So, last time I wrote a blog about Korean food (or food that I have found in Korea) that I love and food that I have heard about and want to try. This time I am going to talk about the food that I have found to be completely average or overrated and the food that I have heard about that I am not so interested in trying.

While there are some foods that I love and some that I hate, there are also many that I am indifferent about. It is not that I dislike them, per se, but I will not go out of my way to have them either. If they are put in front of me, I will nibble at them, but I never crave them as I do almost all of my favourite foods. Here are some of the foods that I find to be "so-so".
Naengmyeon is a summer dish of iced soup (pieces of ice literally float around in it) with cold thin noodles and vegetables. Depending on the type that you get, the dish can include boiled eggs and can be very very spicy. I cannot pinpoint exactly what it is about naengmyeon that I am not all that fond of. Perhaps it is the thought of eating ice cold soup as a full meal, or perhaps it is the kind of noodles (often black noodles) that they use that I am not so fond of. I am not entirely sure, but while I will eat it if it is placed in front of me, it is not something that I ever go out of my way to find.


Patbingsu is a dish that I have only tried once, and I was told that it is made better elsewhere, but I have not been all too willing to try it. Patbingsu is a Korean dessert made from ice shavings, syrup and red beans. I am not the biggest fan of red beans, and perhaps this is what has turned me off patbingsu in such a wholehearted fashion, but there is something about the texture combination of hard beans and ice that doesn't please me. I suppose I will have to try it again at some point, and maybe it will be better the next time. I certainly hope so, and if that is the case then it will likely make its way up to the love list, because you know I love my iced desserts!


Ojingeo is, as my friend Jodie's co-teacher would put it, "friend of octopus", or squid. It is prepared in a number of ways, most of which are spicy, including stir fried, thrown in with topoki and dried. While the dried variety of squid is not spicy, it is all too salty for my liking, and it feels rather disturbing picking off the squid's tentacles to eat one at a time. All in all, I far prefer calamari!


Pat (as in patbingsu) is the Korean's favourite sweet snack of red beans. It is either eaten whole or is ground down into a paste and put into everything from the frozen dessert to ice creams to tteok and beyond. However, while the taste of the bean is not terrible, it is the texture that I cannot stand. It is not a smooth texture but always feels grainy to my tongue and it is more of an annoyance than anything else, but it is an annoyance that I would far rather avoid!



Kimchi is probably the most famous of the Korean side-dishes. The most popular form is fermented cabbage leaves, though these can often be replaced with onion, radish, cucumber or a number of other vegetables. The only real rule is that they be covered in chilli and sit for a good two weeks to ferment. I am not a fan of spicy food, and so kimchi is certainly not one of my favourite dishes. However, it is not terrible and I will occasionally grab a piece of cabbage or onion or cucumber if the mood strikes me, which it very seldomly does. Out of the different types, I think cucumber and radish share the top spots, as I find them less spicy than all the others.



Last time I told you all about some of the dishes that caught my interest, though I have yet to try them. But there are also a couple of dishes that I have seen or heard about that do not sound appetising in the slightest. Below are a couple of such dishes.


Beondegi are the most foul smelling things that I have ever had the misfortune of being around. They are fried silkworms and are often sold by the vendors on the side of the street, particularly in Shinae. While the thought of eating silkworms is enough to make me want to avoid them, the smell of them frying is enough to turn anyone's stomach. I have been told that if you are not around them when they are being fried, the taste is not so bad. But now that I know what they smell like as they cook, it is not something that I particularly want to try.





Gaebul is a Korean fish that can be found in many markets and is often referred to as "penis fish" simply because of the its resemblance to the male sex organ. If the look of the fish wasn't enough to turn me off, I have heard from a number of people that the taste of the fish is absolutely revolting, and so, though I find it rather amusing to take photos of them, I would not be all that willing to try it, though I am sure a number of my friends would like to take photos of the attempt.







The final installment of my blogs on food will be about the foods that I hate and the one that I would rather shoot myself before eating. You can read it here. In the meantime, if you missed the first installment, it can be found here.