A Guide to Korean Street Food — What It Is and How It Is Counted

The first difficulty at a street stall is not working out what is for sale. You can generally see that. The difficulty is the unit it is counted in — one skewer, one plate, one cup. This guide covers those units and how to check them on the spot.

At a glance

Fish cake is sold by the skewer
The official name is Eomukkkochi — and it comes with broth.
Hotteok by the piece, tteokbokki by the plate
Units differ item by item at the same stall.
If no price is shown, ask
The duty to post a price list applies to premises of a certain size.
Payment differs by market
Traditional markets run a member-shop gift certificate scheme.

What you will meet, and its official name

Pointing works, but knowing the name makes searching and checking much easier. The notation below is the Korean Food Promotion Institute's official list.

Korean	Romanised	Official English	Usual unit
떡볶이	Tteokbokki	Stir-fried Rice Cake	serving · plate · cup
어묵꼬치	Eomukkkochi	Skewered Fishcake Soup	skewer
순대	Sundae	Blood Sausage	serving · plate · skewer
호떡	Hotteok	Syrup-filled Pancake	piece
씨앗호떡	Ssiathotteok	Korean Pancake with Seed and Brown Sugar Filling	piece
김말이튀김	Gimmaritwigim	Deep-fried Laver Roll	piece
붕어빵	Bungeoppang	Fish-shaped Bread	piece
김밥	Gimbap	Gimbap	roll

One line in that table is worth reading twice. The official English for skewered fish cake contains the word "Soup". Taking a skewer means the broth comes with it, and drinking that broth from a paper cup is part of the dish. Whether the broth is charged for varies from stall to stall.

Tteokbokki does not name its ingredient. The official rendering is Stir-fried Rice Cake. But the same list also carries Gungjungtteokbokki, "Royal Stir-fried Rice Cake", as a separate entry — so the one word covers two different dishes.

Sundae is Blood Sausage. The list also carries Sundaegukbap, "Blood Sausage and Rice Soup", separately — the sundae sold at a stall and the sundae soup at a gukbap house are different menu items.

Sundae threaded onto skewers — where the skewer is the unit

Popo le Chien (Wikimedia Commons, CC0 1.0)

Hotteok on a griddle — where the piece is the unit

Sandra Vallaure (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0)

A bunsik stall selling fritters and tteokbokki together

Jens Ohlig (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0)

The unit changes item by item

Even at one stall, the counting differs by what you take.

By the skewer — fish cake, above all. You take a skewer, eat, and the spent sticks are counted at the end. Keep track of how many you have had.
By the piece — hotteok, bungeoppang, fritters. Sold and counted one at a time.
By the plate or the cup — tteokbokki and sundae. Where there is somewhere to sit it comes on a plate; where you are walking, many stalls will put it in a paper cup.
By the roll — gimbap. One roll is the base unit.

And some markets have a unit of their own. This site's record for the Tongin Market Dosirak Cafe describes exchanging money for brass tokens, receiving a black plastic tray with them, and carrying that tray around the market to fill it. The same record also notes that the tokens are usable at participating stores only.

A snack or a meal

This is where the choice actually gets made.

Enough for a meal — tteokbokki with sundae and fritters alongside it, or gimbap. Where a market has a food alley with seats, it becomes a sit-down meal. This site's record for the Gwangjang Market food alley notes that the alley trades on a different timetable from the market around it.

Snack territory — hotteok, bungeoppang, a skewer or two of fish cake. These are sold on the assumption that you are walking, and they fit neatly between two other things in a day.

If you cannot decide, look for seating first. Seats mean a meal; no seats means a snack. That heuristic matches how the stalls themselves are set up.

Checking the price and the payment on the spot

Some stalls do not display a price. The duty to post a price list inside and outside applies to rest restaurants and general restaurants with premises of 150 square metres or more. Whether a small market stall meets that condition is not something this article can determine, and in practice you will meet stalls with nothing written up. Ask before you buy — it is not rude.

Payment differs too. Traditional markets run the Onnuri gift certificate scheme: issued since 2009 under the Special Act on the Development of Traditional Markets and Shopping Districts, and spendable like cash at registered member shops. Paper certificates are bought at 16 financial institutions; digital ones are bought in a dedicated app and paid by QR or card.

For a visitor the useful part is less the certificate than the habit of checking what a given market accepts. How to find places that take a foreign card is in Finding restaurants that accept foreign cards, and what to do when the payment itself fails is in Using a foreign credit card in Korea.

Season and location change what is there

Street food changes with the hour even in one market. This site's record for the Gwangjang Market food alley is an example: the alley runs on a different timetable from the market body. A night market is a different setting again — Bupyeong Kkangtong Market in Busan holds one.

That seasonal menus exist at all is also in the records. Myeongdong Kyoja's kong-guksu is noted in that restaurant's record as a summer-only dish. The same thing happens on the street, so if you are travelling toward one specific item, check that the stall is selling it now.

Choosing between markets is its own question, and Six traditional markets in Seoul compared weighs them on opening days and whether cash is needed.

Markets this site holds records for

What this guide does not generalise

One stall's payment methods, hours or prices are not the market's. Stalls differ from each other inside a single market, and this site states opening times only for markets whose records carry evidence for them.

There are no popularity rankings here either. A sentence like "the street food foreigners like most" needs a survey behind it, and this site has not run one. The table above is a set of frequently seen items checked against the official notation list — not an order of merit.

If you have a dietary restriction, this guide is not enough on its own. What goes into fish cake, fritters and tteokbokki sauce differs by stall. Start with Vegetarian and vegan food in Korea or Finding halal food in Korea, then check again at the stall itself.

Frequently asked questions

How do I order fish cake?

Usually you take a skewer yourself and the spent sticks are counted at the end. As the official name Eomukkkochi — "Skewered Fishcake Soup" — suggests, the broth comes with it, and you ladle it into a paper cup. Whether the broth is charged for varies by stall.

What if there is no price shown?

Ask before you buy. The duty to post a price list applies to rest restaurants and general restaurants with premises of 150 square metres or more, so small stalls sometimes have nothing written up. Asking the price is not rude.

Will they take a card?

It varies by stall, and this guide does not know what any particular market or stall accepts. Traditional markets run the Onnuri certificate scheme, usable like cash at registered member shops, and this site's guides cover how to find places that take a foreign card.

Is all tteokbokki the same dish?

No. The Korean Food Promotion Institute's list carries Tteokbokki (Stir-fried Rice Cake) alongside Gungjungtteokbokki (Royal Stir-fried Rice Cake), and separately gukmul, jeukseok and haemul versions. The same two syllables can mean different dishes.

Are sundae and sundae-gukbap the same thing?

They are different menu items. The official notation lists Sundae as Blood Sausage and Sundaegukbap as Blood Sausage and Rice Soup. The first is sold at stalls by the plate or the skewer; the second is a bowl at a gukbap house.

Can street food be a full meal?

Yes. Tteokbokki with sundae and fritters, or gimbap, sits on that side, and a market food alley with seating turns it into a sit-down meal. Hotteok, bungeoppang and a skewer or two of fish cake are the walking-snack side.

How do the brass tokens at Tongin Market work?

According to this site's record for the Tongin Market Dosirak Cafe, exchanging money for the tokens also gets you a black plastic tray, which you carry around the market and fill. The same record notes that the tokens are usable at participating stores only.