We found the hidden must-eat hotspots of this Asian megacity

“Japanese people eat with their eyes; Koreans eat with their stomachs,” explains guide Eunice Kang as we watch a whole chicken simmering on a stove in front of us. We’re in “chicken soup” alley, a meandering backstreet in Seoul’s Jongno neighbourhood that’s famous for this one dish. Allegedly, we’re in the restaurant that invented it (although others make a similar claim), and has been run by the same woman for 45 years.

While the soup bubbles away, Kang teaches us how to make a special dipping sauce by adding mustard, rice vinegar, garlic, chives and soy sauce to the restaurant’s spicy red paste of chilli powder and ginger.

After chopping up the chicken using a pair of scissors (a popular Korean cooking utensil), she divides it among our group and we tuck in using metal chopsticks (another Korean adaptation). Despite the soup’s wan appearance, it’s unexpectedly rich and flavoursome, while the dipping sauce adds a feisty kick to the meat.

To the uninitiated, Korean cuisine can be frustratingly inaccessible. Despite its impressive provenance, this restaurant has no English signage or menus and we’re the only tourists here. In many traditional eateries, you have to cook your own food, mix your own ingredients (often by hand using plastic gloves) and navigate a bewildering array of side dishes. All the more reason to enlist the help of an expert, which is why seven of us have signed up for this six-hour tour with specialist operator Culinary Backstreets.

Our next stop is a restaurant that’s famous for barbecued beef. Once again, it’s an interactive affair, with one person given the job of frying onions, mushrooms and beef strips on one griddle while Kang tends to a steak on another. She explains that when families or colleagues eat out, traditionally the youngest person cooks. And when a couple is dating, the guy normally takes charge. “However, as soon as they’re married,” she adds wryly, “the woman does it for the rest of her life.”

While the beef is sizzling, a tsunami of side dishes appear, including kimchi, carrot, garlic, lettuce and sesame oil seasoned with salt and pepper. “This is our version of olive oil,” says Kang. “We use it on everything.”

We try the beef in several ways – dipped in sesame oil, parcelled with rice and garlic in a lettuce leaf and even wrapped around dollops of frosty beef tartare mixed with raw egg and Korean pear.

“There are no rules in Korean cuisine,” says Kang. “You can mix anything. Every bite should be a different flavour.”

After two stops, I’m already alarmingly full, but we’re just getting warmed up. Over the next few hours, we sample an eclectic range of Korean specialties, from freshly grilled hotteok, a chewy rice flour pancake filled with cinnamon, peanuts and sugar, to mung bean pancakes with makgeolli, a milky-coloured lightly sparkling rice wine with a tangy aftertaste.

We squeeze through busy indoor food markets, past stalls crowded with brightly coloured fermented vegetables and dozens of types of kimchi. Along the way, we glean fascinating insights into Korean culture, from the reason that coffee shops and canned Spam are so ubiquitous here (the US Army) to the gruelling study ethic that sees many youngsters using stimulants and energy drinks for concentration.

We finish where many group outings end up in Seoul – at a tent bar, a pop-up canvas drinking den where friends and colleagues congregate after work. Kang teaches us some drinking games, including a golf-inspired one where we take it in turns to putt a line of precariously balanced soju shots into glasses of beer.

It’s interactive, chaotic and highly entertaining. Which pretty much sums up Korean cuisine. “Our dishes don’t look good on Instagram,” says Kang. “They’re messy and designed to be shared.”

THE DETAILS

Tour
Culinary Backstreets’ Seoul Food: Banchan, Bibimbap and Beyond tour runs Monday to Saturday, 1pm to 7pm, and costs $US195 ($300) a person. See culinarybackstreets.com

Fly
Korean Air and Jetstar fly direct from Sydney to Seoul. See koreanair.com; jetstar.com

More
english.visitkorea.or.kr

The writer was a guest of the Korea Tourism Organisation and Culinary Backstreets.

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