A Busan street food specialty you need to thoroughly mix

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

The ladies seem quite polite to me, smiling encouragingly from behind the counter, as I grab my chopsticks and address the bowl, but I’m never one to ignore local advice, so when I start stirring, I stir with pleasure.

Called bibim dangmyeon, it includes the Busan street food specialty of cold sweet potato noodles piled high with shredded carrots, garlic chives, fish cakes, and daikon radish.

There’s also a light soy and chili sauce that you stir in between the noodles as you mix all the ingredients together.

And then swallow.

Chris and I eat at Bupyeong Kkangtong, the old-school Busan market that once sold canned goods during the Korean War, but now houses stalls selling fresh produce and prepared foods in a simple, no-frills environment.

If you like markets, you’ll love this part of Busan, a busy and diverse port city in the southernmost part of South Korea. A walkable area of ​​the city center includes Bupyeong Kkangtong, as well as the expansive Gukje Market with more street food stands, and Jagalchi, Busan’s main fish market, which is also home to many busy restaurants.

So what better place for a street food tour?

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

To avoid embarrassment, bibim knows that you have to stir the dangmyeon well. He also knows that when you see ojingeo Muchim on a menu, you’ll order it, so our decision is already being taken into account at the next little restaurant we stop by, just down the street from the market.

That’s what happens with Korean food. By now you might know the basics like barbecue, banchan, kimchi, etc. but then when you arrive in the country you realize you don’t know anything. There is a world of local and special dishes and ingredients that will blow your mind.

Ojingeo Muchim is a cold salad consisting of cabbage, carrots, radishes, and stir-fried or boiled squid mixed with some gochujang (Korean chili paste) and sesame oil. It’s spicy, sour, and sweet, and is specifically designed to make human beings want to drink as much Korean beer as possible.

This is a food tour but we need to move on, we need a new dish. Next stop is a cult-favorite restaurant among Busan’s student population; here you can get a huge plate of yellowtail sashimi with all the trimmings for a very affordable price. And that’s exactly what Chris and I drink, with another beer or two to respect local tradition.

There are many accompaniments to the generous, rough-cut fish laid out before us: sesame leaves, sheets of salty nori, red peppers, garlic cloves, spicy ssamjang, bowls of rice. It’s hard to know what to do with all this.

“There are no rules in Korean cooking,” Chris assures me. “You can put anything next to something else. It’s all good.”

And that’s what you’ll find here, in a country where it’s hard to avoid comparisons with neighboring Japan: tastes in Korea gravitate more toward the big and bold than the subtle and elegant. You get big portions with big flavors. Lots of pepper. Lots of garlic. Pungent sesame oil was scattered everywhere.

And perhaps best of all, you can discover the casual splendor of pojangmacha, food carts lined with wooden benches serving hot snacks and cold drinks on Busan’s streets until the early hours of the morning. In the winter each car is covered with thick plastic sheets to keep the warmth in and is the perfect place to end the tour.

It was late at night now, everyone was out having fun for hours, there was a festive atmosphere when the Korean students at the end of our car started sending food our way and the Japanese tourists next to us started shouting drinks and their attempts to overcome the language barrier with Cass mixed with pork bulgogi and soju were making the night lively.

There’s a lot of yelling here, but the good kind; cheerful, joyful and full.

DETAIL

TYPE
The Busan street food tour is part of InsideAsia’s 10-day “Spirit of Korea” small-group tour, starting at $7,329 per person, including accommodation, guide and some meals. To see insideasiatours.com

FLY
Asiana flies direct to Seoul from Sydney and Melbourne and has connecting connections to Busan. To see flyasiana.com

The author traveled as a guest of Inside Asia.