What is it? Marinated short ribs
Galbi is how most people come to know Korean food (other than through Kimchi). The pear-soy marinade it’s slathered with is super sweet, slightly salty, and always addictive. Recipe here.
What is it? Spicy shredded beef stew
Don’t worry, yukgaejang is not as spicy as its scary red color might suggest. In fact, it’s considered a comfort food and is a staple dish in every Korean home. Recipe here.
What is it? Noodles in black bean sauce
Chewy noodles and greasy black sauce are a match made in noodle heaven. In fact, though Chinese in origin, this dish is the most popular takeout item in Korea, and as loved among Koreans as kimchi. Recipe here.
What is it? A stew made with extra soft tofu cubes.
Think of this as the Korean version of late night pizza. Filled with either beef, pork, seafood, or kimchi, as well as tender tofu, this spicy dish is a go-to order to after a night of heavy drinking. Recipe here.
What is it? Toasted salted seaweed.
You’ll find a basket of salted seaweed in every Korean household. It’s a staple side dish, but also makes a great snack and meal on-the-go when paired with rice. Recipe here.
What is it? Cold, spicy noodles with slices of cucumber and pear.
Beware of the noodles: they’re extra long and a known choking hazard! Recipe here.
What is it? Marinated beef.
If you love meat, but also have a sweet tooth, this one’s for you. It tastes a lot like galbi, but it’s made with a thinner cut of meat. Recipe here.
What is it? Fermented bean soup.
Okay, I know it’s not much to look at, but this umami-rich soup is actually really good. It tastes kind of like miso, but with a few slices of chili pepper and zucchini thrown in for extra savoriness. Recipe here.
What is it? Creamy ox bone soup.
This soup’s milky flavor is derived from ox bones boiled over 3+ hours. A pinch of salt and pepper brings out the savory taste. Recipe here.
What is it? Thick slices of pork belly.
Best enjoyed with a large group of friends, along with many bottles of soju and makgeolli. More serving suggestions here.
What is it? Rice with beef, vegetables, and red chili paste.
Literally translating to “mixed rice,” this simple dish will make you want to devour all of your vegetables. It’s served with a dollop of chili paste you mix into the dish before eating, and almost always with a sunny-side up egg. Recipe here.
What is it? Kimchi stew.
This is a great way to use kimchi that’s ripened a little too much. Throw in some tofu, or a few slices of spam and sausage, and you’ve got a meal. Recipe here.
What is it? A stew made with kimchi, ramen, slices sausages, spam, tofu, and rice cake.
Created after the Korean war to make economic use of American ingredients, this stew has EVERYTHING, including spam (which seems to find its way into a lot of Korean dishes.) Recipe here.
What is it? Sweet, brown sugar-filled pancakes.
This treat is best hot off the griddle, when every bite promises a sticky mess and a burnt tongue. It’s especially delicious with cinnamon and chopped nuts in the filling. Recipe here.
What is it? Spicy pork bone stew with potatoes.
Pork bones are boiled with green vegetables until the meat is just barely hanging on to the bone — probably why you can eat this entire soup with just a pair of chopsticks. Recipe here.
What is it? Spicy rice cake served with fish cake.
This is the holy grail of street food. You can often get it with mozzarella melted over the entire platter, with a boiled egg, or with ramen on top. NOM. Recipe here.
What is it? Spicy, fermented cabbage.
This stuff is as essential as bread and butter. It’s spicy (duh), crunchy, and kiiiind of salty, and goes well with literally every Korean dish. Recipe here.
What is it? Cold soy milk noodle soup.
Not all comfort foods are hot. This vegetarian-friendly, nutty soup is best served with ice cubes and a few slivers of cucumber. Recipe here.
What is it? Rice cake soup.
It’s traditionally served on Korean New Year, but also enjoyed throughout the year. Recipe here.
What is it? Soy-drenched beef strips.
This is always the first banchan (side dish) to disappear. It’s made by boiling beef in a seasoning of sugar, soy sauce, chili peppers, and vegetables until tender, and usually served with hardboiled eggs braised in soy sauce. Recipe here.
What is it? Steamed or fried dumplings.
If you’ve ever tried potstickers, Korean mandu are basically the same thing, but with thinner skin. They’re filled with everything from pork to cabbage and carrots. Recipe here.
What is it? Sweet potato noodles stir-fried with vegetables and meat.
It’s most often served as a side dish, though enough additions of beef, mushrooms, sprouts, and other vegetables could bump it up to main course status. Recipe here.
What is it? Fried seafood pancake.
These things are like Pringles — you really can’t stop at just one bite. Fried, savory, and chewy, they’re everything you’d ever want in an appetizer. Recipe here.
