Gwangjang Market Sundae Stalls (광장시장 순대)

Seoul, South Korea

Gwangjang Market in Jongno-gu opened in 1905, making it one of the oldest traditional markets in Seoul still in continuous operation. The covered central food hall runs down the middle of the market and holds rows of vendors cooking bindaetteok, mayak gimbap, yukhoe, and sundae. The sundae stalls cluster near the center of the hall, recognizable by their steel steamers and the trays of sliced sundae kept warm under glass covers. Each vendor sells sundae alongside tteokbokki, and the combination plate is the default order for most visitors. The market draws both local workers from the surrounding fabric and garment district and tourists who have seen the market on every major Korean food documentary made in the last decade.

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Sausages served here

Sundae

Seoul & the Korean Peninsula

Sundae is Korea's street food sausage: pig intestine stuffed with glass noodles, pork blood, glutinous rice, and green onion, then steamed until the casing tightens around the filling. It is not a blood sausage in the European sense. The blood binds and colors, but the dominant texture is noodle. Seoul street stalls sell it by the portion from steamer trays, kept hot all day. You eat it with salt and ground chili powder, or with the broth from a sundae-guk soup. Every pojangmacha tent in the city offers some version of it, and the smell of a steamer at a street cart is one of Seoul's defining sensory landmarks.

porkblood sausageKorean