One of the best parts of going out to eat in Korea is all the delicious side dishes you get for free alongside the main course. These side dishes are a huge part of how Koreans have served their traditional foods for hundreds of years. Despite massive modernization and development in Korea, one thing that hasn’t changed, thankfully, is its culinary tradition.
A typical meal is served today in much the same way it was hundreds of years ago. In fact, you can learn a lot about Korea’s culinary traditions by eating at a gimbap restaurant or a Korean barbecue chain. However, restaurants that specialize in traditional cuisine will give you a much larger range of traditional side dishes to sample than a typical Korean restaurant. There are even restaurants that specialize in Joseon royal court cuisine for those of you who want to get in touch with your royal sides.
A typical traditional Korean meal consists of a main dish, side dishes, and a dessert. Traditionally the main dish would be rice accompanied by several side dishes. The main dish could also be a meat dish, dumpling soup, or bibimbap. Two dishes you will see without fail in every Korean meal are kimchi and rice. The real stars of any Korean meal are of course the side dishes, also referred to as banchan. There are many different kinds of side dishes that can be served such as stew, pajeon, salad, pickled veggies, and braised meat. The list goes on and on. A traditional dessert can be rice cakes or a few pieces of fruit.
A restaurant that specializes in traditional cuisine will give you a much larger range of side dishes than a typical gimbap restaurant or Korean barbecue restaurant that usually serves five to ten side dishes along with the main dish. Nowadays, there are several different kinds of traditional restaurants. There are restaurants that solely focus on traditional cuisine and there are others that are fusion restaurants. There are also restaurants that serve traditional foods from specific regions in South Korea. Check out this list of top notch traditional cuisine restaurants to visit.
Royal court cuisine was all the rage during the Joseon Dynasty. It shares many commonalities with traditional cuisine, and it also influenced how traditional cuisine was served. Only the best cooks were allowed to prepare food for the royal court and obviously the royal meal was much larger and more colorfully arranged to please the eyes, than the common peasant meal. The royal meal was called the surasang which consisted of twelve dishes. Some of these dishes include the royal hot pot, seaweed soup, two different kinds of rice and several meat dishes. Special dishes were served on holidays and weddings.
Restaurants that serve royal court cuisine are much harder to come by. In fact, the Korean tourism organization has declared that there are only seven restaurants in South Korea which meet the criteria for serving royal cuisine correctly. These restaurants are also quite pricey so get ready to dish out the big bucks. For a full list of these restaurants, please visit:
https://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/FO/FO_EN_6_1_3.jsp
In a country where everything changes so quickly, South Korea’s traditional foods and cuisine have hardly changed at all. Thankfully, one does not need to go far to enjoy a traditional Korean meal. You might not want to eat at a more traditional restaurant or royal court restaurant every day but if you’re a Korean foodophile like me you’ll definitely want to go at least once or twice while you’re here.
-Edited by Yoyin Adenusi
–Featured images courtesy of Republic of Korea on Flickr (one, two, three)
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