With another night in Seoul upon me, I met up with my boy Paul from Tastes Seoul Good to head out on an epic and diverse Korean street food tour on Myeongdong Street! Come along with us as we sample some of the most mouthwatering street foods the city of Seoul has to offer!
Myeongdong Street is another entertainment district. It’s the shopping capital of Seoul and a mecca for street food. It’s centrally located, so it’s very easy to get to. It’s also very trendy and touristy, but I still couldn’t wait to eat!
My first food was a ball of soybeans and fermented honey that’s stretched and pulled into strands and topped with different toppings. Mine was topped with almonds and was insanely good! The flavor was outstanding! It costs 5,000 won/$4.20 U.S. for 8.
Next was mandu, a pan-fried dumpling with pork and veggies inside. It’s garlicky and full of spring onions. It was so good, and I loved the pork inside. I added some soy sauce, which made it even better! It was also very oily!
There were also samples of many varieties of almonds, including fire chicken flavor, wasabi. We tried a hot one, which wasn’t so hot at first, but it hit me a few seconds later. Then I had the wasabi one, which had a sweetness to it. The third one was so good and was like pop rocks mixed with almonds. It’s the best almost in the world! They were so good that I bought a bag for 6,900 won/$5.80 U.S.
From there, we found a stall selling lots of things I’d tried before, like the sundae and tteok-bokki. I wanted to find something more diverse, so we continued on past lots of shops catering to women and the K-Pop audience.
Next, we found Myeongdong Dakgalbi, which is like a Korean hamburger and has rice cakes on it. It’s smothered in lots of stringy cheese and is torched. The beef was super tender and had light spices on top. It gave it a really nice flavor. It was so bomb! Then I added some spicy sweet & sour sauce. The beef costs 6,000 won/$5.04 U.S. Without cheese, it’s 5,000/$4.20, and the pork is 4,000/$3.36. Then it was Paul’s turn to try it with some cream cheese sauce!
Next up was some gimbap. There were 9 varieties and decided on the one with roe while Paul went with the spicy bulgogi. Mine was so good! It had a tiny bit of spice and I loved the sticky rice! It was full of roe with lots of crunchy seaweed around it. It was fantastic! Paul’s contained pork and looked equally amazing! Usually, the gimbap is 6 for 5,000, but you can also get one for 1,000.
Next, I had some egg bun, which is topped with egg, almonds, peanuts, and sunflower seeds. The bun was sweet and felt custard-like. It was good but very filling! The yolk was fully cooked but my favorite part was the sunflower seeds, which added a whole new flavor!
Next was skewered chicken, which cost 4,000 won/$3.36. You have your choice of 6 sauces. I went with the teriyaki. It was crunchy and juicy and was the best chicken teriyaki ever! Then I tried the spicy sauce, which was like the tteok-bokki sauce and was really hot! The barbecue sauce really helped calm down the heat, but the vendor nearly set himself on fire! Then Paul tried the Hydrogen Bomb, which he says was super spicy!
My mouth was still on fire, so we found a juice stand to put the fire out! My juice was super refreshing and the perfect counter to the heat.
Then we headed to Craft Hans, a bar that sells Korean and international beers and food. It had a nice terrace and a garden. Paul went with a citrusy Weizen, while I went with a Hans IPA, which was hoppy and smooth.
What a night! I hope you enjoyed coming with me and Paul to Myeongdong Street! If you did, please give it a thumbs up, leave me a comment, and subscribe so you don’t miss any of my upcoming travel/food videos!
About Me: My name is David Hoffmann. For the last decade, I have been traveling around the world in search of unique culture, food, and history! Since starting David’s Been Here in 2008, I have traveled to over 1,000 destinations in 73 countries, which I welcome you to check out on my YouTube channel, travel blog, and social media sites.
I focus a great deal on food and historical sites, as you probably have seen! I love to experience the different flavors that each destination has to offer, from casual street food to gourmet restaurant dining. I’m also passionate about learning about the local history and culture.
P.S. Thank you for watching my videos and subscribing!
They like nuke this thing, it's hard to pick up.
Okay right there, right there, one more bite.
Good evening everyone this is David Hoffman from David's Been Here in
Yonggung with my friend Paul from Taste Seoul Good.
He makes food videos here in Seoul and he's bringing me here to eat some street food.