What is it? Rice-based liquor.
No KBBQ night is complete without multiple bottles of this smooth, clear liquor.
BTS, also known as Bangtan Boys or Beyond The Scene, is a seven-member South Korean boy band formed by Big Hit Entertainment. They debuted on June 12, 2013 with the song “No More Dream” from their first album 2 Cool 4 Skool, for which they won several New Artist of the Year awards, including at the 2013 Melon Music Awards and Golden Disc Awardsand the 2014 Seoul Music Awards. The band continued to rise to widespread prominence with their subsequent albums Dark & Wild (2014), The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, Part 2 (2015) and The Most Beautiful Moment In Life: Young Forever (2016), with the latter two entering the Billboard 200.[3] The Most Beautiful Moment in Life: Young Foreverwent on to win the Album of the Year award at the 2016 Melon Music Awards.
he group’s name BTS is an acronym for the Korean expression Bangtan Sonyeondan(Hangul: 방탄소년단; Hanja: 防彈少年團), literally meaning “Bulletproof Boy Scouts”. In Japan, they are known as Bōdan Shōnendan (防弾少年団), which translates as the same. On July 2017, BTS announced that in addition to being known as Bangtan Sonyeondan or Bulletproof Boy Scouts, they would also be known as “Beyond The Scene” as a new brand identity
MUSIC:
Black Pink is a South Korean girl group formed by YG Entertainment. The group consists of four members: Jisoo, Jennie, Rosé and Lisa. They officially debuted on August 8, 2016 with the single album Square One, which included their first number-one hit in the Gaon Digital Chart, “Whistle”, and “Boombayah”, which topped the Billboard World Digital Songs chart. Their first five singles have sold 113,000 digital downloads in the United States as of August, 2017. Additionally, they are the highest charting female K-pop act in Billboard‘s Social 50[1] and are also the first K-pop Act to be on YouTube’s Top 25 Summer Songs of 2017 with their title track “As If It’s Your Last”. They are also the first K-pop act who has had all their albums hit the number 1 spot on the “Billboard’s Top 100 Digital Albums”.
MUSIC
TWICE
Twice (Hangul: 트와이스; Japanese: トゥワイス) is a South Korean girl groupformed by JYP Entertainment through the 2015 reality show Sixteen. The group is composed of nine members: Nayeon, Jeongyeon, Momo, Sana, Jihyo, Mina, Dahyun, Chaeyoung, and Tzuyu. The group debuted on October 20, 2015 with the extended play (EP) The Story Begins.[1]
MUSIC
Descendants of the Sun is a Korean military romance featuring Shi-Jin as the captain of the special forces. He was injured and meets Dr. Mo-Yeon for the first time. He falls in love with her immediately. Mo-Yeon mistakenly assumes Shi-Jin is part of thief’s criminal gang. He proves to her that he is a soldier with the help of army doctor Myeong-Joo. They began dating each other but due to their jobs, their dates don’t go well. Will they have a stable relationship despite their huge differences?
Cast:
Kim Shin is a Goblin who is cursed with immortality and uses his powers to help others. He lives together with a Grim Reaper who has amnesia and can’t remember his past. To end his immortality, Shin must search for a human bride who can pull out the sword in his chest and return him to ashes. He meets Ji Eun Tak, a high school student who, despite her painful reality, remains optimistic and ends up falling in love with the Goblin. She works with Sunny, the owner of a small chicken restaurant, who is a bright and attractive girl, loved by all men. However, when she meets the Grim Ripper.
This upcoming season tells the coming-of-age story about the complicated and secretive lives of 18-year-old high school students who are more often called by their school rank than their real names. Despite their frustrations, they find out how to make their own way in this world that seems to be a stagnant cycle of school and home. The focus of School 2017 will return to “real stories about school,” like in its early days
Lee Eun Bi (Kim So Hyun) lives at the orphanage Love’s House in Tongyeong, where younger residents look up to her as a mother figure. They don’t know that she’s friendless at her school and viciously bullied by a posse of mean girls led by Kang So Young (Jo Soo Hyang), while teachers turn a blind eye. On the other hand, Go Eun Byul (Kim So Hyun) is the most popular girl at Segang High School, the most prestigious private high school in Seoul’s Gangnam District. Eun Byul’s best friends are Cha Song Joo (Kim Hee Jung) and Lee Shi Jin (Lee Cho Hee), and she shares a mutual attraction with Han Yi Ahn (Nam Joo Hyuk), the school’s star swimmer. But Eun Byul has secrets, including one involving a girl named Jung Soo In. Eun Bi and Eun Byul look exactly alike, but only Eun Byul is aware of the other’s existence. One day, on a school field trip to Tongyeong, Eun Byul mysteriously disappears. At the same time, Eun Bi gets unjustly expelled from her school and transfers to Segang. The injured and amnesiac Eun Bi is mistaken for her doppelgänger Eun Byul, and she starts living the latter’s charmed life, unaware of the secrets Segang holds.
