When we’re in Seoul for longer stays we cook a fair bit. That means a lot of visits to my absolute favourite place in the city to shop for vegetables and seafood: Cheongnyangni Market. I posted a look at the market back in 2024 after our visits to it. We went back again several times this May. One of those visits was after an excellent walking tour of the broader area with the Royal Asiatic Society of Korea. Once the walk ended, we wandered the market (at one end of which lies what is probably the coolest Starbucks anywhere in the world, perhaps the only cool one) and took a few of the students to lunch with us in the market’s well-known tongdak alley. We’d eaten there with students in 2024 as well. On that occasion, we’d visited an establishment that specializes in fried chicken (which is what tongdak canonically refers to). On this occasion we visited Geumsundang, a small restaurant whose thing is whole roast chicken (also tongdak in a broader sense) as well as other roast meats. Here’s how it went.

As with other places in the alley that do roast chicken, you can see rotisserie chickens on the go outside Geumsundang. You can also see ducks roasting and gape at already roasted birds and meats laid out in trays. The restaurant is not large and nor is the menu. There’s no English on it so if you’re not with someone who reads Korean your best bet is to get your translation app of choice out. The missus was with us, of course, and so she not only translated the menu but interfaced with the server (who may also have been the proprietor). This is the kind of place where someone is apt to tell you if you are ordering too much and that’s what happened with us. We were a group of eight and my instinct was to order two of everything: two roast chickens, two roast ducks, two plates of grilled eel, and two plates of roast pork belly. She talked us down to two roast chickens and one of everything else. I was skeptical but I was overruled. A good thing too as this turned out to be the right amount of food (and keep in mind that there were six ravenous teens in attendance).

At places like this you’re not going to get a wide variety of banchan. Kimchi, yes, but not very much beyond that. Some marinated peppers, more pickled radish etc. and that was more or less it. The focus is on the meat (which you dip in salt and pepper). Said meat began to show up quickly. First out was the duck, which was both a goodly portion and quite good (if just a little more done than I would ideally like). Next out was the eel. There were two large portions of eel on the plate, more than enough for eight people eating a lot of other meat. The chickens came out after that, followed shortly by a massive amount of grilled pork belly. We also got a soda each to wash it all down with.

It was all very tasty, even without beer to accompany it. It’s nothing I would tell you to go out of the way for but if you’re in Cheongnyangni market, by all means.

For a look at the meal please launch the slideshow below. The last two pictures in the slideshow are from the Starbucks I mentioned up top. There’s more on that below as well, so scroll down to find out more.

All of the above cost a mere 88,000 won. That’s $65 at the current exchange rate or just barely above $8/head. A very good value, I think you’d agree.

So, about that Starbucks. In December 2022 Starbucks took over and remodeled a movie theater in Gyeongdong Market (adjoining Cheongnyangni Market) that had been built in the 1960s and had been sitting empty since 1994. There’s no mistaking what the space used to be as pains have clearly been taken to let its bones show. The store apparently donates a portion from each sale to a fund that supports the market. Finally, there may be something to like about Starbucks. Of course, while we were in Seoul, Starbucks as a corporation was in some political hot water (not that this seemed to affect patronage at any of the many Starbucks we passed on the streets).

Okay, one more food report to come this week. That will be from Delhi and will be posted on Sunday.