Although makgeolli is available in Singapore, but the taste is different from freshly brewed makgeolli. It's because the exported versions have to be sterilised to stop the fermentation process. The bottled makgeolli sold here didn't have the natural carbonated fizzy which found in the latter stages of fermentation.
I like soju but my first choice or alcohol drink is makgeolli.
It's because I like the sweet flavor of makgeolli and the
alcohol content is lesser than soju, so I can drink more ;P
It's because according to the report, there are lots of anti-carcinogenic substances in the makgeolli. A bottle of makgeolli has 70-80 billion lactic-acid bacteria when a bottle contains around 700-800㎖ makgeolli. Probiotics or lactic-acid bacteria has a lot of benefit health, strengthen body immune system and help to destroy harmful germs and bacteria that cause inflammation or cancer in the intestine.
Jeonju is famous for its savoury food such as bibimbap, kongnamulgukbap and makgeolli. Yes, you read it right. Makgeolli is considered as food instead of drink in Jeonju.
Traditional Liquor Museum (전주 전통술박물관).
Traditional Liquor Museum is the place where the tradition of home-brewed liquor is alive. This unique museum has the exhibition hall, showing the process on how to make these traditional liquors.
This galery has models showing how the preparation, boiling,
Noticed that a lot of street vendors selling Moju (전주 모주; 母酒).
Curious about this alcoholic drink so I googled to find out more about this drink. Moju is a local beverage
from Jeonju although not as famous as Jeonju Makgeolli. It's actually means, "liquor made by the mother of the queen
consort." This is according to the "Daedong Yaseung" (대동야승, 大東野乘), an
unofficial collection of histories, anecdotes and essays compiled during
the reign of King Injo (1595-1649). Based on the book, the mother of
Inmok Daebi (1584-1632), the queen consort, made handmade liquor by
reusing the rice alcoholic beverage grain from making makgeoli and sold
it to local residents at a cheap price when she was exiled to Jeju
Island.
Moju is made from mixing Makgeolli with a range of Oriental medicines ingredients including cinnamon, ginger, jujubes,
ginseng, kudzu, roots of arrowroot, and fruit, then boiled for about 24 hours, which causes most of the alcohol to
evaporate leaving about 1.5% of alcohol content. Thanks to the
medicinal ingredients, it is known as a healthy drink, helping to
prevent colds, especially in the winter. It goes well with any kind of
ordinary Korean meal, such as hot soups and rice. These days, Moju is
even used to create more varied food items, like ice cream. (Source: Korea.Net)
People love to drink on the platform (평상 = pyeong sang) outside the house.
Now, I think I know why Jeonju is famous for Kongnamul Gukbap (콩나물 국밥) too, because it's good for relieving hangover after drinking alcoholic drinks.
This wavy waterway pond is use to serve the wine.
In old days, seonbi will recite a poem when the cup filled with wine
is flowing in front of him. It's such an interesting game.
This decoration wooden fish looks like Mokeo (목어),
which usually found in Korean temples.
There are many programs with small participation fee such as: making
sweet rice
Most of the time, my family and I couldn't resist sweet treats. The snacking frequency will normally increase when traveling to taste something different and local delicacies that hardly available in Singapore.
I started to buy and collect some of my favorite Korean beverages such as:
sikhye, milkis, vinegar, barley tea and others canned drinks.
The other reason is to make sure that my two non-stop nibbling monsters will stay sweet and not become moody monsters. They eat more than me because they're in growing stage. My daughter even told me that she need to eat 3 meals and 3 snacks because she's underweight! Therefore, Korea is perfect place to bring my them along for holiday because you can easily find diversity of affordable and delicious snacks at almost every corner... a real food paradise~!
While in Korea, do make sure to try various local food throughout the country, which the tastes and flavors entwined in its history, culture and regions. Here are some of the places awaiting you for tasty journey of street foods, snacks, desserts and drinks in Korea. Please click the link for more information:
1. Local Markets
Traditional Market is now a popular tourist attraction because not only you can purchase local products at cheaper price, it's also the best place to find the real taste of Korean local street food.
Street vendors, carts, stalls, cafes are usually sprouting around crowded shopping districts such as Myeongdong, Sinchon, and high human traffics touristy area such as Hangang Park. It's actually awesome, because you can have 2-in-1 shooping and food paradise at the same place!
Street foods in Myeongdong - source of happiness from 1,000 won.
Must-Try: Tornado potato, Dokkaebi hotdog, 30cm ice cream cone, assorted meat skewers, egg bread, Korean sweet strawberry, fresh juice, and many more.
Insadong is the place for you to experience the traditional aspects of Korea
in the heart of the city. You can find traditional Korean food and
Pojangmacha is a small tented wagon (布帐马车) selling variety of popular and comfort street foods such as hotteok, gimbap, tteokbokki, sundae, dakkochi (Korean skewered chicken), gyeranmari omelette, odeng, ramen, dalkbal chicken feet, squid, and anju (dishes accompanied with drinking) at reasonable price.
Many of these establishments serve alcoholic beverages such as soju, makgeolli and beer in the evening. It's a popular place to have a snack or drink late into the night.
In Seoul, you can find pojangmacha tents lining around Jongno 3-ga outside subway station.
You probably seen a lot of scenes of the main characters went there, ordered food and soju.
Jeonju Pojangmacha at the backstreet near JIFF Street.
Jeju Must Try: Skewers, tteokbokki, corndog, twigim.
4. Food Trucks
Recently the food truck leads new trend of food culture. In Korea now the food truck is the most popular form of street food. On the basis of proving food truck's real worth as a form of street food in park and culture-art space and so on
100 years Traditional Hotteok available from food truck near Unhyeongung Palace.
