FatManSeoul

Fatman never needs an excuse to go snag some eats on the streets . . .but it never hurts to have one anyway.  Recently Fatman, Zen Kimchi, and some friends (including fan favorite Chef Hickey of the W Hotel and X Burger fame!) went in search of the best of winter street food in Seoul.  And if you’re looking for the most diverse yet geographically compact group of vendors, there’s no better place than Jongno.  The stretch of street between Jongmyo Shrine and the Samsung Building (that thing with the alien doughnut on top)  and the streets running off of the main drag have street eats galore.   Join us (virtually) as we greet and eat our way through downtown Seoul.

And what did we encounter there?  Let’s start with the winter weather wonder of fish bread:

Named for the fish-shape of the mold they’re baked in, these sweet pancakes can resemble carp, goldfish, shrimp, or even at one memorable yet disturbing stand in Ssamzie Gil, a pile of poo. A thin sweet batter similar to pancake batter is poured into cast-iron mold over a gas grill. As the batter begins to cook, sweet red bean paste (팥: pat) is added, then the mold is closed and flipped, sealing the filling in the center of a crispy, gooey treat. The pancake base can be any number of flours, but is usually wheat flower. If you’re looking for a different texture or have wheat allergies, look for places that use sweet rice flour (찹쌀: chapssal). Some places have become experimental with fillings as well, and if you hunt around you’ll find sweet potato (고구마: goguma), chou cream (슈크림: shyukeurim), chestnut (밤: bam), and even savory fillings like chili-cheese.

Ready for a Fatman favorite?

Mmmm, 쥐포. While dried and pressed filefish roasted over an open flame may not sound like the sweetest of treats, trust us: this is the epitome of sweet and salty snacking. Forget kettle corn and sunchips – jwipo are where it’s at. Forget the popcorn and pick some up at the carts near Seoul Cinema before you head inside to watch a film. If that’s not caloric enough for you, it can also be deep fried into a crispy treat (shown here alongside deep fried sweet potato sticks)

As long as we’re talking about sea-born street food, let’s take a minute and discuss 오징어:

Delicious squid strips are put on a hot press with yummy butter. Oh, the chewy, gooey joy of it all! But as we trotted along through the town we started longing for something a little more substantial.

These chicken feet in spicy pepper sauce may be chewy and gristly, but they’re also packed with flavor. While chicken feet have very little in terms of actual flesh, they have a distinctive texture and taste from the skin, tendon, and bone that makes them toothsome and gelatinous. The spicy sauce might overwhelm some meats, but it makes a great counterpoint to the chicken feet.
It’s not just chicken feet to greet the street diner though.

Korean cooking has ways to use just about every part of the animals they eat, including sweetbreads, tripe, skin, and brains. Most of these get served up in specialty restaurants, but some of them grill up in the many tents that line the roads. Mixed with some vegetables and sauce, these foods appear later in the evening as more and more boozy businessmen and women pour into the streets looking for the right counterpoint to all that soju they’re metabolizing.

Fried foods and grilled meat and fish are also popular ways to help absorb all that alcohol. Fortifying the stomach helps keep all that business going. Without chicken feet and kimchi pancakes, who knows? The economy of South Korea could grind to a halt.
Some treats are twenty-four hour appropriate though . . .

Walking down Jogno you might wonder, “Who is Kim Dok-soon and why does she own every stand on the street?”
Haha, Fatman made a funny. Gim-ddeok-sun stands serve the holy trinity of street snacks: Gimbap, ddeokpokki, and sundae. The wise will have all three, and perhaps some assorted fried foods mixed together so that everything absorbs the spicy-sweet ddeokpokki sauce.  Those tender, toothy bits of rice cake simmer together with a sugar and pepper powder blend to become something so spicy that the heat in your mouth will have you sweating like it’s the dog days of summer.

The richness of the sundae especially benefits from the ddeokpokki sauce, which helps balance it out and keep it from feeling greasy or fatty. Meanwhile the sundae helps tone down the burn of the chili, as does the rice in the gimbap and the crunch of the twigim gives a textural contrast that can’t be beat. Most places will have squid legs, sweet potato, dumplings, and fritters made of mixed julienne vegetables on the menu.

If all you want is some gimbap, try one of the places that specialize in miniature sized rolls. Refreshing and surprisingly filling, you can try a variety of fillings to discover your ideal taste wrapped in roasted laver and rice.

