Of all the markets we visited in Seoul in February and March, Tongin Market was the closest to where we were living. It also turned out to be the one least like the others. Gwangjang Market, Namdaemun Market, Cheongnyangni Market, Mangwon Market and the Noryangjin Fish Market are all markets first. Cheongnyangni and Mangwon markets are neighbourhood markets that include some food vendors. Namdaemun Market has famous food alleys but they’re really secondary to the real business of the market which is retail sales. Even Gwangjang Market with its prominent food alley is dominated by shopping during the day. And Norynangjin is a massive wholesale and retail seafood market with restaurants attached. Tongin Market, however, is different: it’s almost entirely about food vendors. It ended up therefore being a very different experience than all the other markets, feeling more like walking through an extended food court. We visited towards the end of February with a large group of students. This is what we found.

Tongin Market is located more or less alongside the Gyeongbokgung Palace complex, probably Seoul’s premier historical tourist attraction. If you’re in the vicinity you’ll see hordes of tourists dressed in hanboks walking around the area. (I don’t mean to sound above this kind of thing: a few weeks prior to our Tongin Market visit our entire group was also at the palace, hanbokked out to the max and having a good time.) I bring up the tourist thing because it appears that Tongin Market itself exists, if not primarily, then largely as a tourist attraction. The market itself was founded in the 1940s during the Japanese occupation. I don’t know anything about its history in the decades following but it seems to have been revitalized in the early 2000s and then designated a “Seoul Culture Market” in 2010. In 2011 the feature that is now most associated with the market was introduced: the use of yeopjeon or traditional brass coins to purchase food at the market.

This is how it works. The market is dominated, as I indicated, by prepared food vendors. All accept normal forms of payment and most also accept yeopjeon (these establishments are clearly marked by a coin symbol). The advantage of using the yeopjeon is that you can put together a meal by mixing and matching small dishes from a number of vendors. To get the yeopjeon you go to the center of the market where the Dosirak Cafe is located. Go up to the second floor and you can buy them at the counter. Each coin costs 500 won and you are told to buy 10,000 won worth per person (20 coins). You are given the coins and a partitioned plastic lunch box. You then take your coins and your lunch box to the vendors who accept them and exchange coins for the things you want to eat (most things cost just 2-3 coins, some cost a fair bit more). When you’ve assembled your meal you can come back to the cafe and use some more coins to get rice and drinks (cutlery is free). There are some tables to sit at on the second floor and a whole other dining room on the third floor. If you have any unused coins you can return them for a refund. It’s a pretty simple process. There are also, I should add, a few sit-down restaurants in the market itself but you wouldn’t use the yeopjeon there.

There are a fair number of food vendors in the market, though not necessarily a huge variety of foods available. But you can still sample a fair bit. We enjoyed everything we got just fine (see the pics below to see what we ate and what else was available) but I wouldn’t say that anything stood out as a superior example of its genre in Seoul. And nor is the market known for any particular dish or dishes, as most other traditional markets in Seoul are. Still, if you are traveling solo or as a couple, this setup does allow you to try a larger variety of things for 10,000 won than you could at Gwangjang Market, for example. And if you’re traveling with picky eaters you can easily get them things they will eat while not being restricted yourself by their pickiness. So there’s a strong pragmatic argument to be made for this as a tourist destination.

However, I found it to be almost completely lacking in atmosphere or, if you prefer, soul. Though there are a few shops that sell meat and fish and vegetables (see the slideshow below), this is not a market proper. There weren’t very many people in the market area while we were there (on a Sunday) and the place just didn’t have the energy of the markets I’ve named above. It felt more like an attraction than anything else. Then again if, unlike me, you don’t enjoy the chaos of traditional markets you might appreciate the contained experience of Tongin Market.

For a look at the market, launch the slideshow below. Please note that the pictures were taken haphazardly. For the purposes of saving the images I’ve numbered the food vendors as Stall 1, 2, 3 and so on but you should not take this to mean actual numbered designations or even that places I’ve given consecutive numbers to are actually next to each other. But you don’t need to worry about that anyway. As you’ll see if you ever visit, it’s not a very large market and so it’s not going to be difficult for you to visit every stall before you make your choices.

Okay, gape at the slideshow and then scroll down to see what’s coming next.

Alright, my next food report will also be from Seoul and I hope it will finally be on one of the three fine dining meals we ate. Next weekend I’ll try my best to get another Seoul market report up, from one of the markets I mentioned above that I have not yet reported in. In between, I’ll probably have another Delhi report.