This is like another entertainment district.
Lots of bright lights, lots of street food.
I mean literally there's like one, two, three, four, five right next to us.
And yeah I mean what else are we going to do tonight?
Dude I hope you're hungry because Myeongdong is not only the shopping capital of Seoul,
but it is full of street food.
This is the street food mecca of the country.
So you can get everything from the traditional Korean food
to some weird and crazy wacky things.
This is where food trends starts right here in Myeongdong.
So super excited to show you around.
I'm excited.
Let's go eat.
All right let's go man.
A lot of the things here, while they are really good, it is pretty touristy.
So it does get super crowded.
So I usually like to hang out in other parts of the city.
So if I want more traditional street food I'm going to go somewhere else.
But I do come here to check out the new trends because a lot of things are really crazy here.
And it's kind of one of the most creative places in Seoul I would say.
Because some things that you see even on BuzzFeed are going to start right here in Myeongdong.
Yeah so some things like, I'm not sure if you're familiar,
a few years ago there was these huge ice creams.
Foot long ice creams.
Yeah that all started right here.
Crazy.
Yeah so it's definitely a good place to check out.
Don't try to come here too often just because it's not the most authentic place.
But still definitely a fun place.
It's a place you have to check out.
Yeah no I mean I saw it was like top 10 on every list.
Yeah.
And if you're wondering how to get here, take Seoul Station Blue Line North.
I don't know which direction that is.
I know it's north.
It's two stops away.
It's very close.
You can actually almost walk here.
So that's a great thing about it too is it's so central.
So no matter where you're staying, if you're staying in Itaewon area,
if you're staying near Hongdae, all these really cool districts,
it's really easy to get here by bus or by subway.
So this is called Gul Tare.
So Gul means honey.
So this is an old like traditional royal food.
So he takes a ball of fermented honey that's rock hard.
And he's able to just stretch it and pull it into over 16,000 strings.
And then stuffs it with different toppings like almonds and sesame seeds and things like that.
So it's pretty delicious.
Pretty sticky.
But a super traditional trait that you can only get at certain places in Seoul.
Definitely worth checking out I think.
Okay so it's basically 60,000 strings of honey.
What do you put?
Like some nuts?
Almonds.
Oh that's insane.
It's amazing.
It's so good.
I love honey.
This is so unreal.
So soybean with 60,000 strings of honey.
And then he like packs it with almonds.
Amazing.
And it costs 5,000 for 8?
10.
Okay great deal.
All right so first off we're gonna try this.
So this is called mandu.
So it's basically a pan-fried Korean style dumpling.
So it's got a wonton wrapper.
She's grilled it right here on the street which is super cool.
Inside will be pork and different vegetables.
So super excited to try this one out.
Yum.
Personally I love dumplings.
I think Koreans do them so well.
It's a little garlicky.
You got some spring onion in there.
This is good stuff right here.
Yum.
My turn to try the mandu.
Mandu is so good.
Oh yeah.
Some pork.
Onions.
And then what we need is some sauce.
Is that for us?
This one?
I think.
So right there.
Oh yeah.
Some soy sauce but it has something else in it.
I think it has spring onions and some other things.
Oh it's fantastic.
I mean my favorite so far in terms of mandu is the kimchi one because it's spicy.
This is delicious.
A great way to start off our street food tour.
All right so the number one snack food or souvenir item that
foreigners come to Korea and take back to their country are almonds.
So Korea has just come with all these unique almond flavors.
So here are just different samples.
You got everything from seaweed flavor to caramel to tiramisu.
Wasabi flavor which is really interesting.
What is that?
This green one over here.
Oh my god.
Let's try that.
Do you know fire chicken noodles?
I'm sure.
That's this flavor here.
So fire chicken flavor.
So this one should be spicy.
This one's wasabi.
This one's my ultimate favorite.
We're going to try first.
Both of us are going to try the hot one.
Ready?
Cheers.
That's so bad.
Let's wait a second.
That's a Korean thing.
There you go man.
Yeah I know I know.
Koreans trick you.
First like it's not bad.
Three seconds later.
Yeah.
Oh wow.
It's good stuff though.
Oh next is wasabi?
Wasabi.
I love wasabi.
Sweet wasabi.
It's got a good amount of wasabi.
