- We are here in Korea.
We're in Seoul, Korea.
I've wanted to come here since I started doing the show.
We are ready to go to what I think
is my favorite place to eat.
The single best place for Korean street food,
in all of Seoul.
Gwangjang Markets to me is one of the most intense,
hectic and really rewarding experiences you can have
as soon as you land in Korea.
To me it's a place that I like to come
and feel grounded and be reminded that this is Korea.
The way that it looks, the way it feels, the way it smells.
When you see the food, the vendors,
it is such a complete experience.
The market it self is over 100 years old.
Survived the Korea world and it's such a contrast
to Korea as a whole, which is such a technological
and an economic engine as to Marvel.
So some of the things that we're gonna eat here
are the classics of Korean street food.
We're gonna have knife cut noodles
in this beautiful anchovies broth.
We're gonna have some boiled Mandoo or dumplings
and we're gonna have what I think is more of the most
amazing specialties you can find anywhere in Korea.
Honestly, it's mind-blowing.
(oriental music)
You can see the pile of the dumplings.
When I come to Gwangjang Market,
I especially like the noodles and dumplings.
To me, they remind me of food that my grandma would make.
The cook here has literally made 10s of thousands,
maybe hundreds of thousands of dumplings in her life.
There's two different kinds of mandoo here.
So they have a meat one right here.
That's the one that's clearly not pink.
And that one's a kimchi one.
If you come here and you're sneezy,
it's not a good place to sit. (laughing)
She kind of gave me this dipping sauce for the mandoo
and its a combination of gochugaru or Korean chili flakes,
soy sauce, some chilies in there, a bunch of,
just all little good stuff that's gonna make
every bite of your mandoo amazing.
(moaning)
Korean dumplings are unique.
They're a little bit larger and you can see that
they don't have the beautiful crimp of a Chinese dumpling.
But what it lacks in style, makes up for in flavor.
The inside is full of chopped
or minced ground beef, some tofu, scallions.
It's not overwhelming in flavor.
It's not like, but with the dumpling wrapper,
it becomes just one bite.
It's just this one food thing.
(disco music)
Korean knife-cut noodles.
They make the dough from scratch.
They're cutting it with a knife.
You see the unevenness of the actual noodles.
It's that rusticness, that rustic flavor that really
gives it that home-style feel.
Oh yeah, this ones definitely heavy in anchovy.
A real common base for Korean soups,
definitely a strong flavor of seaweed.
I'm crying right now.
And this is actually because it's delicious.
It's perfect.
It's so perfect.
The noodle texture is so fantastic.
To me, almost resembles the kind of udon-ness.
So if you've got Udon noodles.
Alittle bit thicker.
It's kind of a nice bite.
It's certainly not chewy.
It's easy to eat.
Slight bounce in there to remind you that this is,
you know, this is good stuff.
You have this scallion and chili sauce
that you can add on if you really want.
You can like turbo charge your broth like that.
This is just heaven to me.
This is all I need, you know.
This is.
Some mandoo, some kalguksu, and some motorcycle exhaust.
I feel like I'm back in Korea.
(pop music)
So, mayak is like drug and apparently the drug part of it
is actually this hot mustard dipping sauce.
So these, these kimbap, they pretty much have curry
and also pickles daikon raddish.
So let's dip it.
Oh!
I just cleaned out my nasal passages.
So we're in the middle of this market right here.
This is sort of the hub.
There's sort of a bunch of spokes that go out
and this is the middle of the market.
You can see that this is where the center of the action is.
You're seeing mung bean is being ground.
People are cooking.
Pots are boiling.
You're smelling things getting pried.
You're hearing people shouting out and barking
and trying to get you to buy their food.
It's just this overall amazing experience
of toking in and hearing and smelling
everything that is Korea.
Mmm.
(piano playing)
To me, this is the main event.
It's in the center of the market.
This is really where you're starting to see
multiple bindaetteok vendors.
This is what I want.
See the golden brown pucks of just amazing carbs.
It's almost intoxicating to be here.
I love the mills that are just
grinding up the mung beans fresh
and how it spills out it's side,
it's so oozy and satisfying.
This is beautiful stacks.
I just wanna take one home.
It is one of the actually oldest recorded Korean dishes
from the 1600s and interestingly enough
you can see the cognate between Chinese and Korean
because Bindaettoek was originally called Bingzi.
Bing is a Chinese word for pancake.
So, that's why you're kind of seeing it slightly shifted.
Look how thick it is.
This is probably twice as thick as your
standard issue Bindaettoek.
What's marvelous about the ones here
is how well they're fried.
It holds together.
It's shatteringly crisp, you hear that?
(food crackling)
So there's bean sprouts in here.
They have some aromatics like scallion.
But really this is freshly ground mung beans
and all you do is dip it in this super simple
soy with raw onion sauce.
(food crunching)
Mmm
It's so legit.
So, this one's actually a little more traditional
seeming just 'cause it's got the flex of the green onion
in there and got green onion pieces.
Wow, mmm.
A ting like okonomiyaki.
That kind of vibe.
'Cause what you're getting with this meat,
the meat filled kind.
And it's delicious, it's super good.
Mmm, it's sort of like a mash,
like a chickpea cornmeal type thing.
Because the mung beans are ground
with the stone mill,
there's a little bit of texture to them.
It gets really nicely fried on the outside.
The inside is still a little gooey.
Not quite like, uncooked.
This just makes me happy.
To me, it's such a definitive Korean street food.
And I really think this is the best place
that you can get it anywhere in Korean.
It's so loud in here.
Like, with all the motorcycles and the guys barking
things and the people, but I love it.
I love that century experience.
It's so grounding to come here.
It's said it's a living museum that's still standing here
and represents a time and a place
in Korean culture and Korean history.
Best impression of Korea, Korea can make on itself.
That's what this is.
Thanks so much for watching K-Town
and if you wanna see more episodes, click right here.