jeongseon at a glance

🏔️ Sights & things to do ★★★★☆

🍚 Food ★★★☆☆

🚆 Easy to reach ★★☆☆☆

A personal take based on our own experience — the variety of things to see, the taste, and the travel time involved. Yours may well differ.

And when the mountain air leaves them hungry, there’s one dish the locals steer them toward: gondeure namul bap (곤드레나물밥). The first time a bowl landed in front of me, I almost underestimated it — plain white rice, flecked with dark green herbs, steaming in a hot stone pot. It looked like the kind of quiet, healthy thing you order to feel virtuous. What I didn’t know was that this humble bowl carries one of the heavier histories on the Korean table.

Gondeure namul bap — rice steamed with mild mountain-thistle greens.

First — what is gondeure namul bap?

At its simplest, gondeure namul bap is rice steamed together with gondeure — a wild mountain green from the steep highlands of Gangwon Province, in Korea’s northeast. The plant’s proper name is Korean thistle (곤드레 is the Gangwon dialect word for it), and it’s foraged fresh around May, when the young leaves are at their most tender.

Cook it into rice, usually in a sizzling stone pot, and the greens perfume every grain — earthy, gently nutty, deeply comforting. It’s the kind of bowl that tastes like it’s doing you good, because, honestly, it is.

Why gondeure, out of all the mountain greens?

Gondeure (Korean thistle) — mild and tender, unlike most wild greens.

Korea has hundreds of wild mountain greens (we call them sannamul), and a lot of them are bitter, tough, or an acquired taste. Gondeure is the friendly one. It’s soft, mild, and barely bitter, which is exactly why it folds into rice so beautifully instead of fighting it.

There’s one more quality that matters more than you’d think, and we’ll come back to it: gondeure is remarkably gentle on the stomach, even when you eat a lot of it. Hold that thought.

How to eat it like a local

The seasoned soy sauce goes on top — then you mix it all in.

Like a lot of great Korean rice dishes, it arrives almost undressed, and the finishing is your job. Every table comes with a little bowl of yangnyeom-ganjang — soy sauce loosened with sesame oil, chopped scallion, a touch of chili and garlic.

You spoon that over the rice and mix, thoroughly, until every grain is glossy and seasoned. The way I see it, that’s the whole ritual.

The greens come pre-seasoned

Here’s a detail that surprised me. The gondeure is usually dressed before it ever meets the rice — cooks toss the blanched greens with perilla oil and a little guk-ganjang, a lighter, saltier soup soy sauce, then steam them right into the pot. So the bowl arrives fragrant and gently savory on its own. The sauce you stir in at the table just builds on that.

Try a splash of perilla oil

Many locals (me included) add a little deulgireum — toasted perilla oil — along with the soy sauce. It deepens that nutty, earthy note and, in my experience, is the single thing that takes the bowl from nice to genuinely craveable. Some spots also serve a thick soybean paste (gangdoenjang) on the side to stir in.

Don’t be shy with the mixing

Mix it more than feels necessary. The greens, the seasoned soy, the oil, the rice at the bottom of the stone pot slowly turning crisp — you want all of it in every spoonful.

The twist: from famine food to wellness bowl

Here’s the part that stopped me short. This dish that people now order to eat well — clean, healthy, mindful — was born out of the opposite. It was food for surviving when there was almost nothing else.

A food of the spring famine

In the lean spring months, gondeure was what the mountains offered.

Through the 1960s and 70s, late spring in rural Korea meant the boritgogae — the “barley hump,” a hungry stretch when last year’s grain had run out and the new harvest wasn’t in yet. In the steep valleys around Jeongseon, in Gangwon, one thing grew wild and abundant right when people needed it most: gondeure.

So families did what they had to. They gathered armfuls of the greens and stretched a little precious grain as far as it would go, mixing gondeure into every pot of rice to make it fill more mouths.

Why gondeure carried them through

Now that thought I asked you to hold. Gondeure’s mildness wasn’t just pleasant — it was the reason it worked as survival food. It was gentle enough to eat at nearly every meal without turning the stomach, so a family could lean on it day after day when little else was available.

It sank so deep into the life of the region that it even turns up in the lyrics of Jeongseon Arirang, the area’s famous, wistful folk song. A green that fed people through the hard years, sung about like an old companion.

