They look like squashed hockey pucks bathing in barely bubbling oil, but the people queueing in the cold suggest this pancake tastes better than it looks. And for once, the masses are right. Hotteok, 호떡 (often pronounced hodduck), Korean pancakes filled with a combination of sugar, nuts, seeds and cinnamon are an unlikely winter warmer. They’re sold on the street year-round, but as the cold intensifies, the hotteok stands multiply.

Mugwort hotteok, Yeonsinnae.

Each stand has it’s own variation. I’ve heard of savoury, japchae filled versions, but sweet is most common. They can be fried on a hotplate with plenty of oil, the yeast-based dough kept in check with a special hotteok-shaped squashing device, resulting in a hot, greasy and pleasantly chewy pancake. Or, they’re baked oil free in a special hotteok mold making an borderline-wholesome, flatbread style snack. Either way, the process of cooking the dough heats the filling, molten sugar mixing with spices and nuts, at once appetizing and a potential hazard to mouth and fingers.

The variations are endless. Dough can flavoured with 쑥 (ssuk, mugwort) or green tea or made with corn or other grains. It can be thin and crunchy, thick and yeast-risen, greasy, chewy, soggy or crisp. The filling presents even more possibilities.

Mugwort hotteok, Yeonsinnae.

An elderly husband and wife team set up shop in Yeonsinnae, northwestern Seoul, selling traditional style 쑥호떡 (mugwort hotteok), 500₩ (~40c AU) apiece. It’s mid afternoon and although the queue is short it’s slow-moving. People order seven pancakes, ten, and twelve. The man serves, adds clear oil to the hotplate while the woman sections off pieces of sticky green tinged dough. She flattens them with greased fingertips and fills them to bursting with a simple brown sugar, cinnamon mix. Each filled ball  makes its way from the cooler extremes of the hotplate forwards. First they’re left, still spherical, for the yeast to activate and rise. Then, they’re moved forward and squashed flat with a special hotteok sized implement. They’re oiled and flipped, forever moving forward, towards the hungry crowd.  The man fills paper bags and hands them across the hotplate, or wraps single orders in used paper squares, for immediate consumption. These hotteok are dangerously full of sugar, but the herbal chewy pancake offsets any prospect of cloying. A few bites in and it’s clear why the orders are so large here.

Hotteok, Myeongdong.

Warming, moorish and cheap, it’s tempting to rejoin the queue. But, the Korean winter is long and there’s always another hotteok stand just around the next corner.

Bibimbap (비빔밥) is perhaps Korea’s most well-known dish. Translated literally it means ‘mixed rice’ and as the name implies there’s myriad variations. But deep down beneath its careful plating and potential splashes of expensive or difficult ingredients, it’s simple, healthy and satisfying. Comfort food. Rice, as many fresh or lightly cooked vegetables (namul 나물) as is practical, gochujang, and sesame oil. Protein, in the form of egg, raw or cooked, minced beef or fish, are common additions. Mix it yourself, until each grain of rice is covered in sauce and the once beautiful presentation is a mess of red tinged colour. Each mouthful a happy surprise.

Varieties include: hoedeopbap (회덮밥) with raw fish, the bibimbap-like albap (알밥) with a lavish amount of fish roe, and the ever popular dolsot bibimbap (돌솥 비빔밥) with a raw egg yolk which cooks on the heated stone serving bowl. The less well-known Yukhoe bibimbap (육회 비빔밥) features slivers of raw beef, Korean pear, seaweed (gim 김), lettuce and cucumber, deserves some limelight. This barely warm dish, when mixed together is a commotion of texture and flavour. Chewy meaty beef, crunchy sweet pear, salty gim, spicy sauce and mellow rice, and as with the best bibimbaps, so much more than the sum of it’s parts.

Kwangjang market (1), is home to Yukhoe alley. A narrow, nondescript, entrance between a vegetable vendor and a fish stew restaurant, it’s lined with raw beef joints. Changsin Yukhoe (창신 육회) the first place on the left, is no place for vegetarians. Friendly workers occupy the window seats slicing mountains of meat by hand. They serve yukhoe (pronounced yukhwae), a tartare type dish of finely sliced beef, Korean pear, raw egg yolk and pine nuts, yukhoe bibimbap, and a terrifying looking dish of raw liver and dark tripe, seasoning-free and not for the faint-hearted. Best to stick with the bibimbap, which just like this country, rarely disappoints.

A more traditional bibimbap is available in the main food area of Kwangjang market. Look for stalls with bowls of different vegetables on display, manned by ladies yelling ‘bibimbap’. You can’t miss it.

Changsin Yukhoe
창신 육회
Inside Kwangjang Market.

Order:
Yukhoe bibimbap (육회 비빔밥) 6,000won.

Open from around 11am to around 10pm.

Tteokguk (떡국) is a traditional rice cake soup eaten in Korea to celebrate the new year. Long cylinders of tte0k rice cakes, cut on an angle and cooked until softly chewy and yielding are a necessary ingredient. Shredded or sliced meat, gim (김, laver type seaweed), ribbons of omelette and spring onion rounds add interest to the meaty stock. I’m certain that this celebratory food is best in the home, lovingly prepared and eaten with purpose of celebration.

