Think you know Korean food? A visit to this city will show you know nothing

“You have to mix these noodles up really thoroughly,” Chris Tharp says to me, leaning in conspiratorially. “Or the ladies will yell at you.”

The ladies look pretty kindly to me, as they smile encouragingly from behind the counter while I pick up my chopsticks and address the bowl, but I’m never one to ignore local advice, so when I get mixing, I mix with gusto.

The dish is called bibim dangmyeon, a Busan street food specialty of cold sweet-potato noodles piled high with shredded carrot, garlic chives, fish cake, and daikon radish.

There’s a light soy and chilli dressing too, which you stir through the noodles as you mix all the ingredients together.

And then, devour.

Chris and I are dining at Bupyeong Kkangtong, an old-school Busan market that once sold canned goods during the Korean War, but now plays host to stalls selling fresh produce and prepared food in basic, unpretentious surrounds.

If you love markets, then you’re going to love this part of Busan, a busy, diverse port city in the far south of South Korea. In a walkable circle in the downtown area you have Bupyeong Kkangtong, plus the sprawling Gukje Market, with more street food stands, and Jagalchi, Busan’s main fish market, which also hosts a slew of busy restaurants.

What better spot, then, for a street food tour?

Chris is an American who has lived in South Korea for more than 20 years, and in that time he has discovered a thing or two about the local Busan street food scene.

He knows you have to mix the bibim dangmyeon thoroughly to avoid embarrassment. He also knows that when you spot ojingeo muchim on a menu, you order it, which is why our decision at the next little restaurant we call into, just down the road from the market, is already taken care of.

This is the thing with Korean food. You might know the basics by now, the barbecue, the banchan, the kimchi, but then you arrive in the country and realise you know nothing. There is a whole world of dishes and ingredients out there, local and specialised, that will blow your mind.

Ojingeo muchim is a cold salad of stir-fried or boiled squid mixed with cabbage, carrots, radish, and a fair whack of gochujang (Korean chilli paste) and sesame oil. It’s spicy, sour and sweet, and custom-designed to make you want to drink as much Korean beer as humanly possible.

This is a food tour though, so we need to move on, we need a new dish. Next stop is a cult-favourite restaurant among Busan’s student population, where you can get a massive plate of yellowtail sashimi with all the trimmings for a very fair price. And that’s exactly what Chris and I are having, with another beer or two to respect local tradition.

There are so many accompaniments to the bountiful, rough-cut fish laid out before us: sesame leaves, salted nori sheets, chillies, garlic cloves, spicy ssamjang, bowls of rice. It’s hard to know what to do with it all.

“There are no rules with Korean food,” Chris assures me. “You can put anything with anything else. It’s all good.”

And that’s the thing you find here, in a country where it’s difficult to avoid comparisons with neighbouring Japan: the tastes in Korea sway more towards the big and the bold than the subtle and the dainty. You get big portions, with big flavours. Lots of chilli. Plenty of garlic. Pungent sesame oil drizzled over the lot.

And perhaps best of all, you can discover the casual brilliance of pojangmacha, the food carts surrounded by wooden benches, where hot snacks and cold drinks are served into the wee hours on Busan’s streets. In winter, each cart is cloaked in thick plastic sheets, keeping the warmth in, the perfect place to end a tour.

It’s late at night by now, everyone has been out enjoying themselves for many hours, there’s an air of conviviality as the Korean students down the end of our cart start sending food down our end, and the Japanese tourists next to us shout drinks, and the night is carried high on attempts to break language barriers through pork bulgogi and Cass mixed with soju.

There’s plenty of yelling here, but the good kind – joyful, gleeful and sated.

THE DETAILS

TOUR
The Busan street food tour is part of InsideAsia’s 10-day “Soul of Korea” small group tour, which starts from $7329 a person, including accommodation, guiding and some meals. See insideaasiatours.com

FLY
Asiana flies from Sydney and Melbourne direct to Seoul, with onward connections to Busan. See flyasiana.com

The writer travelled as a guest of Inside Asia.