Kim Bok Joo is a student in Haneol College of Physical Education. She has shown strength like no other since she was a child was influenced by her former weightlifter father. She looks thoughtless at a first glance, but inside she’s as fragile as glass and has deep recognition. Jung Joon Hyeong is Kim Bok Joo’s best friend. He is a born swimmer but ever since he was disqualified from his first international event, he suffers from ‘start trauma’. Along with Kim Bok Joo, he overcomes his troubles and finds his dream and love. Song Shi Ho is a rhythm gymnast who also attends Haneol College of Physical Education. She started gymnastics since she was 5 and won the Asian Games at the age of 18. She’s always been the best since then but mental pressure caused her to break up with Jung Joon Hyung and regret it. ~~ This drama is inspired by the life of South Korean Olympic weightlifter gold-medalist Jang Mi Ran.
Do Bong Soon is a woman with superhuman strength. With her strength she gets hired as the bodyguard of the spoiled CEO of the gaming company Ainsoft, Ahn Min Hyuk. Min Hyuk is being threatened by an unknown enemy, and is determined to solve the problem himself out of his distaste and distrust of the police. In Guk Doo is a policeman and Bong Soon’s crush since childhood. When series of kidnappings occur in Bong Soon’s small, quiet neighborhood Dobong-dong, their little community is thrown into chaos. Combined with the job of protecting her boss’s life, Bong Soon’s already unusual life has gone wild. However, she must be careful; if she missuses her strength, she could lose it forever.
A man with a genius IQ follows in his father’s footsteps in more ways than one. Park Hoon (Lee Jong Suk) is raised in North Korea to become a doctor by his doctor father, who had defected to South Korea years ago and met his South Korean mother before being captured and returned to North Korea. After Park Hoon becomes an accomplished chest surgeon, he too defects to South Korea and goes to work in the prestigious Dongwoo University Hospital. As he tries to adjust to his strange new life in South Korea, Park Hoon does his best to work alongside Han Jae Joon (Park Hae Jin), a Harvard graduate who first discovers Park Hoon’s talent, while catching the eye of Oh Soo Hyun (Kang So Ra), Jae Joon’s fiancée and the daughter of the hospital chairman. Anesthesiologist Song Jae Hee bears a strong resemblance to Han Seung Hee (both played by Jin Se Yun), Park Hoon’s girlfriend back in the North whom he wants desperately to come join him. Can the genius doctor do what it takes to make a new life for himself and his love in the South?
A love story between a couple in their early thirties. It’s the story of two people who live in the same era but in different worlds. Oh Yun Joo (Han Hyo Joo) is a surgeon whose father is a famous comic book creator. One day, her father goes missing and she rushes to his workshop to look for him, and instead finds a strange man, Kang Chul (Lee Jong Suk) bathed in blood. She is kidnapped by him and taken to a different dimension.
The drama revolves around a woman who can foresee unfortunate events that will happen to other people through her dreams. On the other hand, the prosecutor will do everything in his powers to prevent the woman’s dreams from turning into a reality. Nam Hong Joo (Suzy) is an unemployed journalist who lives with her mother and puts little energy into trying to find gainful employment. Instead, she spends her time admiring and fangirling for Jung Jae Chan (Lee Jong Suk), a rookie prosecutor who is a rising star in the legal profession. But when Hong Joo starts having dreams that foretell bad events that will happen in the immediate future, she turns to Jae Chan for help. Despite being annoyed by the pesky Hong Joo, Jae Chan has no choice but to do everything in his power to these prevent events things from happening.
When it comes to Korean skin care, more is more. (Heard of the exhaustive ten-step routine that Korean women follow daily?) If you don’t quite have the time (or money) for this kind of multi-step process, you’re in luck. We’ve got some beauty tips straight from Angela Kim, founder of Insider Beauty, an e-commerce site that makes bestselling cult skin care and makeup products from Korea available here in the U.S. Read on for some foreign-sounding habits for gorgeous skin.
No, we don’t mean when you drop food on the ground. We’re talking about how quickly you apply your products—a rule talked about over and over again in Korean beauty magazines. “After you take a hot shower, you’re supposed to apply your toner within 10 seconds,” says Kim. The longer you wait, the more dehydrated your skin becomes. So the faster you can lock in that moisture and keep your skin protected, the better. (Ideally, you’d keep it in the shower with you, she says.) If you’re at the gym and don’t have a toner with you, the same goes for your moisturizer—apply that bad boy as fast as possible, then follow up with the rest of your routine, says Kim. (Be sure to check these 10 Korean beauty products for a post-workout glow.)
