Back to my favourite place eat when I was in Seoul in March: Gwangjang Market. I have already posted a look at the market’s evening food scene, replete with a truly excessive gallery of images. That report did not, however, take in any of the four dinners I ate at Gwangjang Market on four successive evenings. Here now is the first of those reports, which covers the first and second dinner. The first dinner comprised two courses eaten across two establishments: first, dumpling soup eaten sitting down at an establishment on the main drag; and then, for dessert, as it were, fried chicken picked up from a vendor on one of the side alleys who did not offer seating. The next night I went back specifically for yukhoe, or seasoned beef tartare, and repaired to one of a few establishments that specialize in it: Changshin Yukhoe. (A video from this second dinner got some people very angry with me on Instagram—but more on that later.)

I’ve noted before how eating out in Seoul is optimized for group dining. Never did I feel this more strongly than at my first dinner at Wonjo Agujjim and then again at my first dinner in Gwangjang Market. I’d walked up and down the main drag, looking for a free seat at a counter of an establishment offering dumpling soup, and when I found one and sat down, I immediately wanted everything else on their menu as well. More specifically, I wished I could sample their soondae, chicken feet and various piggy parts. But each comes only in a very large portion. This is not an issue if you’re in a group: you each get a soup and get a couple of the meat dishes to share. But I was alone. Pondering again the viability of an app that essentially would work as Tinder but for foodies traveling alone in major food cities, I bemoaned my fate and ordered a dumpling soup.

All I can say about it is that it was very good. It contained several of the dumpling varieties on offer at the counter—none of them particularly meaty—all in a very tasty broth. I coveted my neighbours’ cold porky delights but, truth be told, this soup was more than enough for me. Nonetheless, wandering around after finishing it all, I could not resist the aforementioned fried chicken. I was a bit surprised to see that it seemed to be the norm for it to be sold—in little buckets—at a more or less lukewarm temperature. But the chicken was still very crisp and very, very tasty.

On the second visit I was there for yukhoe. There’s a particularly famous yukhoe establishment in the market but I was unable to find it (of course, it was the first thing I noticed on my way out after dinner!). But on my first visit I had seen a cluster of other yukhoe specialists near the fried chicken vendor and so I sat down at one of them: Changshin Yukhoe. Their QR menu says “Changshin Yukhoe 4”, and so it may be an outpost of a mini-chain. They had indoor seating as well, but I sat down at one of the tented outdoor tables. Again, I was a sad, solo diner among couples and groups. But yukhoe is well-suited for solo dining. It’s not the only thing on offer there—though you can get in a number of combinations. There’s also some offal as well as soups and bindaetteok.

Looking at the menu, I could not resist ordering the yukhoe tangtangi, which is essentially a large order of yukhoe topped with chopped tentacles of a very recently dispatched octopus. Indeed, the octopus is so recently dispatched that the neurons in the tentacles continue to fire, leading them to wriggle in a manner that suggests you’re eating live octopus. However, you are not eating live octopus. What you are getting is a lovely textural and temperature contrast between the chilled, chewy/crunchy octopus and the warm, yielding chopped raw beef. Further improving the texture and flavour of the whole are thin strips of Korean pear under the beef and an egg yolk, chopped green chillies and greens above. And there’s marinated onion, seasoned oil, and a bit of broth on the side.

All in all, it added up to a very tasty dinner. I will say that I was not expecting the tentacles to keep squirming for as long as they did (you can get a sense here in the Instagram Reel that got some people upset at me for eating octopus). To the last bite, pretty much, I was all but “fighting” the tentacles for bits of raw beef they’d grabbed on to. How appealing this is to you is for you to determine. I will say that while I very much appreciated how fresh the octopus was, I could have done without quite as much of the wriggling—but I suppose you can’t get one without the other.

For a look at these meals, click on an image below to launch a larger slideshow. Scroll down to see what’s coming next on the food front, from Seoul and elsewhere.

Alright, I only have two more reports to go from Seoul: another from Gwangjang Market that takes in my third and fourth meals there, and one on a more formal lunch that was in fact designed for a single diner—a tasting menu of sorts. I’ll probably post one of those later this weekend and the other next weekend. Next week’s Twin Cities report will feature a return to Khaluna. One of my two New York dinner reports will probably go up next week as well.