North Korean Food in Seoul - RAINBOW NOODLES + Big Beef Hot Pot in South Korea! (ft. Miss Mina)

Hey everyone, I hope you're having an amazing day. It's Mark Wiens, I'm in Seoul, South Korea. It's a bit of a rainy, cloudy day. Today we are gonna go on a North Korean food tour of Seoul. It's gonna be a new experience for me. I've never had North Korean food. We're gonna eat noodles, we're gonna eat some, the hot pots, North Korean hot pots look incredible. I'm gonna meet up with my friend Mina, who makes really creative videos about food and travel, and we're gonna show you all of the delicious North Korean food in this video right now. What's up, Mina? What's up, Mark? Ying is here with us today, and very cool to meet you, very cool to hang out with you today. We are going to the first restaurant, and actually, okay, just to make it completely clear, we are not in North Korea, we are in Seoul, but North Korea is only about, even like 50 kilometers from Seoul, so it's very close to North Korea, and we've chosen to eat at some restaurants that specifically serve very authentic North Korean food, where the chefs, where the owners are from North Korea. They defected from North Korea. And defected from North Korea, so it's gonna be very authentic North Korean food, and we actually have just walked right to the first restaurant, right? This is the place. We were looking at the camera, so we barely noticed, but I did smell it in my nose. Annyeonghaseyo, annyeonghaseyo. Oh yeah, over here is good for light. Like the brothy, warm air from this restaurant smells so good, and what's interesting about this restaurant is the owner, he actually defected to South Korea. He's originally from North Korea, but he was a chef at one of the most well-known restaurants in Pyongyang, so he's not only just opened a North Korean restaurant in Seoul, but he's actually a chef. He's knowledgeable about North Korean food, and he's an expert on North Korean food. Oh, the soondae, you have to eat the soondae here. That's what I read, yes, the soondae. Okay, we got, what did we get? We got soondae, cucumber beef, two types of noodles. Okay, let's do that. Thank you. Normally in Korea, you're like, where are the utensils? Where are the chopsticks? Look at the side of the table, and baboom, right there. The convenience. I mean, I've eaten some of the dishes before, but these are even different presentation, different style. Oh, it looks refreshing. It looks just glistening with deliciousness. One of the dishes I wanted to try here is the cold beef. I think it's cold, right? It feels chilly, yeah. Yeah, it almost looks like more of a salad than a stir fry. At first, I thought it might be like a stir fry, but it looks like more of a pickled salad with beef. We also got a plate of soondae. Blood sausage. Blood sausage, one of my favorite things to eat. I love it in Korea. There's also usually glutinous rice inside. That's what the little white specks are, a combination of glutinous rice and fat. They really, oh, yeah, wow. Oh, that is awesome. I didn't even know it was. I think they're gonna pour something on there. Pour something over it? We're gonna mix it up like a bibimbap. Oh, and then we're gonna mix it up. This is one dish that it actually looks way better in person than in the photo, and the photo looks amazing, too, but I thought it was just gonna be a bowl of noodles, but she brought out, it's a golden tray with this, it's like a fistful of buckwheat noodles in the center, topped with egg, and then surrounding it, you can see cucumber, you can see daikon, you can see peppers, you can see, I think those are chrysanthemum leaves. Slices of beef, egg, bell pepper, tomato, and red cabbage, and then a red, peppery-looking broth. So she told us that we have to, to eat this, we gotta mix everything up, so. Let's do it. We have to do some tug-of-war here. Wow, that's like a tight bundle. That is a tight bundle of noodles. And these are buckwheat noodles, probably with some starch in them as well. Wow, I think I might separate my chopsticks. Yeah, oh, oh, I just sprayed. I think that's stirred enough. Oh, no, I went way over the edge. You think that's good enough, or should we keep on mixing? Okay, there's a little bit of meat, but it's really mostly vegetarian. You know, it feels like a very spring-like dish. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Because it's also chilly. And also, it is a cold, I mean, just like the other noodles, it is a cold, icy broth dish as well. It's always good to rehydrate, though. I'm gonna get some of that, luckily that beef is right there on the top, some of the chrysanthemum leaves, and then some of the noodles. Oh, oh, wow. It's really, really refreshing, because of the coolness, because of the vegetables. It's also light, nothing very strong in flavor. The noodles are not that chewy, not that chewy, not overly chewy. Yeah, this is not that chewy, so from what I'm told, this would be more original. Okay, yeah, I just wanna taste that broth first, though, to get the full broth flavor. Okay, if you taste it on its own, it has a lot more, you get more of that flavor. It's still not extremely pungent or very strong, but it's really soothing, it's cold. You taste a little bit of, kind of like a, almost like a pickled briny taste to it. It almost tastes like there's a little bit of vinegar in there. Uh-huh, you could drink it, for sure. Yeah, you know what? If you swallow the bottle. That could be a beverage, yeah. Yeah, it could be a beverage. That could be a beverage, for sure. We're gonna move over to the sundae, and yeah, this is beautiful-looking sundae. I love how they arranged it with the sauce in the middle. That complexion, the mix, the blood, but it's really at least like 80% rice and fat, I think. First bite of sundae without the sauce, just to taste the full flavor of the sundae, and then after that, the next bite will dip. That is the mushiest sundae I've ever had. It's so glutinous, but you don't taste the blood at all. Like, it's so pure-tasting. Oh, that's incredible. It's the most moist sundae I've ever had. It's so moist. It's like goo almost, altogether, with the rice, because there's so much rice in there. With that sauce. But you know what? It tastes good by itself, too. You don't need the sauce. You're right. Yeah, but some people who need more flavor, definitely. Either way, but that is, the texture of that sundae is just unbelievable. It is so good. It's so, it's like addictive. Once you start eating that, you're gonna eat the entire plate. You'll eat the entire plate by yourself, for sure. It's amazing. The wheel of sundae. How many times? Just once? However much your heart says. I would say four, or two. Two is fine. One cut that way? Yeah. One cut this way? Yeah. Because they really wrap the noodles into a bundle, yeah? Super tight. Cool. So now the noodles are very short. Hope you don't mind. Maybe it made it harder to eat. Not chewy. No, the same noodles. And again, it's very light in flavor. It's more gentle than this guy. Because this one, it was like sour. It's not sour? No. But it's kind of like meaty. You taste an undertone of meatiness, but at the same time, it's not a sharp meatiness. It's like a back of your mouth meatiness. It's a cuddle. It's really good. That could be a beverage as well. Oh yeah. And this is the slices of beef with, I guess it could be cucumber. I think it is cucumber, right? I think so. There's some carrots in here. The cucumber really soaked up the sauce in that. Beautifully sour, but light and refreshing at the same time. The cucumber almost looks cooked, but at the same time, it's crunchy. I love kimchi in every shape, form, and vegetable. Okay, back to the tray. That's an amazing broth. And I love how it's not too salty either. We got here right as they opened, and we were the first ones here actually, but now as we're leaving, the entire restaurant is pretty much full. And they said it was slow today, especially because of the rain, but that was really like, thank you. Kamsahamnida. I don't know if she heard me or not. That was very, very unique, and I've been to Korea many times, but that was totally different, especially that rainbow noodle dish. Something totally different that I've never tried before, but probably my favorite dish was the soondae, that blood sausage. That's the best I've ever had. We're in a little bit of a time constraint for the next North Korean restaurant because it's quite far away, and they close at 2 p.m., it's already 12.30, so we're gonna jump in a cab. Oh, they're getting a cab right now. We got lucky, because it's rainy, so more people wanna ride taxi, but one just appeared in front of us. Yeah, and you grabbed it. Nicely done. We're fine, and then we can just also have just this point. I guess it's like that with everything. We're passing by Gyeongbokgung. Oh, this is Gyeongbokgung. Yes, we have been here a few years ago. Okay, that was a good 30-minute rest or so. Digestion period. Digestion period, and we're almost to the next restaurant. I think this is the spot right here. It's down a little neighborhood alley. It is a really like, a building with character. The bricks, the red bricks, except they're kind of a little blackened, and I know inside it's also very