Cotton sheet masks are the biggest Korean beauty craze of the moment here in the U.S. And for good reason: There are endless variations that hydrate, exfoliate, and brighten to solve pretty much every skin problem you can think of. (The experience of wearing one is also pretty hilarious. Check out these 15 things you think while wearing a sheet mask.) But there’s one hack you likely haven’t adopted when it comes to your sheet mask. To get optimal results, everyone in Korea brings their sheet mask with them to the steam room at their gym or spa, and pops it on once their pores have had a chance to open up, says Kim. “It’s just like when the esthetician steams your skin before she does anything else so that your skin can absorb all of the ingredients,” she says. Haven’t jumped on the sheet mask bandwagon yet? Kim recommends the Leaders coconut gel moisturizing recovery mask to keep your super hydrated throughout the winter months. (Psst: Here are some derm-approved tips to protect your skin post-gym the is winter.)
“I don’t know why massage creams haven’t blown up in the U.S., but they are huge in Korea. It’s a daily staple,” says Kim. There are a bunch of different massage techniques you can use (Kim has a whole blog post on it), but here’s the gist: By using your knuckles or fingertips to massage the muscles and tissue under your skin, you’ll increase blood circulation and get the oxygen flowing through your face, which in turn will keep your skin glowing and radiant. Massaging daily also helps to firm and tone your facial muscles to help fight wrinkles and prevent the skin from aging over time. “It’s a must-do. It’s not even considered anything special in Korea,” says Kim. “You’re an anomaly if you’re not doing this.” (More on the new-to-the-U.S. concept here: I Tried a Workout Class for My Face.)
“Double-cleansing,” the first step is the notorious 10-step process (hint: it involves exactly what it sounds like) isn’t even a term in Korea because it’s that obvious of a practice, says Kim. “Everyone double cleanses. It’s considered so necessary that no one washes their face just once.” And out of all the somewhat bizarre-sounding Korean beauty habits, this one perhaps makes the most sense: Of course, you should remove your makeup first (Kim recommends an oil-based cleanser), and then wash it again with a second product to really get a deep clean. (Or you know, at least, use a makeup-removing wipe first!)
Yep, we know this sounds like something straight out of SNL, but this really is a super popular technique in Korea. Following the same logic as facial massage, women in Korea will slap their faces about 50 times after finishing their daily skincare regimen to get blood circulation going and firm up the face muscles, she explains. “I grew up with my mom doing this. She slapped so hard you could hear it in the kitchen from her bedroom,” says Kim. It might sound crazy, but when it comes to slapping, “the more the merrier” and “the harder the better!”
Women in Korea have a long history of making their own rice water to wash their face because of the long-established skin benefits. “It’s a natural moisturizer that helps slow aging, reduce dark circles, fade age spots, and brighten skin,” says Kim. If you have rice in your kitchen, simply let it soak for about 10-15 minutes, swirl it around, and then use that milky water as a pseudo-toner. If you’d rather go with a ready-made rice product, try Primera’s black rice emulsion or Inisfree’s rice sleeping mask pod to get the same brightening and moisturizing effects. (Here, more home remedies that will save your skin this winter.)
Winter months in Korea are notoriously cold, so humidifiers are commonly used to keep the skin hydrated when the air gets dry. There’s also a super-easy old-school hack if you’re traveling and don’t have a humidifier on hand: “A lot of women like to drench towels in water and then hang them around their bed while they sleep at night,” says Kim. “I’ve tried it and it really, really helps.”
“Korean women take a preventative approach to aging at a very young age, whereas women in the U.S. tend to wait until they see that first line or wrinkle,” says Kim. Not only is using SPF ingrained, but they also tend to take protective measures from the sun year round. “It’s not uncommon to see women in Korea wear white gloves that go up to their elbows while they’re driving, or visors that literally cover their entire face,” she says. (Because yes, ultraviolet rays can still harm your skin even indoors and can pass through the clouds and reflect off snow and ice in the wintertime.)
Tteok-bokki or stir-fried rice cakes is a popular Korean food made from small-sized garae-tteok called tteokmyeon or commonly tteok-bokki-tteok. Fish cakes, boiled eggs, and scallions are some of the most commonly added ingredients.
Darangee Village, a small well-preserved village in the southernmost area of west Namhae-gun, features an extraordinary sight of countless tiny fields (over 100 levels) on a steep mountain slope against the open sea.
EVERYTHING ABOUT KOREA 