How survival food became a delicacy

At Jeongseon’s five-day market, the old survival food found new fans.

The turn came in the 1990s. As Jeongseon’s traditional five-day market began drawing visitors from the cities, those visitors got hungry — and the dish waiting for them was gondeure namul bap. What had once meant scarcity was suddenly a taste of somewhere authentic, rooted, and mountain-fresh.

Today it’s prized as a wellness food — fiber-rich, wholesome, and loved for exactly the mild, earthy flavor that once made it a lifeline. I find that reversal quietly moving: the same humble bowl, carried from a symbol of going without to a small luxury of eating well.

🗓️ Plan your visit

When: Late spring — especially around May — is the sweet spot, when fresh gondeure floods the markets and the valleys turn deep green; autumn adds mountain foliage. Try to line it up with Jeongseon’s traditional five-day market, one of Korea’s best-known — much of its fame owes to the scenic tourist train that carries city visitors up into the mountains. It runs on dates ending in 2 and 7 (the 2nd, 7th, 12th, and so on), and on a market day the stalls overflow with mountain greens, wild herbs, and steaming pots of gondeure bap.

Getting there: From Incheon Airport it’s roughly a half-day — about 4–5 hours via Seoul: take the airport railroad into the city, then an intercity bus from Dong-Seoul terminal or a train from Cheongnyangni. The scenic Jeongseon Arirang tourist train runs on weekends and market days.

Costs: Spring and autumn are peak season across Korea, so flights and rooms climb and book out early — reserve ahead. Local guesthouses stay affordable, and midweek is easiest on the wallet.

Where to try it

One spot in the dish’s mountain heartland, one an easy trip from central Seoul:

Ssarigol Sikdang (싸리골식당) — in the heartland, Jeongseon

Right by Jeongseon’s famous five-day market, this is about as close to the source as you can eat. A simple, well-loved spot doing the classic bowl the way the region intended.
- 📍 Address: 1312 Jeongseon-ro, Jeongseon-eup, Jeongseon-gun, Gangwon (강원 정선군 정선읍 정선로 1312)
- 🕒 Hours: Tue–Sun 10:00–17:00 (closed Mondays)
- 🍚 Gondeure namul bap: ₩10,000 · Parking available
Cheonggyesan Gondeure-jip (청계산곤드레집) — Seoul, at the foot of a mountain

Fittingly for a mountain green, this Seoul favorite sits right at the entrance to Cheonggyesan, a hiking mountain on the city’s southern edge. It’s been serving gondeure to hungry hikers since 2004.
- 📍 Address: 195-16 Sinwon-dong, Seocho-gu, Seoul (서울 서초구 신원동 195-16)
- 🕒 Hours: Mon–Fri 11:00–20:30, Sat–Sun 10:00–20:30 (weekend break 15:30–17:30)
- 🍚 Gondeure namul bap: ₩11,000 · Free parking (valet available)
One honest caveat: prices and hours are accurate as of July 2026, but small restaurants change both more often than you’d expect. A quick check before you go never hurts.

A few quick questions

What does gondeure taste like?
Mild, nutty, and earthy — not bitter. It’s one of the most approachable Korean wild greens, which is a big part of why it works so well in rice.

Is it healthy?
It has a genuine reputation as a wholesome dish — the greens are known for fiber, calcium, and vitamin A — and that’s a fair part of its modern appeal. It’s still a hearty bowl of rice, though — so enjoy it as the comforting, nourishing meal it is.

Is it vegetarian-friendly?
Often, yes — the rice, greens, and soy-based seasoning are plant-based. But side dishes vary and some kitchens tweak the seasoning, so if you’re strict, it’s worth a quick ask.
2026-07-06
What to Eat in Seoul: Jongno’s Seolleongtang (설렁탕), Korea’s Ox-Bone Soup
In the historic heart of Seoul lies Jongno (종로) — the old downtown where visitors wander the art alleys of Insadong, bow before centuries-old palaces, and graze the food stalls of Gwangjang Market. And tucked into these same streets is the oldest restaurant in the entire country, still doing the one thing it has done since 1904: ladling out seolleongtang (설렁탕).

