Winter means hotteok for me. I like to wait until my face feels like it will shatter into infinite pieces and my fingertips feel like guitar knobs. Then I will get a fried hot disk of leavened dough filled with sugar, cinnamon and bits of ground peanut. The first time I did this, the hot caramel oozed out on my first bite and burnt the roof of my mouth and then burned my fingers as it dripped down. It’s the most delicious napalm you can ever have. My favorite place to get it is on street food street outside Jongno 3-ga exit 6. There are different types of hotteok. One that is white and crispy, another that is yellow and pillowy (the dough has cornstarch to make it crispy), and a third that is chewy and white (made from sweet, sticky rice). It’s an amazing treat and something that I think is quintessentially Korean.
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| Hotteok |
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| A Hotteok vendor in Jongno 3-ga |
About the Author
Daniel
Daniel Gray is a Korean adoptee that returned to Korean in 2005 because he wanted to try and find his birth mother and to learn about Korean culture. He started a restaurant review blog in 2007, www.seouleats.com, that became a local and international hit. He and his blog has been featured in the New York Times, Monocle Magazine, The Kimchi Chronicles, Bizarre Foods, Rudy Maxa, Olive Magazine, Euronews and much more. He now is a partner at O’ngo Food Communications (www.ongofood.com), which is a culinary tourism and consulting company that offers Korean cooking classes and restaurant tours to travelers. Their food tours and cooking classes are ranked as one of the top attractions in Seoul according to tripadvisor.
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[...] in the main street again and maybe because of that chilly weather, I and my friends stopped for Hotteok! My Unnie (older girl-friend) said that this is her ultimately favorite especially during winter. [...]