Our Recommendations for Eating in Korea

Many of you who have visited our blog are interested in visiting Korea. Traveling in foreign countries is a lot of fun. We also love traveling. J.J. has been to Korea, China, the Philippines, England, the Netherlands, France and Australia. Gina also has been to China and of course the United States. Also, we took a trip to Japan, Thailand and Canada together. We went to Thailand for our honeymoon.

Wherever you go, one of the first choices you need to make is what to eat. Many people end up going for their national food or at least familiar food. That’s not because they don’t want to try local food, but often they don’t know how to order and what to order when visiting a foreign country. The same thing happened to us. When J.J. first got to Korea in 2002 as an ESL teacher, he went to American fast food restaurants. When Gina first got to the States, she just ate pizzas for a month!

There are a lot of western restaurants in Korea, including Bennigan's, Burger King, KFC, McDonalds, Outback Steakhouse, Popeyes, T.G.I. Friday’s and Tony Roma’s. Especially in Seoul, you can probably find your national food, regardless of where you’re from. However, non-Korean dishes are of course much more expensive than Korean dishes. You can have a good Korean meal for only 5,000 won (about 5 US dollar), but steaks are 4~5 times more expensive. If you are in Korea, try Korean food. Trying unfamiliar local food is a fun thing to do during a trip.

We would recommend Bulgogi, marinated barbecued beef. It’s a favorite Korean dish among foreigners so it will be a safe choice. Or if you are vegetarian, Bibimbop is good. It is rice mixed with an egg and assorted vegetables. You add as much pepper paste as you like. Bibimbop is Gina’s favorite. She loves the flavor of Bibimbop created by a nice combination of fresh veggies and spice.



Kimbap is another good choice. You can find Kimbap everywhere in Korea. You can buy Kimbap even from convenience stores like Seven Eleven and GS24. It looks like Sushi, but doesn’t use raw fish. Instead, it uses eggs, crab meat, ham, spinach, and pickled radish. Ingredients can be varied. Kimbap just means rice wrapped in seaweed. Our favorite kind of Kimbap is tuna Kimbap.

Ordering food can be stressful in a foreign country, but it’s not that difficult in Korea. Just remember this simple phrase, “Ju-se-yo”. This will be extremely useful. It basically means “Please give me ~”. If you want Bibimbap, just say, “Bibimbap Juseyo” (= I’ll take Kimbap). After you make your choice of food, there will be no further questions. You don’t need to tip in Korean restaurants or anywhere in Korea. Tipping is not a Korean custom. If you want to express your appreciation of something, say “Gam-sa-ham-ni-da” (Thank you). That will be enough.