Since arriving in South Korea, I have tried many dishes that I had only seen on television or never got to try back in New York. There are definitely some dishes that I would eat again, but there are also some dishes that trying once was enough. Although I haven't loved all the foods I have tried, I love learning about all the foods that are intertwined with Korean culture.
Many of the dishes that I have tried in South Korea are spicy. In order to make it spicy, a lot of the dishes use gochujang paste, which is a red pepper paste. So far I have tried kimchi jjigae and sundubu jjigae. Jjigae (찌개) means stew and sundubu (순두부) means soft tofu in Korean. These are spicy stew dishes served in small earthenware pots with a bowl of rice on the side. There is also Korean BBQ, which is when food is cooked on a small grill in the center of a table. You get a variety of meats to choose from and they can even be marinated. You can usually eat once the food is ready, but South Koreans also like to make lettuce wraps. Not only can you put meat inside a lettuce wrap, but you can also put other side dishes in it like kimchi.
South Korea also has a lot of fried chicken restaurants and delicious street food stands.
