streetfood.. an introduction

I haven't really written anything about Korean food, and since I have the vocabulary of a small child when it comes to food. I'm going to rely on pictures to tell the story. I'll just input what I can.


Hodeok (left & right) a Korean pancake filled with brown sugar and cinnamon. These are then fried, and are amazing. Sometimes green tea is added to the batter and creates a green pancake. They are my favourite street desert.


While I don't know the Korean name for this item (pictured right). It is similar to a type of corndog. The hotdogs on the lower left are rolled in the colourful batter and then fried.




(below left) This is the machine that makes a very popular Korean streetfood. It creates a cake filled with red bean paste and half a walnut. The two sides (red bean and walnut) are then pressed together and the cake is cooked. They are served hot, right from the machine, and are super cheap.

Callie (right) is eating some overcooked, waterlogged corn on the cob, and despite the fact that corn remains intact through digestion. This vegetarian delight is one of her favourite foods. 

Dokbokki (right) is a Korean favourite, and is probably the most common street food in the country. It is made from spicy red pepper paste mixed with rice cake and fish cake. Because it is so popular every vendor seems to have their own variation of the dish, some vendors add dumplings, others green onion. While these endeavors to differentiate may sound good, most of the flavours are washed out because of the intense heat from the red pepper paste. Don't eat this food with chapped lips, the burn will make you want to die. 


When I think of Streetfood my mind always wanders to hotdogs, or streetmeat as my father and I called them. While Korea doesn't have Schneider's hot dog carts. It does have it's own version of Streetmeat. Theirs comes in many variaties and flavours. The stickmeat (pictured right) is pretty common. They are basically mystery meat covered in sticky sauces and poppy seads. Some of them are good, and most are lacking in any nutritional value. The sausages (below) are really good, and a tasty latenight snack, the ones on a stick baffle me. I've never tried them, and they appear to be filled with ricecake. I've never tried them, although i'm curious.

Last weekend I found a stretch of kebab carts (above)(not turkish kebabs, western kebabs). They all looked and smelled amazing. The premise: You buy a standard kebab and then pick a sauce from her stand which she modestly covers the offering in. 

The sticks protruding from the broth (Left) have fish cake on them. The fish cake is cooked in a broth, which is free to drink, and doesn't really have a fishy taste. These are popular and commonly served as a side to dukbokki.