cool. This place is called Hadan. Was that correct? Hadan. Another thing I love about Korea, Korean restaurants being in Seoul is it can be cold. It's not even that cold outside, but somehow just walking into a restaurant immediately this warmth just overwhelms you. And another thing, yeah, another thing is I love whenever you take off your shoes at a Korean restaurant, that's a sign that it's gonna be good. In my experience so far. Oh, you're vlogging already. I think the camera should be on. Very sad, but we came here planning to eat this hot pot of mandu dumplings, but unfortunately the owner said they don't make it on the weekend because it's time-consuming, and because they're busy all the time on weekends, so they don't serve it on the weekends, unfortunately. So we're gonna miss that dish, but they do still have, what they really specialize here is the mandu. Let's just order everything else that they have. Apart from that hot pot. Oh yeah, those are the mandu and the soup. Oh, it smells so good. Wow, can you tell the smell? Nokdu jijim. Jijim. Okay, I'll give you A plus. It's kind of like that fried oil aroma, plus maybe cabbage in there too. Maybe, possibly, vegetables. Bean sprout, definitely bean sprout. Yes. Eh. Right as we were about to dig into the pancake, the mung bean pancake, he brought over the cold, this is cold so it can wait, but we gotta eat that mung bean pancake fast, immediately, right now, before it gets too, before it cools down, right? Okay, so the mung bean pancake, and I saw them just kind of like, just kind of like tear into it, right? Just kind of break it apart. Oh yeah. Wow. Perfect for a rainy day like this. So warm and cozy in your mouth, and crispy. And then you taste the inside, because it's mung bean, it's not flour, it's kind of grainy, like beany. Beany. Mung beany. So good. I think it will be better with the sauce even, because it's kind of, it's not that salty actually, the actual pancake. That brings out the flavor. Oh wow. It's a little, it's salty and sour, the sauce. And you know what? The second piece of head is even crispier. Let's move into the mung bean soup next, because this is also cooling off very rapidly, and we don't want those to swell up. Just rehydrate. Let's rehydrate. Rejuice it. Rejuvenate it. Oh, let's put some pepper on there. And there's something in here too, like a, is that meat? Oh, that's meat, right? If I want to, thank you. It's better to go in with a spoon or a chopstick. I'm just gonna rehydrate my dumpling. Is it pork or chicken? It's kind of, like a light meat. I feel like it's pork. But what's amazing about that, is the meat is so soft and tender and mixed with so many vegetables. It tastes homemade. It tastes pretty clean. Definitely. And also, I do like that the wrapper's quite thin as well. Thanks for watching. But I want to follow that with some of the broth. I think it is beef. You can taste a little beef in that broth. But again, very light, almost a little bit thick from the beef as well. And then just with those green onions with the pepper in there too. That's awesome. That's deeply meat, deep meat flavor right there. That's good. That's perfect. Perfect for winter. It's so good. Okay, we have also a plate of just the dumplings without the soup as well. Well, they were once moist. But now the steam evaporated. Okay, but they are still, they're plump. And what's good about these dumplings is that they're like just solid meat on the inside. I'm just gonna kind of drop her in and roll it. The roll method. You know what I noticed? When you eat, you take the whole thing. And I always do that. It tastes good with the sauce. It is on the mild side, but I like it like that too. Because then the sauce like really brings out the flavor. That really elevates the taste of the entire mandu. I think it's pork. The daikon kimchi, it's so good. And aged maybe. Okay, we've got the noodles to try. Beautiful sesame. And you can smell those sesame seeds as he brought them over. Look at these noodles. They're amazing. The texture, the thickness. Start with a good chopstick full. It is okay to slurp, right? And immediately, you get that aroma of sesame seed. Freshly toasted sesame seeds in your mouth. The noodles have this amazing, again, they're not that chewy, but just enough chewiness to give you some real texture. Not like a bouncy elasticity. It's a nice, smooth texture. Wow, these noodles are incredible. And then follow that with kimchi. This is a bite I just have to, have to have. Gotta balance a little bit. Okay, now I gotta get this to my mouth fast. Yes! I love that face. And the juiciness of the mandu and the