Seoul, as you may know, has a number of so-called food alleys—streets or other concentrated areas that feature a large number of casual restaurants or counters right next to each other that specialize in the same major genre of food. The thinking presumably is that it is a safer bet to open a restaurant in a micro-area that is already attracting a large number of people to it to eat a particular dish than to risk opening a restaurant specializing in it elsewhere. In a specialized alley everyone benefits from spillover traffic. This may also explain why, in many cases, most of the establishments will have identical or near-identical menus (and prices): the goal being not to stand out as much as to be a reliable source of the thing people have already come to your alley to eat. One of our favourites of these alleys is Bossam Alley in Jongno-gu, where the restaurants have pork belly simmering outside for their signature dish and people inside eating it. We had a very pleasurable lunch here in 2024 at Obok. We went back to the alley again this May: this time we ate at Choi Buja Bossam. Here’s how it went.

We arrived for an early lunch and Bossam Alley was just about waking up. We chose Choi Buja pretty much at random and were the first to be seated. We were a party of eight (we brought a bunch of our pork-positive students with us). As you will have noticed from my reviews, specialist restaurants in Seoul (and most restaurants in Seoul are specialist restaurants) don’t usually have extensive menus; and in the case of places like Bossam Alley, most restaurants have quite edited menus.

Such is the case at Choi Buja Bossam. The main choice is between oyster bossam and octopus bossam.  In the former case you get a goodly pile of raw oysters on the bossam platter; in the latter case, you get a goodly pile of braised octopus. As each platter is large enough for four people to share, we got one of each. We had to overcome some resistance from the owner to get the oyster bossam: she insisted to the missus that American tourists should not eat raw oysters. We held our ground and everyone enjoyed them very much (and suffered no ill consequences from them). Both platters also include two types of kimchi (Napa cabbage and radish) and a large mound of lettuce is placed on each table along with ssam-jang and other condiments and accoutrements. (You could also get jokbal or gamjatang in the starring roles in your meal but who would come to Bossam Alley and do such a thing?)

Banchan is not really a big feature at places like this. Accompanying dishes is where the restaurants in the alley differ from each other. At Choi Buja Bossam on this day we were given a plate of wanja-jeon (pan-fried meat patties) alongside the bossam and two casseroles of gamjatang (pork neck/spine stew) on burners to eat at the end. Both were fine but it’s really the bossam that’s the draw and it was very good, whether topped with oysters, octopus, kimchi or a combination.

We’ll be back in Bossam Alley again on our next trip (projected for the spring of 2028) and we’ll probably try a third place then. If you know Seoul well and have a favourite, please drop me a line. In the meantime, for a look at everything we ate, launch the slideshow below. Scroll down to see how much it all cost and to see what’s coming next.

Cost? A total of 108,000 won, which is about $77 at the current exchange rate. That’s for eight people. A very good value, I think you’ll agree.

Alright, one more backlogged restaurant report to come this week. That’ll be of a dinner in Newark last October. After that I’ll be done with the NYC/NJ reports, which means a slot will open up in the weekly schedule for either reports from Hokkaido this summer or for faster catch-up from Bombay and Delhi. But I’ll cross that bridge next week.