Eat your way around the best of South Korea. Photo / Getty Images
Eat your way around the best of South Korea. Photo / Getty Images
Journey through the flavourful landscapes of South Korea and enjoy everything from traditional kimchi-making in Jeonju to sampling Busan’s seafood bounty, writes Steve Jermanok.
All it took was one spoonful of piping hot kalguksu soup, a heavenly chicken broth spiced with red pepper flakes, onions, garlic, seaweed and the crunch of black sesame seeds, over freshly made wheat noodles, to realise our trip to South Korea was going to tantalise the tastebuds.
Kalguksu Soup in Jeonju. Photo / Steve Jermanok
We had just arrived in Jeonju after a two-hour bullet train from Seoul, and after dropping off our bags at a guesthouse in the historical Hanok Village, where traditional Korean homes line the quaint cobblestone streets, our next stop was this restaurant, Veteran Kalguksu. Like many of the dining establishments we would visit over the course of the week, it served only one entree and it did so exceptionally well.
My wife, Lisa, son Jake, and I were on the first day of the seven-night South Korea Real Food Adventure Tour, organised by Intrepid Travel, that would make stops in Seoul, Jeonju, a Buddhist Temple stay in the mountainous countryside, the coastal port city of Busan, and back to Seoul. We were joined by a couple from Perth, Australia, two close friends from Zurich, Switzerland, a London city employee, a therapist from Omaha, Nebraska, and a family from Virginia.
The coastal port city of Busan in South Korea. Photo / Getty Images
We were fortunate to be accompanied by our skilled and personable guide, Boram Kim, who effortlessly led us on the maze of subways and buses to hole-in-the-wall eateries you could only find if you spent your life scouring the South Korean cities and countryside. This included a former farmhouse near our hike at the base of Mount Gangcheon, where we had one of our finest lunches, a seafood restaurant overlooking Songdo Beach in Busan specialising in grilled scallops still in the shell, an underground teahouse in Seoul, which you can only find if you spend your college years nearby, as Boram did (I sampled a delicious tangy hot date tea topped with walnuts), and the most remarkable Starbucks I’ve ever seen, inside a former theatre atop a massive food market in Seoul. There was no signage. You had to know it was there.
During the week, we would dine on every Korean dish imaginable, from the popular bibimbap to the far less popular live baby octopus, still squirming on the plate. Every meal was served with at least five side dishes, called banchan, that always included both cabbage and radish kimchi. Fermentation might be the latest trend in wellness, but the Koreans have specialised in this type of dining for decades. I’m a firm believer. My sensitive stomach had no issues during the trip, including stops at a street stall to try a unique dessert in Busan, a fresh doughnut stuffed with pine nuts. Korean barbeque was also ubiquitous, where you sit at a table around a grill heated with charcoal, and cook beef, pork, and lamb skewers do-it-yourself style. Vacuum-like vents above the grills help to heat the charcoal.
The innovative Banchan served at Jungsik in South Korea. Photo / Steve Jermanok
A bonus for food lovers were two cooking classes, one that first day in Jeonju, which focused on the art of making kimchi. This includes bathing each leaf of the cabbage first with salt and then a spicy paste. The following day we visited Sunchang Gochujang, a village best known for its production of gochujang, the traditional red chili paste found in many Korean specialties. The woman teaching the class was a warm, gracious grandmother, who took us into her home afterwards and showed us photographs of her children, including one son who is now a professor in the UK.
Learning to make Gochujang, traditional red chili paste found in many Korean specialties. Photo / Steve Jermanok
After our yummy seafood lunch overlooking the beach in Busan, we visited the Jalgachi Seafood Market, the largest seafood market I’ve ever seen, where stalls overflowed with fish, octopus, squid, clams, crabs, lobsters, eels, and countless other seafood including something, I still have no idea what it was, like a fish with wings.
The seafood spills over at Jalgachi Seafood Market in Busan. Photo / Steve Jermanok
Later that afternoon we strolled along Haeundae Beach, considered one of the most beautiful stretches of coastline in the country, where we found a sand sculpture contest. Our day ended with an hour-long boat ride in a catamaran at twilight, when Busan’s version of the Golden Gate Bridge, Gwangan Bridge, lit up, as did the tall condo buildings that dotted the skyline. Adding to the festivities were the fireworks our neighbouring boats provided, sparkling the night sky.
We said goodbye to our new friends back in Seoul and the following night had one last blowout dinner by ourselves in the affluent neighborhood of Gangnam. At the two-starred Michelin restaurant Jungsik, we feasted on an 11-course prix-fixe meal featuring sweet shrimp gimbap, a seaweed-encrusted rice roll topped with shrimp, a taste of the rare geum tae fish in a tangy soy sauce concoction, and, as a main dish, Korea’s version of wagyu beef, hanwoo. To top it off, we had dessert of a peanut caramel concoction, and Lisa pulled a cream-filled carrot from a small portable garden to go with her cheesecake. Sweet memories that hopefully will inspire us to return to South Korea, perhaps for the World Expo in Busan in 2030.
Steve Jermanok and his family dining at Jungsik in South Korea. Photo / Steve Jermanok
Intrepid Travel’s South Korea Real Food Adventure Tour runs year-round with a starting price of NZD$5164pp. For more info, see Intrepidtravel.com