I really enjoy that.
All right next one we're trying is the best one.
He was saying it's the best one.
I tried it twice.
It's incredible.
You gotta trust me.
Cheers dude.
Gambe gambe on this.
Gambe.
So good.
Wow.
Pop rocks mixed with almonds.
It's like almost like a lemon cheesecake flavor.
Good.
It's good stuff.
That's the number one almond in the world.
Probably the most like highly dense calorie almond in the world.
Don't tell me that stuff.
Calories don't count when you're in Korea.
For sure.
I really fell in love with the pop rocks almonds.
So I'm buying a bag.
Six thousand nine hundred.
Pretty good deal.
My daughter's gonna love it.
Hopefully she doesn't hate it the first second she pops in her mouth.
Okay big size.
Twenty thousand for that.
At least one more.
How's it look?
I don't know.
I don't know about that.
Okay so walking through one of these streets.
There's so many streets but one of them has like a lot of vendors that have
the main things that I've tried.
You know you got the sundae.
You have the tteokbokki.
You have the oden.
You have the pancakes.
You have the rice cakes with the sausage.
You have like uh lots of different mandus.
You have the gimbap which is like the rice rolls.
There's so many different things.
This one I haven't seen but I don't know if I can be that adventurous right now.
I just don't have a problem.
Tomorrow I have a flight.
So far we've seen very little street food that's diverse.
It's coming.
But basically this street as you see is lit up.
Like wow it feels like daytime right now but it's night time.
And uh lots of retail again.
So many different shops.
It just really doesn't end.
I feel like everything's catered towards women though.
I haven't seen like men's shops at all.
You?
Really not a whole lot now.
There are a few different department stores.
But yeah it's definitely for ladies, skincare, accessories, things like that.
This place also attracts a lot of the k-pop people.
So they're coming here for like these k-pop guys.
Okay.
All right so next up is called Myeongdong Ddeokgalbi.
So ddeok is literally rice cake.
So this vendor has two different flavors.
He has a beef and a pork.
So we're gonna try the beef one.
So it's basically kind of like a Korean hamburger.
It's got pieces of rice cake in it.
And then he's just blowtorched the hell out of this thing.
This is going to be amazing.
I'm just putting some type of dry thing on it.
I don't know.
It smells awesome.
Next up like Paul said we have ddeokgalbi.
Which is rice cakes mixed up with beef.
And then they throw a big amount of cheese.
He like nooses it with a torch.
Oh my god it's still so hot.
Look at this.
I can't even grab it.
It's like it's not.
Oh right there.
Oh man.
Oh.
Crazy amount of cheese right there.
The beef is super tender.
It is like a burger with no bun.
Love the cheese.
I actually like what he put on top.
It's like very light spices.
Not too spicy but it gives a great flavor.
Oh wow.
The amount of cheese here is crazy.
It's like he like nuked this thing.
It's hard to pick up.
Okay right there.
Right there.
One more bite.
Mmm.
Wow I haven't tried Korean burgers yet.
This is so bomb.
Dude I'm in love with this.
Oh and sorry.
I forgot to put some spice on it.
Forgot about that.
Let's just throw it over here on the side.
See what he's doing right there?
Nuking that thing.
It's like a sweet and sour with some spice.
Super delicious.
Costs $6,000.
If you don't want cheese it's $5,000.
If you want pork over beef it's $4,000.
All right it's a little wild but cops just rode through here.
Other cars rode through here too.
It's a little scary so watch out.
All right so right off this smells amazing.
So I can't wait to break into this.
So there's different sauces.
I know David went with the spicy one.
But I love cheese so I'm going to try the cream cheese.
This is a cream cheese sauce.
So it's dripping with grease.
Oh the cheese kind of getting stuck together.
But all right close enough.
All right.
Yum.
It reminds me of my mom's meatloaf or something like that.
Like very comforting.
What I feel it's like a it's almost like a minced meat.
Because they turn it like it's a burger.
But then they chop it up a lot you know.
So they make it very like thin.
Like you know almost like almost like grains.
It's like grains.
But I mean like very very small pieces.
Get it all bro.
All right here we go.
I think it's seasoned so well.
I'm not a huge fan of that cream cheese sauce.
A little too sweet.
But the burger itself is so good.
