Street Food in Meyongdong

Kaylin

One of the unique things that Korea has that America really does not have is the abundance of “street food” vendors, you can find these places everywhere in Seoul especially in Meyongdong. Meyongdong is known as the shopping district here in Seoul, so it is regularly visited by many tourists. You can find places like Innisfree, Etude House, and many other Korean brand name stores. I like going to Meyongdong as it has a very modern city feel and there is plenty of shopping and entertainment places. On this particular night a friend and I ventured to Meyongdong to try the street food there. Among the things we tried was Cheese Tteokbokki, a traditional rice drink called shikhey, Kimchi jeon, Gyeranbbang, and a pastry filled with Nutella and a 32 cm frozen yogurt cone.

First was the Cheese Tteokbokki, Tteokbokki is a traditional food here in Korea. It is simply a rice cake covered in a special sauce. This particular one also had cheese in it for an added flavor. I really liked this Ttokbokki because unlike some others I have had, the rice cake in this one was not too hard to eat, sometimes they get overcooked and become brittle. The sauce they had it in was also very good as it was not too spicy but not plain either, so I quite enjoyed it.  I would give it an 3/5 rating

The next food we tried was a Gyeranbbang, bread that has had a whole egg in the cooked in the center (boiled egg) and then covered in a raw egg and set to cook. I liked the parts of the Gyeranbbang that was the bread and the cooked raw egg (it tasted similar to French toast), but the boiled egg in the center tasted very odd to me and I didn’t like it as much as the other parts, but it is very filling and another traditional street food. This one I would only give a 2/5 rating.

We then took a break from savory and moved to sweet and got a cute little pastry filled with Nutella. I had this once before during a previous visit to Meyongdong and it was pretty good. I am also very biased towards Nutella and think anything it is in is automatically 10 times better. Nutella is life. This one is defiantly deserving of the 5/5 rating.

By this time, I was feeling thirsty and had heard of the traditional rice drink called shikhey. It is a cold drink, so I thought it would be refreshing after all the hot food. I was wrong the temperature was refreshing but the taste not so much. It just was not my cup of tea, but many other people liked it. I always encourage people to try things at least once. Due to this weird taste it gets a 0/5 rating. Sorry Shikhey.

Next was the Kimchi jeon. A traditional Korean pancake with kimchi in it. It was very delicious, and the portion size was huge, I couldn’t finish it. The only thing I would have wanted to change was the fact that it did not seem to be cooked all the way, I have had Kimchi jeon before and it was crispy all over, while this one was only crispy on the edges, but different people do things different ways. Besides that, it was very tasty, so I give it a 4/5 rating.

To end things on a sweet note we got frozen yogurt in a cone and it was 32 cm high. It was a lot of yogurt, but unlike the frozen yogurt at home I thought the one here was more refreshing and tasteful. I would give it a 4/5 rating.

Although I tried quite a few things there were still tons of other street food. I hope to go back to try Tteok Galbi (Korean beef patty), Hot Bar (similar to an American corndog but with fishcake), Chapssal Donut (a dessert), and Hotteok. So hopefully soon I can make it back to Meyongdong and try these things. I may have to make two more trips to get all of them in.