Jongno — old-town Seoul, home to palaces, Insadong, and Korea’s oldest restaurants.

⭐ Jongno at a glance

🏛️ Sights & things to do ★★★★★

🍜 Food ★★★★☆

🚇 Easy to reach ★★★★★

A personal take based on our own experience — the variety of things to see, the taste, and the travel time involved. Yours may well differ.

There’s a particular kind of cold Seoul morning when the only warm thing on the block is a little shop with its windows fogged white — and inside, almost everyone is bent over the same milky bowl of soup. That soup is seolleongtang, and I’ve ordered it more mornings than I can count.

Seolleongtang — Korea’s milky ox-bone soup, eaten any time of day.

First — what exactly is seolleongtang?

Seolleongtang is one of the most popular and traditional dishes we have in Korea — and I mean everywhere. Wander almost any Korean neighborhood and you’ll pass a seolleongtang shop every few blocks, steam curling out the door. It isn’t special-occasion food. It’s the soup people eat on an ordinary Tuesday.

Why the broth is milky white

The first thing you’ll notice is the color — a cloudy, milky white, almost as if someone stirred milk into it.

They didn’t. That color comes purely from ox bones simmered for a very long time, often twelve hours or more, until the broth turns rich and opaque all on its own. The way I see it, that’s the whole magic: no shortcuts, just bone and patience. It’s also why a bowl feels so quietly restorative when you’re tired or cold.

The milky color comes from bones alone — no dairy, just hours of simmering.

How to eat it like a local

Here’s the part that surprises a lot of first-timers: it arrives looking almost pale and simple. When the bowl first lands, before you add anything, it can taste a little plain — even mild. But add a small pinch of salt, give it a stir, and a deep, savory richness suddenly blooms out of the broth. That’s by design. The seasoning is your job.

Koreans reach for the salt and chopped scallions on the table, and quite a few of us also splash in a bit of kimchi brine for a tangy kick. Personally? I like mine with just salt and scallions, and I eat the kimchi on the side rather than pouring it in. There’s no wrong answer — half the fun is building the bowl to your own taste.

Salt, scallions, and kkakdugi (radish kimchi) — you finish the bowl yourself.

Two more things I wish someone had told me early on.

Don’t grab the bowl

Seolleongtang is served in a ttukbaegi, a heavy earthenware pot, and it comes out genuinely scorching — hot enough to burn your fingers if you grip the rim. Give it a moment, and use your spoon.

Noodles first, rice last

There are usually thin somyeon noodles hiding in the broth, and they turn soft and mushy if they sit too long. So I go for the noodles early. Then, near the end — the classic move — I tip in the rice and eat it soaked up in the last of the broth. Noodles first, rice last. That little sequence is how most Koreans actually work through the bowl.

The royal secret behind the soup

So here’s what genuinely floored me when I started digging. This humble, everyman’s soup? It may have started at a royal altar. I’d always known seolleongtang as pure working-class comfort food, so the idea that it could be tangled up with kings never once crossed my mind. I was as surprised as you probably are right now.

It begins at an altar called Seonnongdan

A Joseon king personally plowing the ceremonial field — the rite of chingyeong.

The trail leads to a small stone altar in eastern Seoul, in what’s now the Jegi-dong neighborhood, called Seonnongdan (선농단).

For centuries, the kings of the Joseon dynasty came here to bow to the gods of agriculture — the mythical fathers of farming — and pray for a good harvest. This wasn’t a minor errand. A bad harvest meant a hungry kingdom, so the ritual carried the weight of the whole nation’s survival on it.

And the king didn’t simply pray from the sidelines. As part of the rite, he gripped an actual plow and turned the soil with his own hands — a ceremony called chingyeong. Picture it for a second: the most powerful man in the country, out in a field, hands on a plow, publicly bowing to something even he couldn’t command. The rice.

A king, an ox, and a soup for everybody

One giant cauldron, shared by king and farmer alike — the spirit of seolleongtang.

Here’s where the soup finally enters the story. As the tradition goes, once the ceremony was finished, a whole ox was slaughtered and boiled down in enormous cauldrons — so the king could sit and share a meal with the ordinary farmers who worked the land. One giant pot. Everyone fed. Nothing wasted.