soup. They just absorb that broth. Addictiveness. Next step, a kimchi. Oh, that roll. That makes it. We're talking with the owner now. So her parents were born and raised in North Korea, but then they moved down here during the Yu-Gi-Oh? She was born here in South Korea. She was born here. But her parents are from North Korea. Yeah, originally. Okay. They're Korean. Oh, Chinese though. Half Chinese. Oh! Oh, you have the camera set up here. Oh yeah, I'm gonna do a little ending. Ah, putting on my shoes scene. Thank you. Oh, okay. Thank you. Oh, no, no, no, no, it's okay, it's okay. When we first came in here, we weren't sure if they were okay with us. When we first got there, the gentleman working there, he was like happy grumpy. He was saying grumpy things with a smile. But then the mom who, and she's the owner too, right? She's the owner and the cook? I think so. I'm not sure if she's owner, owner. She's really cool. She was so friendly in the end that she actually put my backpack on for me. Yeah, I saw that. She let me go out with putting my backpack on and then she offered us an umbrella coming out here. Man, that was great. And really good food, okay. Okay, but we're on our way to go to one more place, one North Korean restaurant. And this place has this amazing looking herbal pot of bubbling herbs, it looks like. Oh, no, it's okay though. Kamsahamnida, kamsahamnida. Oh, that's awesome. She's so nice, auntie, that she wouldn't let us leave without taking some umbrellas. But then she did say that these are umbrellas that customers left behind, which is great. Anyways, thank you. Yeah, she is awesome. What do you call a Korean auntie again? Is it like a? Ajumma. Ajumma, okay, that's polite to call. Yeah, typically. Do they have to be a certain age? Older. Just older than you or older like? If they're much, much older, you call them halmoni in most cases. So like for her, is it appropriate? Ajummani. Ajummani? Yeah. That's like auntie with respect. Ajummani. Ajummani, ajummani. Ajummani, ajummani, she was. Yeah, she is amazing. Good to be back in Seoul. We're on our way to Gangnam. Oh, yay. Good. Just made it to Gangnam. We're going to a restaurant. They specialize again in naengmyeon, the noodles, but they also have this amazing beef perilla leaf herbal hot pot, which looks extraordinary. There it is. North Korean meal number three. Immediately as you sit down, she serves you some of the, it's not broth, but it's the water that the noodles were boiled in, right? Oh, yeah. Naengmyeon. Let's get the big one. The big size. Big size. She was asking, can you finish that? Yeah, we're hungry. My naengmyeon is good. Okay. Thank you. I said you eat a lot. Oh yeah, smells noodley. Ta-da. Watch out, don't burn your tongue. That does taste like liquid noodle. First of all, this is one of the most beautiful looking like selections of ingredients on top of a hot pot that I've ever seen, but it comes in this almost like a crown of a, and that feels like copper as well, and like a crown of a pot on a stand over the fire. In a tray, this looks like that same tray, and then you can just see like layer upon layer of beef at the bottom. There's enoki mushrooms in there, there's eggs, there's green onions, looks like there's maybe some chrysanthemum leaves, greens as well, and then topped with like a bouquet of perilla leaves, I think, perilla leaves, and then the entire sauce is in the center. Oh, she's gonna mix it up? Oh, that smell. What she just poured in is the naengmyeon yuksu, and that's the meat broth. So it's different than the noodle broth? Yeah, different, different. So that is like the meat broth, okay. This is like noodle water. Noodle water, meat broth. We've got some liquids, and then she came over and added more meat broth to like complete that infinity edge once again, and now it's just sizzling away. I'm gonna start with a piece of beef, dip in the sauce. Gotta dip in that sauce. Oh, that's gonna be hot. Oh wow, yes. That was like pure beef. You know what, it's softer than the other beef we had earlier. When she was mixing it, she dug so far down. This is like solid meat. There's tons of meat in here. With some of the consant among greens maybe? Oh, that's hot. Don't burn yourself. Oh yeah, that's some hot beef. Again though, it's not overly salty. It's not like an explosion of flavor. It just tastes like warm and comforting and home cooked is what it tastes like. It's not like an over the top flavor, but it's amazing. It tastes natural. It does. I think it's the chrysanthemum leaf in there. Oh yeah, you get the flavor of the leaf in there. Right? And also the perilla leaves maybe. And