Long cylinders of tteok.

Sometimes mandu (만두, dumplings) are added to form the variant tteokmanduguk (떡만두국), a preferable modification in my opinion. This version, eaten at Koong in Insa-dong is replete with small rice cake orbs, instead of the more common oval slices. These balls, called Choraengi, are present due to historical events, and hold their shape without softening and expanding in the soup as the others are wont to do. The broth, cooked for 12 hours, is clean yet full of flavour.  There is no egg, and it’s light on the gim, but four fat mandu more than make up for it. Filled with meat, tofu and chives with a thin wrapper, they’re simple and flavour packed. A huge picture of a Grandmother and Granddaughter adorn one wall, the elder having made these North Korean Gaesong-style dumplings for 75 years.

Cabbage and daikon kimchi, both sour and spicy red are provided, as well as a less common accompaniment. Dongchimi (동치미) looks like slabs of white diakon floating in cloudy water. It is a kind of kimchi that is only fermented for a short while, and is often not spicy. A spoonful of the ‘water’ tasted every-so-often clears and invigorates the palate wonderfully, with its lightly sour, complex flavour.

Koong serves other dishes, but is most famous for it’s tteokmanduguk and for good reason. It’s a tasty and satisfying, yet light version of a dish that I’ve only ever experienced as stodgy and oversalted, though my knowledge is understandably limited. Although it isn’t strictly a Korean New Years tteokguk, it’s the one I’d choose to eat. Happy lunar new year! 새해 복 많이 받으세요!

Koong
Choraengi Rice Cake Soup with Dumplings 조랭이떡만두국 – 8,000won.

Directions: Anguk station exit 6. Take the first major left down Insa-dong street. Keep walking until you pass the Ssamzie complex on your left, then take the next left. Take the next alley on your left and Koong is the first restaurant on the left. Or just look at the map.

Hakata Bunko, that dingy ramen hole in Sangsu, has a brighter and less popular younger brother. Close to Hapjeong station, this second floor sibling has none of the grime of the original, nor the queues, just amazing ramen.

The menus at both outlets are the same: In Ramen, Han Ramen and a Seoul-style ramen made with chicken, fish and pork, a meaty mongrel as yet untested. Rice and chashu are also available. It’s difficult to get past the Han Ramen on this short menu. It is rich and strong, satisfaction in a bowl. The noodles are substantial, each strand chewy and made smoky by the inclusion of wok-seared white cabbage, onion and garlic, reminiscent of a BBQ. Adorned with tender shredded pork and optional freshly pressed garlic and powdered sesame, this soup isn’t just soup, it’s a meal. The broth is thick, fatty, collagen white and porcine, customers around the room pick up their fishbowl-sized bowls and drink. If you can finish the noodles with space to spare, order a bowl of perfectly cooked rice to stir into any remaining broth.

You won’t regret it.

Hakata Bunko
Hours: 12 noon to 11pm daily.
Order: Han Ramen 10,000 won. Rice 1,000 won.

2nd Floor, Mapo-gu, Seoul 394-93, Seokyo
02-332-7900

Seoul is teeming with coffee shops, from ubiquitous carbon copied franchises, to quirky, distinct and imaginatively designed and themed independents. And they’re often full. Having coffee (or other drinks like a sweet potato or blueberry latte) is a popular past-time. Unfortunately the majority of coffee available here is awful or overpriced or, as is more common, both. The Korean penchant for scorched Americano’s drunk through tiny straws has been detailed on these pages before, but regardless, good coffee is available for a price. Many places serve ‘dutch’-style cold brewed coffee made with old fashioned and pharmaceutical looking equipment, pour-overs, or siphon coffee, of which I know little. A small percentage of places serve great espresso style coffee, Chan’s Espresso Bar is one of them.

The menu is a short list of all the espresso variations you’d expect with the addition of a cortado, which is similar to a piccolo latte: a shot of espresso topped with steamed milk and just a little creamy foam. Chan’s version is longer than expected reminiscent of the antipodean flat white, in a very good way. The coffee here is made expertly with care and precision using Tim Wendelboe beans. The expected caffeine hit is foreshadowed by a coffee flavour rich and fruity blending well with the sweet milk, perfectly micro-foamed. If it weren’t for the 6,000won +* price tag and the undocumented opening hours (beware, it’s hard to find anything open before 11am or midday in Hongdae) Chan’s Espresso Bar would be my cafe of choice.

*To put the price tag into perspective, 6,000 won (~$5AU) can buy you a whole grilled fish meal, most of a bowl of ramen or Japanese curry, or a serving of my favourite kimchi jiggae with enough change left over to grab a bottle of soju from your nearest convenience store.

Chan’s Espresso Bar
Expensive, but worth it.

Cortado – 6,000won
Cappuccino – 6,500won

Location: Closer to Hapjeong and Sangsu stations than Hongdae. Check the map:

Chan’s Espresso Bar website (I don’t really understand it)