It’s the season when you have to carry around 3,000 won in your chest. It’s unfortunate that it’s getting harder to find, but the flavor that comes to mind in winter is too good to pass up. Nowadays, you can find various types of taiyaki, including its sister product, golden carp bread, and mini taiyaki, which made me curious. What’s in a street table bread?
1. Tteokbap (feat. Golden Carp Bread, Mini Tteokbap, etc.)
The most original of the freshly baked breads sold at street stalls is probably tteokbap. Usually, only the belly side of the tteokbap is filled with red beans, but nowadays, there are many places that are filled with red beans from head to tail , and the price has risen steeply , and not only tteokbap, but also various sister products such as shubung with yellow sugar cream, pibung with pizza filling, and goebung with sweet potato filling.
How about Hyundai Fish Bun in Seongsu-dong, which Dua Lipa also visited recently, and Namjae Carp Bun with red bean paste, which boasts notoriously high prices.
👉 Winter essential tteokbap map app
👉 Interview with a young man in front of Gangnam Station
2. Daegeobap (feat. squid bread)
Snow crab bread and squid bread can be found near the seaside in places like Donghae, Pohang, and Uljin. They are literally shaped like snow crabs or squid, and depending on where they are sold, they are often mixed with snow crab powder to add a salty flavor. In the case of snow crab buns, the plump belly is usually filled with red bean paste, while squid buns are surprisingly filled with pizza cheese.
3. Sewonbap
This bread is shaped like a large one-dollar coin and filled with mozzarella cheese, which makes it very cheesy when you bite into it. The savory flavor of the cheese and the sweetness of the bread go well together. Hwanglidan-gil in Gyeongju is famous.
4. Chrysanthemum Bread (feat. Grass Bread)
Chrysanthemum bread, also called grass bread, is a bread shaped like a flower blossom about the size of a baby’s fist. In the past, it was also called grass bread. It is smaller and rounder than taiyaki bread, so you can enjoy the red bean paste and the crispy outer bread in one bite.
5. Egg bread
This bun is a little more expensive than other street buns because it contains a whole egg. The egg is cooked hard-boiled, so the center can be a bit choking, which can be a hit or miss if you don’t like hard-boiled eggs. The egg part is always sprinkled with salt, giving it a salty saltiness and the sweet bread part a sweet appeal.
6. Banana bread
This is an elongated banana-shaped bread that doesn ‘t have much filling and has a faint banana flavor throughout. This is one of the hardest breads to find. It tastes like a soft castella from the old days.
7. Deli Manju
Who hasn’t tried deli manju while traveling to school or work on the subway? Even if I’m not hungry, I still can’t forget the aroma of deli manju wafting through the subway. Strangely enough, it doesn’t taste good once you leave the subway station, and you can only appreciate it when you walk through the station and eat freshly baked delicacies. I remember when I was in college, my friend and I would sneak down to a station based on the smell, buy a deli, and then take the next train home.
8. Coffee bean bread
It originated in Gangneung, a coffee paradise. The bread is shaped like a large bean and has a rich, savory coffee flavor that goes especially well with an Americano.
9. Walnut snacks
Although Cheonan is said to be the originator, there are many chain stores and you can find them all over the country, so walnut snacks are probably the favorite street bread of people of all ages. I remember baking them with a single walnut and always biting the walnut first. Why is there only one walnut? Unfortunately, I can’t forget the crispy taste. Nowadays, you can also buy walnut snacks with half a walnut and half butter. They call them hodo sweets.
10. Peanut snacks
Peanut buns are about the size of a peanut, and as the name suggests, they are more like sweets than bread. Wherever they sell peanut snacks, they also sell round bread with white azuki beans… What was it called?
11. Poop Bun
If you go to Insadong Ssamji-gil, you can find Ttongbap. You can choose between red bean and chocolate flavors, and kids especially love them, so if you’re in Insadong with your kids, it’s worth checking out.