A lot of stories are told about food shortages in North Korea but it is about distribution only and for foreigners in Pyongyang basic food provided regularly and its quality is satisfactory. Mostly it is brought from abroad, including fresh products. Restaurants serve a variety of Korean, Japanese, European and a sort of Chinese food. The North Korean cuisine has its own taste, slightly different from South Korean food. The author would present a number of the most typical dishes in North Korea.
Kimchi - is the traditional Korean pickles, mostly Chinese cabbage and radish. In North Korea it is more sweet and sour than in South Korea and less spicy hot. But it contains a lot of red chilies and still rather hot. So inexperienced person should taste it with care. One option is to ask waitress (choptaewon-tongmu) a less hot kind of the pickles so called “water-kimchi” or mul-kimchi in Korean. It has more juice and mild taste. Kimchi is a great addition to any Korean food especially steamed rice or noodles.
Pyongyang naengmyun /Maemil kuksu/ is a kind of fresh buckwheat noodles quickly boiled and served cold, sometimes even with ice cubes. Classically it is served in a brass or steel bowl in soup with kimchi, cucumbers, meats and egg on top. The combination varies in different restaurants but the main idea is the same - tasty gummy noodles are easy to swallow and so tasty, that you just can’t control the amount eating. With naengmyun Koreans often drink draft beer.
Sinsollo would be an adornment of the dining table and it’s always brought in with a sort of solemnity. This famous Korean soup served in a brass or aluminum stew-pan with little stove under its bottom and a chimney in the middle. There are burning char-coal or spirit in the stove when sinsollo is put on the table. It looks exactly like serving of the Thai sour prawn soup but tastes different. Sinsillo contains meats, fish, vegetables and wild plants, gingko seeds and many other available products. Every person takes some from the pan to a small soup bowl ant eats with rice.
Tankogi (dahn-koghee) is the exotic Korean staff, translated as “sweet meat” and simply means... the meat of dog. Usually Koreans eat it in the soup called Tankogi-gook in North Korea and Bosintang in South Korea. Don’t mix this words because they are not understandable in wrong part of the Korean peninsula. Pyongyang has many restaurants where “sweet meat” is served. One of them situated in Tonil-kori Street where there is a variety of dishes including fried dog’s testicles. So westerners, going to the restaurants of that sort, may turn into shock experience. But if you don’t want to eat dogs, you cat successfully order chicken or vegetables and enjoy seeing how others are eating dogs.
Yakpab - literally means “healing rice” cooked usually in a stone bowl with honey, ginseng and pine seeds. Koreans believe that this sweet, brown and sticky rice improves health.
Tol-bulgogi - is a BBQ on a round stone which every person at the table get preheated till red. Sliced and marinated meats are to be put on top of the stone and cooked very quickly. This dish is a peculiarity of Wonsan region on Eastern cost of DPRK.
Tubu (tooboo) - Korean bean-curd, which is softer than Chinese tofu, widely used in the North Korean cuisine. One of the typical dishes is the soup tubu-tang.
Cold salads - A variety of salads in North Korea served as side dishes for rice and noodles. Cold chicken and cucumber salad (tahk-koghee oee naeng-che) is a nice one sprinkled with vinegar and sesame seeds. Bean sprouts salads are of two kinds noktoo-namool and khong-namool. Very popular one is the “three colour salad” (samsaek-namool) which is served on a plate as a combination of three white, red and green salads usually made of shredded reddish, carrot and spinach but ingredients can vary.
Wild plants salads - These are the unique kind of cold side dishes in Korea. Sometimes foreigners could notice women collecting some grass near roads or on a hill slope. This is not necessary a sign of food shortage. Because there is a lot of delicatessens under people’s feet which not only saved Koreans during hard times for centuries, but also gave them yummy addition to their everyday meal. In the cities, restaurants make salads of wild plants but the best way is to try some in the mountains. One of the famous wild delicatessens is torajee - roots of the Korean white bell-flower. It is usually very spicy hot, sweet and sour salad with fresh and wonderful taste. Teurup is another example of the ancient cuisine used by Buddhist monks and anti-Japanese guerrillas. This is spring shoots of a tree grown in the mountains with very tender taste. A variety of mushrooms like song-ee posot makes Korean table simple but rich and completed.
Seafood (soosanmool) is available in many restaurants in DPRK but seashore cities like Nampo and Wonsan can give more. Simple beach picnic style is cooking collected shells sprinkled with petrol and burned. Koreans do such things very often but much safer way is to go to a restaurant where this “industrialized” method is not used. Some shellfish is to be eaten raw but marinated in vinegar sauces. On the eastern cost there is a Scallop porridge soup (pap-joge jook) served in a large shell. Squids can be barbecued as nakjee pool-koghee. Spicy raw octopus salad is called moono-hoe. Sea cucumbers or haesam in Korean are an expensive delicatessen but much cheaper then in other North Asian countries. Koreans believe that eating haesam what literally means “sea ginseng” helps to strengthen men’s potency. Among fish the most common ones are flatfish, sea perch, carp, eel and trout.
DRINKS
Alcoholic drinks are very popular among people in DPRK during different celebrations. It also can be a good present to a man and there is a variety of vodkas and wines. Every alcohol called sool in Korean. They are different from European alcoholic drinks and may seem very unusual. There is a short list of the most famous ones:
Insam-sool - mild 30% alcohol drink with a ginseng root inside the bottle. It is more considered as a tonic and people drink it in small amount, no more then 50 grams. People with high blood pressure are not recommended to drink it at all.
Paem-sool - a very strong up to 60% alcohol drink prepared with a snake. The taste can be not pleasant but Koreans believe that it has healing effects.
Taepyung-sool - a strong up to 60% crystal clean Pyongyang vodka.
Oanjeenae-sool - a 30% vodka with black centipedes in each bottle. It is believed that the liquor heals human bones.
In different parts of North Korea there are many kinds of vodka even with fungus, flowers and fruits. Grape wine is usually sweet and it’s called podojoo. Local beer is very specific and there are several brands of it like Ryongsong, Pyongyang and Ponghak.
Among soft drinks Koreans recommend ginseng tea which is called Insam-cha in Korean language. This instant drink in tea bags can be found in every hotel for foreigners in DPRK. Cider (pronounced as saida) is a carbonated drink with different syrups.