we're in Seoul, South Korea at Namdaemun market the biggest traditional outdoor
market in Korea, you can find everything under the sun at Namdaemun but we are
not here to shop, this video is all about eating, we're taking you on a massive
street food tour all around Namdaemun market let's go and find out what there
is to eat here
Namdaemun market is a well-known street food destination in Seoul we are going
to be eating a tonne of street food in this video and you have to check out
what's on offer at this market, I'm Thomas and I'm Sheena and we're Chasing
a Plate, we hope you're hungry, let's eat!
we're waiting in line for our first snack, savoury hotteok, hotteok is a type of Korean
deep fried donut just stuffed with a filling, it is minus 4 degrees today in
Seoul so this is going to be the perfect breakfast for us
I have got this hot, golden crispy hotteok in my little hands and it is a thing
of beauty look at how crispy the dough is but it's
also still really soft so you can get both savoury versions and sweet versions
of the hotteok, this is the savoury version and it's been filled with
vegetables and when he was handing it to us he actually basted it with what
looked to be a type of fruit sauce so in the pot there was an apple there were
dates there were peppers so I think it's gonna give it a really nice tang I've just
got to give this a bite and see what's inside
Wow so you can see the dough there is really aerated, it's really crispy, really
soft and um very light and then inside it's just stuffed with all sorts of
vegetables so we've got onion, there's carrot in there, chives and also
some glass noodles, I'm gonna give it another go
oh this is insanely good, it is a must eat the dough is quite oily but not stodgy
at all, and then those vegetables are just really flavoursome and that glaze that he
basted over the top just gives it a nice sweet tangy touch, this is insanely good
next up we're gonna grab an eomuk which are these sticks you can
see sticking out of the steaming hot broth at this stall you'll see them all
over the market and they should be good to combat this freezing weather
alright I got a giant skewer of eomuk so this is a fish cake and look at
the steam coming off it from this hot hot broth and it reminds me of an
intestine from the look of it but it's not at all
it is just a big incredible looking fish cake, let's try some you can see it's
actually the reason it's all bendy is because it's a flat fish cake which has
been folded over and over and over and then put on the skewer so that's why it
has this bendy look let's try some
mmm mmm oh it's really soft
really subtle fish flavour, really soft fish cake not spongy not rubbery at all
super easy to eat almost like a a sodden piece of white bread, just really soft
let's try some of the broth because there was a bit of a spice going on there oh yeah
the broth is spicy it has a sort of a a miso type taste I don't think it has any
miso in it but it's, it's got an earthiness to it like there's some sort
of root vegetables in there to give it that real base and come down here I see
there's a whole lot of looks like soy and chilli so I'm gonna grab this little
paintbrush and paint some of that onto it just to give it an extra kick so just
got a thin layer of that chilli and soy sauce
oh it's a little bit of a sweet soy sauce so actually didn't add much spice
because there was quite a bit of spice in this and I see in the broth over
there there are some big chillies sitting in it so this has spice but the soy
sauce just added a little bit of a sweetness this is perfect, dip it in
there, steaming hot warm you up on these cold days in Seoul
I've just spotted our next snack over here mandu or dumplings both steamed and
deep-fried versions let's go and grab one
the team at the stall are doing a
really brisk business there are dumplings, there's steamed bread, there's
buns we've just cozied up in the corner of
the stall with our little bag of dumplings so we got some meat mandu as well as
some kimchi mandu, this is the meat dumpling and look how huge it is, so it's
a wheat dumpling wrapper or dumpling skin and on the inside is the meat
filling, let's give it a big old bite and see what it tastes like
the dumpling skin is quite sticky almost a little bit gluggy
and then the inside you can see that it's filled with a really loose
pork mixture, there's some chive, some onion I can taste a little
bit of sesame seed and the pork's actually quite peppery in flavour that
is really good, really tasty
besides eating dumplings everyone is also washing it down with little cups of
this broth that has come from the eomuk so the fish cake and everyone's
holding their hands around these steaming hot cups to warm them so I've
got the kimchi dumpling here the kimchi mandu, so inside it should be
filled with fermented cabbage so let's give this a go
hmm alright so it's not just kimchi, inside there's some meat as well so
there's some pork, some spring onions and then you've got the kimchi which is the
cabbage and there's also the glass noodles in there as well this is really
delicious because it's got a real spicy kick from that kimchi that is really
tasty
this market is raging with people and there are so many food options next
up I want to find one of my favourite Korean street food snacks tteokbokki
let's go and find some of that
we have the tteokbokki so these are rice cakes so these long thin cylindrical
things are the rice cakes and the red orangy sauce that they're covered in is
gochujang sauce which you will find everywhere in Korea so it should be a
little bit spicy and maybe some sweetness and then we've got some fish
cake in here as well he cut that into it and dumped it all in the sauce and so
that's the same sort of fish cake as I had on the skewer before with the broth