Can't really taste the rice cake.
Cheese is getting a little cold.
It's a little hard to chew.
But I mean I think some good stuff right here.
Next up we're going to try some gimbap.
I've tried it like two or three different variations right.
But here they have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine different styles.
I might go with the naan shell.
Which is like basically roe fish eggs.
They also have cheese, tuna, crab sticks, spam.
They have spicy gimbap, they have kimchi, bulgogi.
They have squid.
They have so many different ones.
I just love this.
I'm like a huge sushi guy.
Rice with seaweed and stuffed with some type of beautiful ingredient.
Let's try this one.
What do you want?
I think I have to go for the spicy bulgogi.
You want the spicy bulgogi?
Yeah.
That's here?
Yeah.
That's right there.
All right my man.
So we're gonna try it.
I guess I'll try it first.
Is that okay with you?
For sure.
That was the one I gave you right?
Yeah.
All right.
Oh so good.
I love the sticky rice.
It's like like there was a tiny tiny bit of spice.
Tiny tiny.
But there's a full row.
Beautiful seaweed around it.
Seaweed's a little crunchy.
I just I can eat this all day.
It's like I get like people like french fries.
I can pop this all day over french fries.
It's so fantastic.
All right so I'm gonna try these spicy bulgogi.
So it's a spicy pork.
So it smells really good.
Smells like sesame oil.
That's what they put on the outside of it.
Check it out.
The seaweed on the outside.
It's called gim.
It's just a little bit crispy.
Because they're making it right here.
It's like just the perfect amount of spice.
Pork.
So good.
Such a simple like three ingredient food.
Just hits the spots.
Got a little bit of carbs.
Got a little bit of meat.
Good stuff right here.
The price for the gimbap is six for five thousand.
But if you're like us and you just want one or two pieces.
It's just up to you for one thousand won each.
Pretty good deal.
90 cents.
Fills you up.
I mean if you have six you really get full.
And remember it's not sushi.
It's gimbap.
Next up I'm trying egg bun.
I haven't tried this yet in Korea.
But Paul was telling me this is usually a winter dish.
And besides winter this is the only other place you can find it.
And it looks really nice.
I mean you see the like super thick bun.
On top you get the egg.
What else do you have?
You have almonds, peanut and sunflower seeds.
Okay.
Oh my God.
It's like a...
The bun is very sweet.
Very sweet.
I love the egg.
But I can't wait for the yolk to pop.
It almost feels like it has custard inside.
Like it has that type of sensation you know.
Like an egg custard.
Usually that's in like Macau.
Oh it's really good.
really good. It's gonna be really filling but what can I do guys. The yolk has been
cooked completely. You can see it didn't pop at all. What I like the most is the
sunflower seeds. Give it like a whole different taste here. So you can see
super fluffy. It looks like custard but what I think happened is that some of
the egg rolled throughout right so it has a super soft sensation but at the
same time it's sweet.
And for 2 won, you must try this. Next up we're trying duck kochi which is
basically chicken on a skewer. Lots of chicken. It's 4,000 won so like three
dollars and 85 cents. Something like that. Looks amazing. The guy basically cooks it
right in front of you. He like nukes it again with a torch. Like really cooks it
really hardcore and then you pay. You get it and in front you have six
different sauces. You got teriyaki, rib flavor, barbecue, chili, spicy and
hydrogen. So I'm gonna go with some teriyaki flavor. Just put it on that one
right there. Alright. Oh nice. Oh it's gonna be so good.
Oh my god. It's the best chicken teriyaki ever. The outside is super crunchy.
He really like made it crispy. The inside is super juicy and putting that teriyaki
sauce on top. For the win dude. Next up what should I try? Spicy? I think you gotta go with
the spicy man. Alright. Let's go spice. Like really really spicy.
It's that ddeokbokki sauce. That red chili paste.
Oh my god. It even says it's spicy bomb flavor. Like super spicy. I think I'm gonna need a chili.
Maybe that'll calm it down. What do you think? What do you think will calm it down?
Barbecue. Or maybe cream cheese.
He burned himself again.
That actually helped me out a lot. Barbecue really calmed down the heat. But this chicken is so
good. Like I've told you so many times before KFC Korean fried chicken. Well it's
not fried but Korean chicken is the best in the world. I think I'm gonna try the
teriyaki. He spoke so highly of it. So I'll try the teriyaki sauce.