again, she did say it was a meat broth. And the sauce is also very mild, but. Okay, I need a bite of kimchi. And that completes the bite. That one is a bit aged. It has a good sourness to it. The other dish that we got is some of the steamed pork. And you can just see those layers. That is the biggest layer, then meat. And this is almost like there's some cartilagy bits in there as well. It's so tender. I like the fat melts in your mouth. Plus the meat. Plus there's these little white cartilagy bits that kind of crunch in your mouth at the same time. Dip my next piece in the ssamjang. Fermented soybean paste with gochujang. Oh yeah. Oh wow. It does. Because the pork is a little plain on its own, but in that sauce, that's like the fermented soybean umami. It's almost cheesy because of that aged process. And then the final dish we got is the naengmyeon. Wow, that's like a blob. That is a blob of noodles. So strong. It's a lot of noodles. Muscular noodles. And maybe probably because they sat here for a little while as well. We didn't rehydrate them fast enough. Maybe it's not that true because it's breaking apart easily. It looks like a- This one radish, this one could be apple maybe. What do you think? Radish apple? Anyway, we'll just try them both together. I can't break off. Wait, one more time. I'm gonna have to just bite. I lost my whole blob of noodles. Yeah, they're not really chewy at all. It's full of noodles. It's very light. That's the lightest one we've had. Very light, very mellow. The other ones had more complexity. This one's more simple. Very simple. Very simple, yet again, soothing and comforting. It's so hard to explain because it's not plain, but it's not very flavorful at the same time. Time to get back to the beef hotpot. Oh, this breeze feels so nice. Yeah, this beef hotpot, it will warm you up. Wow. You just start eating it and the warmth just keeps going down. And you feel like sweating a lot. I'm gonna do a little re-stirring action of the pot to get those fully saturated pieces. Okay, that's good. Oh, yeah. Archeological dig with Mark. I'm gonna get a good look at this sauce. It's kind of chunky. It looks amazing. That sauce is a little bit sweet. Not really too spicy. Maybe a lot of onions in there. But also a little horseradish or wasabi. Wasabi, that's it. Wasabi. A little slices of raw garlic to go with it, too. That is a lot of meat. So, how are we gonna finish this? So much meat. Like, it's like kilos of meat. I'm gonna dip into that fermented bean sauce. Happy birthday. Oh, thank you. Awesome. I'll take it. What color was that? Is that apple or pear? This one? It's a radish. Oh, a radish, okay. Oh, yeah. That's wonderful. It's light, it's refreshing, it's crunchy. I'm definitely getting the meat sweats. I'm in the middle of a breakout right now. That was a good one. Can I get a garlic, please? Oh, it's gone. Oh, no. The meat sweats are, they're really kicking in right now. Did get a little bit of the beef for takeaway. Couldn't finish all that beef. That beef just kept on growing. Anyway, we've come to the end of this North Korean food tour of Seoul. Mina, what did you think? I enjoyed it very much. I don't feel like over-sugared up or anything like that. I felt like a lot of the stuff we ate felt very natural and homemade, and it made you feel good and warm. For sure, and like we were talking about as we were eating some of the modern Korean food where they add a lot of kind of sugary pastes, whereas this food was very, very simpler in flavor. And again, it wasn't bland, but it was on the plainer flavor side. I'll have all of the information in the description box, all the restaurants we ate at. And I wanna say a big thank you to Mina for joining me, for helping us, for eating with us. So awesome. She makes amazing videos, especially I love her creativity about food and travel. And her, yeah, she's a lot of fun. Thank you, Mina. Thank you, Mark, for inviting me and emailing me yesterday, 24 hours ago. Amazing how we get together. Yes. Very cool. I'll see you again in Korea or Thailand. Would be awesome. Who knows where. Go check out Mina's videos. Again, I'll leave her channels in the description box below. And thank you again for watching. Say a big thank you for watching. Please remember to give this video a thumbs up, leave a comment below, and if you're not already subscribed, click subscribe and also click the little bell icon so that you get notified of the next video that I publish. Thanks again for watching. Goodbye from Seoul. Thanks again for watching. See you on the next video. Bye! Annyeong! Okay. My arm. Oh man, that was a workout on my arm.