let's try some tteokbokki so got one big steaming rice cake
mmmm oh, oh that sauce has a tiny spice but it's
really sweet, oh oh that's so good sorry it's really
hot that's why I'm just trying to chew it down, I'm gonna have a little bit more
the actual rice cake's a brilliant texture, mmm it's quite squishy almost like
glutinous almost like it bounces off your teeth hmm
and then the sauce just has a perfect spice it doesn't blow your socks
off it's just the perfect, perfect little bite that plain rice flavoured rice cake
and then that sauce let's grab some of this fish cake so you can see he's cut
them up into quite nice little bits so we've got fish cake also covered in the sauce
just like before the texture is perfect so soft
no chewiness that goes really well with the rice cake another perfect snack and
another good little thing to hold onto to warm your hands
Namdaemun market has a couple of food alleys which are famous for serving
particular dishes we have come to kalguksu alley which is knifecut handmade
noodles to get a hot bowl of kalguksu let's go
there are a number of stalls side by side in kalguksu alley and
everyone will be vying for your business, grabbing your arm, jostling you, pulling you to
come to their stall but just, they're all the same, make sure you don't put off and just sit down at one of
these amazing looking stalls there's just fresh kimchi and lettuce and pickles lined up on
the counters and we've just sat down and ordered our kalguksu so this is the kalguksu so it's made
up of quite a watery broth, it's an anchovy broth and then you've got the
hand cut or knife cut handmade noodles here they're a wheat noodle and then there's
all sorts floating around, there's some chives, some fish cake, there's dried
seaweed in there, there's some sesame seeds and then there's a dollop of
gochujang or that red pepper chilli sauce so what I'm gonna do is just give
it a big ole mix up and get all those flavours
mingling, let's just try that broth
ohhh so it's a anchovy broth and you can really taste that strong fish flavour
it's got a really intense hit from that seaweed as well, let's just give the
noodles a go, they look so slippery
they have a lot of bounce, a lot of texture, they're really good, I'm just gonna get a little bit of that
fish cake and some noodles
it's really simple and really clean tasting it is a really hearty, filling bowl of noodles, those chives also add a fresh zing
now we also got some side dishes so we got some banchan so some greens which
I think have a bit of chilli in there and then also some kimchi so the
fermented cabbage in the chilli sauce, we've got some soup so it's got some
greens in here and then also this little bowl of
naengmyeong which is a cold buckwheat noodle dish and it's got some sesame
seeds, some strips of cucumber, there's some radish
I think in there or some pear I'm not quite sure and then half a boiled egg oh
I think there's also some strips of fish cake in there let's just give this a go
this is the bibim naengmyeon which is in a like a spicy sauce
the buckwheat noodles are really chewy, really thin strands and then
that spicy sauce is a little bit tangy it's not too spicy it's quite
fresh tasting especially with that hit of cucumber, this is such a great meal
we've ordered a bibimbap as well which is a cold rice dish this one looks
like it's got a little bit of barley in there as well, we've got an array of
vegetables so I can see lettuce, chives maybe some pear, there's a whole lot of
sesame seeds there's these big juicy looking sprouts or like mung bean
sprouts, the gochujang sauce all over there and then oh look at it actually I
can't see anything else so let's do the most important part with this and that is
mixing it up so I'm just gonna grab a spoon as well and we'll give it a big mix up oh
look at all the colours and you get that sauce coating everything break up
that rice and get it all into one, right let's go for a big mouthful so I want to
get a whole lot of that rice, a bunch of those vegetables, let's go
because the vegetables are all fresh they have so much crunch and that sauce
almost has an alcoholic taste it's kind of like spicy but tangy and it kind of
tastes like a really mild whisky, I'm gonna have another big bite I've got a
huge bit of lettuce hanging off the bottom there
that was a big bit of lettuce, it's really good it's more about the sauce
and the vegetables, the rice isn't a strong flavour it's just a nice texture
but the more you mix it up and get that sauce onto all those vegetables
that's a beautiful bowl of food and I love watching them make this dish so
it's all just lined up on this tiny little counter that we're sitting
at and they're just throwing in ingredients, throwing bowls in front of
people everyone's sitting shoulder to shoulder
this is a really neat experience in Korea
kalguksu alley was awesome, it was bustling there was so much going on but
most importantly the food was delicious now we're off to find something sweet
we've had a good look around for something sweet but we can't find
anything that really takes our fancy most of the stuff here is savoury but as
you can see behind us lots of stalls start sitting up at around four o'clock
so the lanes of the market are getting much busier now with street carts so
there's plenty of good options all through the day and particularly in the
afternoon but all the ones we had were earlier in the day and they are all
absolute classic dishes you will find here at any time that was one heck of a
good day of eating, thank you so much for watching and remember to head down below
hit that subscribe button for heaps more food videos, hit that thumbs up button if
you enjoyed the video and we will see you next time, annyeong