Virtually every street stall will have at least one food in common:

Behold, the 국물 and 오댕! This fishy broth hits the spot better than anything on a chilly winter day. Each stand will tend to have their own recipe, and so as you eat your way down the road you can sample dozens of different kinds. The richest tasting use crab as the base flavor while others rely on anchovies or other fish, and places work to outdo each other with fancy broths using everything from mussels to pumpkin to jujube in addition to the usual onion, spring onion, and radish that flavor the ordinary broth. If you need to warm up fast, a cup of this is almost always complimentary when you order, no matter what you’re standing and eating. Use it to wash down your ddeokpokki or enhance your odeng. Speaking of which, don’t pass up these tender fish patties – they’re a reliable way to satisfy your craving for something mild but savory. Infused with the complex flavors of a good gukmul, the embracing softness of the patty is a luxurious way to warm up.

But what to do if you need a meal that’s a bit more mobile? No problem! Just grab some meat on a stick (닭꼬치: dalkggochi)!

Chicken skewers come in a wide variety of sauces, both spicy and not, and a range of toppings from mayonnaise to cheese powder to garlic salt. Sticks keep getting longer and longer, up to thirty centimeters! Yowza, that’s a lot of stick! Most are given a quick parboil before being grilled, then sauced, and then given a final run over the coals before the stick of hot, juicy chicken bits is handed over to the customer.
If you’re looking for for some fusion in your food, you could definitely do worse than the hot bar. Made from a mysterious combination of fish paste, vegetables, and flour, this savory mash is formed into hot-dog shapes and then deep fried for a completely portable flavor delivery system.

We have a lot of different wraps, toppings, and fillings to decorate our bar with, including bacon, hot dogs, roasted seaweed, and sesame leaves. Could it get any better? But let’s keep moving. Maybe it’s time for something a bit more basic, a bit more natural, a bit more fundamental. Maybe it’s time for roasted chestnuts.

Floury and hot from the roaster, chestnuts (밤: bam) in Korea are categorized by how they’re cooked and served to you. Some chestnut vendors will roast them over an open fire (just like the Christmas carol) and others tumble them with heated stones. “Nude” chestnuts don’t belong in a brothel – they’re simply peeled for you. Also take a crack at roasted ginko (은행: eunheng) nuts when they’re in season, because those nibbles are a bitter and tender delicacy.
Eventually, everybody’s sweet tooth catches up to them. Fatman and friends are no exception, and soon we were hunting down honeyed foods to sooth the savage beasts. First on our list of must-haves were those deep fried delights, hoddeok (호떡).

These yeasty doughnuts are stuffed with sugar, cinnamon, and often nuts that turn to oozy caramel when they’re fried and pressed on a grill. The crispy-chewy dough surrounds a molten core that’s burn the tongue but delight the tastebuds. Again, each stand will have its own special recipe, using everything from peanuts to black sesame seeds in the caramel, while green tea, corn, pumpkin and vegetables have showed up in the risen dough. If that’s not sweet enough for you though, we have another suggestion.

뽑기 (bbobki)  is one of the most basic and lasting of Korean street foods. All you need to do to make your own is to heat sugar until it begins to burn, stirring all the while. Then dump it out on a cool, smooth surface to shape and decorate as you wish. It’s not as much fun though as getting it made for you on the streets. See if you can eat it and keep the designs intact!

Yeot (엿) is a traditional confection made from boiling steamed rice, corn, or other malted grain. Once the syrup has been boiled long enough, it will solidify when cooled and form a sweet, sticky taffy that ranges from chewy to crunchy in texture. It can be chipped or chiseled into the desired form, and some varieties have extra goodness inside the taffy or the candy itself is rolled in fun bits like peanuts or sesame seeds. The most famous variety is a pumpkin flavored variety from the island of Ulleungdo.
But if you really want to eat to impress, try one of the newer innovations in street sweets: Honey candy.

Ggultarae (꿀타래) stem from royal court cuisine, but have made their way into the lives of the hoi polloi. This might well be the best show in town, as the complicated process of making them is narrated by multilingual chorus as solidified honey is stretched and separated into fine threads by being pulled through cornstarch, then wrapped around nut fillings. Intensely sweet, they have a distinctive texture that slowly turns from dry and almost crackling to gooey and chewy with a finishing bit of crunch from the nuts. Look for these guys mostly along Insadong, although franchises have started cropping up all over the place, so you can try all the different flavors (almond, peanut, and walnut). And a note to the ladies: watch out, the guys making this stuff are all flirts!
Many thanks to Zen Kimchi, Chef Hickey, and the many friends who joined Fatman for this eating excursion. Don’t worry, there’ll be plenty more in the future