The food trucks parked at the colorful Market Ground in
Wide selection of menus ranging from drinks, desserts, local food and also foods from different countries such as Hamburgers, churros, hamburgers and onigiri can be purchased from these fancyly decorated food trucks near Konkuk University.
5. Traditional drinking Houses / Taverns.
Makgeolli is the oldest alcoholic beverage in Korea. Nongju is another name for Makgeolli, which means “farmer’s liquor.” It's considered as healthy form of alcohol because consist of lactic acid bacteria and dietary fiber. It is made from grains such as sweet rice, regular rice, barley, wheat and malt, which gives it milky off-white color, sweet and slightly fizzy from the fermentation process.
It's long popular among the older generation, now gaining its popularity and trendy drink for younger generation. There are a lot of places like bars or taverns serving makgeolli and anju.
I asked my friend to recommend good restaurant around Garosugil when I participated in Psy Wiki Korea Contest. Although I didn't win the contest, but I went there because I like to drink Makgeolli.
Chez Maak (셰막) is a Makgeolli House that famous for their Baekryun White Lotus Makgeolli and Makgeolli Cocktails. They also serve Fusion Korean foods that matched well with Makgeolli.Pajeon is the best dish to accompany makgeolli.
We only ordered Rice makgeolli + Stir-fried squid, but
the table was full with side dishes including exotic dishes:
Silk worm pupa (번데기) and Fermented skate (홍어).
6. Food Themed Streets
Korea has many food-themed street throughout the country, where numerous restaurants lining a long the streets or alleys where visitors can conveniently taste and experience unique or special delicacies.
If you think, a small cup of tteokbokki is not enough, head to tttekbokki town where you can have a large portion because this spicy dish is served as full meal with lots of ingredients such as dumplings, boiled eggs and glass noodle, cheese and ramyeon.
You can find cafes almost everywhere in Korea. I think Korea really like to drink coffee after their meals. Well, I'm not drinking coffee, but somehow there are a lot of unique and interesting themed cafes in Korea where serving wide varities of beverages and desserts. Here are some of the themed and popular cafes I visited:
It's the firstthemed cafe I visited during my second trip to Korea in year 2013. It's actually Hanbok photostudio where you can rent beautiful Hanbok and take snap photos. Then you can enjoy a few sips of different Korean traditional teas and practice your Hangul brush calligraphy skill.
Wiki Cafe is located at romantic Samcheongdong-gil is owned by the K-pop idol Super Junior's Sungmin's mother. We went there during VIP Invition Tour and lucky to met his handsome brother in the cafe.
This cafe serve eye-catching and cute cakes with cute and fun 'nicknames' such as: 기분좋아 케이크 (Feel Good Cake) is the pleasant nickname for 'Rainbow Cream Cheese Cake' and 'Oh My God' (오마이갓 케이크) for M&M 'Choco Choco Choco Cake',..
My Korean friend introduced Caffe Bene and patpingsu to us when we're in Busan. This Korea coffee chain is mostly available everywhere and most of the time we just resting and enjoyed one or 2 servings of Patpingsu.
Sulbing (설빙)
Sulbing is another dessert cafe chain in Korea. Don't care whether it's scorching hot or snowing outside, kids still want to have their favorite Korean Bingsu.
Savoureux (샤브르)
154, Sogyeok-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul
Savoureux is famous for its shaved layered ice cream sorbets.Originally, sorbet was a dessert made in France to eat frozen juice to refresh the mouth after the meal. Savoreux introducing new concept sorbet ice cream dessert made with the creamy softness of premium milk.
Traditional tea house offer teas like Sipjeondaebotang (traditional Korean medicinal tea with 10 different ingredients), Jujube tea, Citron tea, Ginger tea, Sikhe and Sweet Red Bean Soup (단팥죽 = danpatjuk).
I was craving danpatjuk after ate this, and I ordered Chestnut Sweet Red Bean
Porridge (밤단팥죽) from Gmarket Korea but it tasted salty instead of sweet.
Therefore I learned to cook it (click here for the recipe).
This traditional hanok-style cafe also serve danpatjuk which the taste is similar to what I had in Seoul. It also serves various types of teas and patbingsu.
Duimo cafe is owned by CLC (씨엘씨) Yoojin's (최유진) mother and auntie at Jaman Mural Village. A perfect cafe to stop by for a cup of traditional fruit tea, bingsu and healthy bibimbap waffle after strolling charming Jaman Mural Village.
The best ice-cream that they've ever tasted. It's because this was their fruit of labour... first time ice cream making experience at Wind Village using Samyang premium milk produced from the dairy farm in this village.
8. Convenience Stores / Stalls / Marts
Need quick bites, to occupy your mouth and munching on the go, or buy Korean snacks for your own stocks or as gifts before traveling back to Seoul or your home sweet home...
Dosirak, Ramyeon. breads, snacks and banana milk are some of the items that we usually grab from the convenience stores in Korea. Cheap food and easy to prepare a simple hot meal as you need to add boil water for ramyeon or just reheat using microwave provided there. You can also dine there as they usually provided tables and chairs inside or outside the stores.
Gimbap rolls: our must buy which mostly available at train stations.
Regional delicacies such as Hwangnam bread (황남빵), Chalboribbang (찰보리빵),
Choco Pie, and others available at chained-stores at train / bus stations.
Bought local snacks and corn makgeolli from peddlers at Chujeon Station.
Minimart and stalls at bus resting areas.
Ginseng and MarketO Real Brownie: Must buy from Lotte Mart.
9. Food Courts
Food courts is easier to taste various local delights at one stop at affordable price. However, it might quite difficult to get seats during lunch or dinner time.
As you know I have a sweet tooth, and that's explained why I love to go to buffet restaurants to indulge myself in yummy cakes, desserts and ice cream. Just can't stop myself for sweet temptation!