The Traditional Markets of Seoul This post is for superfoodies and those looking to spend the day immersed in the Korean Traditional Markets of Seoul.  With the right planning, you could hit all the markets in the same day to have breakfast, lunch, dinner with drinks, shopping, and snacks between the meals.   In this post I’m going to help you organize a full day Traditional Market Tour. Plus, these markets are all located north of the Han River so you could easily explore each of these markets without wasting a lot of time traveling. The famous markets we are going to look at today are Namdaemun Market, Tongin Market and Gwangjang Market. Namdaemun's King Dumplings hotteok photo by Michelle Min Breakfast at Namdaemun Market Namdaemun Market by Sungnyemun Gate is the place you can get everything and anything except, according to history, “A Cat’s Horn.” It has over 10,000 stores and it is the famous district for children’s clothes, ...

Hyojadong Old-Fashioned Tteokbokki at Tongin Market The other day I got a letter from Jules who is planning a trip to Seoul and she said she is searching for the best tteokbokki places in Seoul for a story she is writing for a magazine. I guess I was wrong, maybe tteokbokki will become an overseas hit. Anyway, here is my first recommendations. If anyone else has any let me know and I'll tell her. Hyojadong Old-Fashioned Tteokbokki are not drowned in a slurpy spicy-sweet sauce. Instead, chewy fingers of rice cake are either dry rubbed with red pepper flakes and then then pan fried over high heat or it is basted in soy sauce and then pan fried as well. They are crispy on the outside and chewy in the middle like a deep fried Mars bar. The only other things on the menu are soondae (blood sausage), pork pancakes, and Nokdu Bindaetteok (a pan-fried bean pancake). The lady running the place is a sweetheart, so be nice to her. She often gets busy during the daytime, so you might hav...