Seoul's Markets: Dongdaemoon and Namdaemoon

As I write, snow is piling up on our hedges and rooftop like a perfect frosting, and I just got to watch the baby next door reach up for the fluffy flakes and giggle when she grabbed one.

I couldn’t help but think: Wow. Next year I’ll be showing my baby the wonder of snow.

Mommy-thought-of-the-day aside, I’ve got quite the foodie update for you.

Over the weekend, Joe and I explored two of Seoul’s markets: Dongdaemoon (East Gate) and Namdaemoon (South Gate), both of which mark outer edges of the old walled city of Seoul, before it was the modern metropolis it is now.


Dongdaemoon is incredible and gigantic, a winding market of alleyways covered by an arched frosted-glass ceiling. Lining the alleyway, stall after stall sells fabrics, blankets, decorative pillows, and hanboks (traditional Korean dresses like the one I wore in my Korean wedding ceremony, pictured here).

We got there around 5pm, before many of the stalls were even open. That’s right, if we were stocking up for a quilt-making fest, we’d be out of luck. Apparently much of Dongdaemoon is basically wholesale, and it’s open from around 8pm to 5am, when the buyers aren’t out running their own shops around the city.

After winding our way down half-darkened alleyways of stores, we discovered the most beautiful thing of all: the food stalls.


Wow.














The savory, nutty smell of frying bindae duk (pictured right) had my mouth watering. Bindae duk is a mungbean pancake, and I don’t know what a mungbean is, but it’s what that round machine is milling in the bottom left of the photo—you can see the dough-like result coming out the sides. At top right, there are rows of the final, fried result. Bindae duk is delicious—savory and nutty, as the smell suggests—but it is GREASY!

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Here’s the stall we really couldn’t resist:
















This woman was making fresh noodles right there in front of us! We sat down on the heated benches (don’t ask me how they are heated, but they are, and it actually helped a lot!) and ordered up some kal gooksu (knife noodle soup).

The woman plopped freshly-cut noodles into a giant metal vat and a few minutes later, voilà!



The. Best. Noodles. I’ve. Ever. Had.

There is truly nothing like sitting on a hot bench in freezing weather, eating the freshest possible, steaming noodle soup made right in front of you by sweet old women.

Namdaemoon Market isn’t as grand as it’s easterly neighbor—it’s also a market of alleyways and stalls, but it is smaller and has more tented restaurants (literally, restaurants made of clear tarps).

In Namdaemoon, though, I discovered my new favorite iteration of fried dough: hotteok (sounds like “hot duck”). It starts out as a sweet dough ball. The chef opens it up, fills the center with a dry mixture of (I’m guessing) brown sugar and cinnamon, and closes up the ball once more. Then it goes on a flat-top grill where the dough fries and the mixture inside melts into a gooey filling.

It comes out looking like a filled pancake, and it tastes (and smells) like heaven.

Continuing the food theme, Joe and I had to try one of Korea’s favorite trendy treats: the waffle. While Belgian waffles may seem like the purview of
brunch restaurants in the U.S., here, they belong in the coffee shops. And if you can believe it, coffee shops seem more prevalent in Seoul than any major U.S. city. At shops like Café Bene, you can get the normal waffles with fruit and whipped cream (like Joe’s, in the picture here)… or you can be brave and go for yogurt and syruped fruit (like mine)… OR you can go waffles and ice cream. Yum!


Café Bene claims to have “the best Brussels waffles in the world.” (That's right—the best Belgian waffle is apparently in Seoul at a chain coffee shop, Bene claims, not in Belgium.) As their slogan urges, you should come here yourself and taste the Bene different!


All of this exploring has us familiar with Seoul’s subway system, which, though extremely complicated (see map), is surprisingly easy. It’s even cleaner than D.C.’s metro, which is saying something.

There are some oddities, though—or rather, reminders that Korea is not a nation at peace. A cease-fire in 1953 meant the north and south weren’t actively fighting, but there was never a peace treaty, so they are technically still at war. Throughout the subway are these emergency kits the size of vending machines, complete with what looks like food and water rations and an oxygen tank. There are even some pubic-safety commercials on the TVs down there that role-play what to do in an attack.

Let's hope we never see a need for such things...