Think about how radical that image is: a king and a farmer, eating the same soup from the same cauldron, on the same day. That communal broth, the story says, was named seonnongtang after the altar itself.

And then time did what time does to words. Over centuries of people saying it fast in everyday speech, seonnongtang slowly wore down — seonnong, seolleong — into the word we use today: seolleongtang. A royal ritual dish, softened by generations of ordinary mouths into a soup for everyone. I find that genuinely beautiful.

But historians don’t all agree

Now, the historical picture here is genuinely divided, and it’s only fair to tell you so.

The Seonnongdan version is the most beloved explanation, but it isn’t the only one scholars put forward. Some trace the name to the Mongolian word sülen, an old term for a meat broth — a linguistic fingerprint left over from the Goryeo era, when Korea had deep Mongol ties. Others say it comes from seolnong (雪濃), meaning “snow-thick,” a nod to that cloudy white color.

So which is true? Honestly, nobody can say for certain, and that’s part of the charm. But notice what every version has in common: a warm, humble bowl meant to be shared as widely as possible. Whichever theory you land on, that spirit is pure Seonnongdan.

🗓️ Plan your visit

When: Seolleongtang is a year-round dish, but it’s at its most soul-warming in the cold months (late autumn through winter) — and many old shops open at dawn, making it a perfect breakfast. For sightseeing, Jongno is loveliest in spring, when cherry blossoms frame the palaces, and in autumn, when the foliage turns.

Getting there: Jongno sits right in central Seoul, so it’s an easy arrival — from Incheon Airport it’s about an hour on the airport railroad into the city, then a short subway hop to Jonggak or Jongno 3-ga station.

Costs: Spring (blossom season) and autumn (foliage), plus the big holidays, are peak — flights and hotels climb and book out early, so reserve ahead; winter outside the holidays is gentler on the budget. The soup itself is a bargain, around ₩12,000–15,000 a bowl.

Where to eat it in old-town Seoul

One a living piece of history right in Jongno, the other a short walk away in the old downtown:

Imun Seolnongtang (이문설농탕) — Korea’s oldest restaurant, in Jongno

Opened in 1904 and widely recognized as the oldest continuously running restaurant in the country, Imun holds Seoul restaurant license No. 1 and carries a Michelin Bib Gourmand. The broth is clean and gently nutty, four generations deep — and it’s right in Jongno, a few minutes’ walk from Insadong and Jogyesa Temple.
- 📍 Address: 38-13 Ujeongguk-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul (서울 종로구 우정국로 38-13)
- 🕒 Hours: Mon–Sat 08:00–21:00, Sun 08:00–20:00 (break 15:00–16:30)
- 🥣 Seolleongtang: ₩15,000 · No parking — use nearby paid lots (5-min walk from Jonggak Station)
Jaembaeok (잼배옥) — a downtown classic since 1933

A short walk toward City Hall, in old downtown Seoul, Jaembaeok has been ladling seolleongtang since 1933 — the unpretentious, decades-deep kind of place where nearby office workers file in daily. Handy if you’re already around Deoksugung Palace or Jeong-dong.
- 📍 Address: 68-9 Sejong-daero 9-gil, Jung-gu, Seoul (서울 중구 세종대로9길 68-9)
- 🕒 Hours: Mon–Fri 10:00–21:30 (break 15:00–17:00), Sat 11:00–15:00, closed Sundays
- 🥣 Seolleongtang: ₩12,000 · No parking — nearest is City Hall Station, Exit 9
One honest caveat: prices and hours are accurate as of July 2026, but small restaurants change both more often than you’d expect. A quick check before you go never hurts.

A few quick questions

Is seolleongtang spicy?
Not at all — it arrives plain and mild, and you steer the flavor yourself with salt, scallions, and kimchi. It’s one of the friendliest Korean dishes for a first-timer.

Is it the same as gomtang?
They’re cousins. Both are boiled beef soups, but seolleongtang leans on bones (hence the milky white), while gomtang uses more meat and comes out clearer.

Can I really eat it for breakfast?
Absolutely. Many of the oldest shops open at dawn precisely because a hot, cheap, filling bowl is a perfect way to start a Korean day.
2026-07-06