Wow. This brings tears to my eyes. It's so good.
So I've had a lot of chicken on a stick like this but I've never had it with like
blowtorch on it. I think that's the key. I think this man right here knows what
he's doing. The extra flame on it keeps the juices in. Keeps that outside nice
and crispy.
I gotta give it up for this dude right here. Yeah. He knows what he's doing.
So I want to see who's better at eating the spicy food. So I'm gonna also try the
spicy one. We're gonna see if I can handle it better than David because I
don't know. I think he kind of overreacted a little bit.
We'll see. Another good thing is once you get this part then you don't want to
you know shove it in your mouth. You can cut it off here. Let's try the
hydrogen bomb. There's no joke. I love spicy food. I eat a lot of spicy food in
Korea. I can't talk. You gotta try it man.
You gotta try it. You have a flight tomorrow maybe. Let's try the yangnyeom.
It smells really good. Good.
This reminds me of like the 4th of July. Sitting at home cooking up some chicken in
the backyard with some barbecue sauce. That's what this is. It's like straight-up hunts
barbecue sauce. Okay guys so because my mouth is on fire, I decided to stop and
try to find some juice. Found a place. They have all these fruits for 4,000. You
get one cup. You can either eat it or they'll make it into a quick shake, right?
It's not really a milkshake obviously. It's just a straight juice.
So refreshing. Oh my god. Just like changed my world.
Dude, my mouth is so tingling right now. That was way too spicy. Guys, don't go for
the spicy sauces over there. It's crazy spicy. Oh this is amazing. The best way
to like end the night. But we're not ending it here. We're gonna take you to
somewhere really special right now. But right now I'm gonna enjoy this.
To end this street food tour, we came here to Craft Hands. A craft beer bar
that serves delicious Korean craft beers. They also have international beers. They
have food. It looks amazing. It's like a mini garden outside. Nice terrace. Let's
go have a beer. After all that walking around, I think it's time to kind of cool
down. So I'm gonna go with some beers. I'm gonna go for the Weizen. I think David's going for the IPA.
Yeah, please. Can we have one Weizen and one IPA?
Yeah, so I'm going with the IPA. This is actually a Han's Indian Pale Ale. So it's
basically their version of the IPA.
Cheers!
Smooth. Hoppy, but not like crazy hoppy. Oh this is great. Yours is good? It really is.
It's exactly what you need after all that walking in Myeongdong. All that
crazy spicy street food. It's just what you need to hit the spot. It's a little
citrusy. It's perfect. We did it. We had an amazing street food tour of Myeongdong.
Thanks to Paul from Taste Seoul Good. Oh wow, dude. Thank you so much. It was my
pleasure. I'm so glad you could experience all that street food here in Seoul. There's
so many awesome things. We just scratched the surface, but there's so many
awesome things. What was your favorite? Oh it's a hard one, man. Egg toast and chicken
on a skewer. That chicken was awesome. That dude totally like sacrificed his
hand for us. Yeah, he did. He's a little bossy. Shout out to him, man. Yeah, he like burned his hand. I
thought he lost a finger, then he was like losing an arm. It was crazy. Yeah, I
mean, you know, you have to go explore. It's like an entertainment district.
Things are happening everywhere. So much street food. I think it's the spot in
Seoul that has the most from what I've seen. Just like street food, street food,
street food. A lot of things we didn't eat that I've eaten before like ddeokbokki,
sundae. I mean, just so many things. Lots of rice. Lots of rice cakes. Yeah, there's
just so much. You can get that traditional, you can get that crazy. It's just an overload of
the sense. And then after that we came here to the Cheonggyecheon.
Cheonggye stream. It's a beautiful stream and next to it we have this
like craft beer bar slash restaurant called the Craft Hands. Really nice
ambiance. Lots of locals. I mean, it's basically all locals. Very young. It's
like a garden outside slash terrace upstairs. That's where we sat. Really cool
spot. Good craft beer. And guys, if you love this video, give it a thumbs up.
Comment below. Subscribe to my channel. Subscribe to Paul. It tastes so good.
Because it tastes so good in Seoul. And we'll see you in the next travel food
adventure in Seoul, South Korea. Peace!
