BUSAN·KOREA
awesomoiso
Korean food, explained from the port city it is eaten in.
Korea has a lot of food and not much of it is explained in English. Menus rarely say what is in a dish, whether it is spicy, whether it contains pork or shellfish, or what you are supposed to do with the tray of things that arrives alongside it.
This site answers those questions before you sit down. We describe what each dish actually tastes like in terms you already know, what changes from shop to shop, what it costs, and who should skip it.
Not sure what to order? Let the matcher narrow it down
Answer a few short questions — how much chilli you can take, what you do not eat, how adventurous you feel — and we will cut 84 Korean dishes down to the ones that actually suit you.
- Vegan, vegetarian or pescatarian
- No pork, no beef, no shellfish
- Cannot eat chilli
- Eating alone, or sharing a table
- Cheap and everyday, or worth a special trip
New posts
Planning a trip to Korea?
Start with Busan. It is the city we know best, and the one where the food has the clearest story behind it — most of what it is famous for was invented by people who arrived with nothing.
- What to Eat in Busan — and What to Skip
- Three Busan Dishes the Port Created
- Gopchang, Makchang, Jeongol — Korean Offal Explained
- Dwaeji Gukbap — the bowl Busan actually eats
- Milmyeon — the cold noodle born from a war
Already living in Korea?
Then the question is not what to try — it is what to buy. We read the Korean label so you do not have to: price, ingredients, allergens, sodium, and whether it is worth buying twice.
How we write
We do not list ten dishes you must try. We tell you which ones are worth your money, which are famous but skippable, and what changes from one shop to the next — because the same dish in two shops can be two different meals.
Where we have not checked something ourselves, we say so.
What this site is
Awesomoiso is a Korean food site written from Busan, for people who do not read Korean. It does one thing: it tells you what a dish actually tastes like, what it costs you in effort, and what nobody warns you about — so you can decide before you are standing in front of a menu.
It is written by one person who lives here, eats these things, and gets corrected regularly. When something has not been verified, the page says so rather than guessing.
Guides to start with
- Korean Pork, All 17 Ways — the first of a nine-part map of Korean food by ingredient
- Korean BBQ Explained — samgyeopsal, marinated pork ribs, and how not to burn them
- Gukbap — why Koreans put the rice in the soup
- Korean Raw Fish by Season — and how to buy your own at a Busan market
- What is free at a Korean restaurant — and what quietly is not
- Product reviews — convenience store food, fast food and instant noodles, with the labels read properly
Why Busan
Most English-language writing about Korean food comes from Seoul or from abroad. Busan is a port city with its own dishes — dwaeji gukbap, milmyeon, raw fish bought from the tank and eaten upstairs — and a food culture that formed around refugees, fishing boats and markets rather than around restaurants built for visitors.
That is the view this site is written from. More on why Busan →