This weekend I went on a short trip to Jeonju with a few ex-coworkers. I found that two days make a perfect trip since the place is quite small - I also found that the Hanok (traditional Korean house) Village, what Jeonju is most famous for, is way too commercialized and therefore a bit overrated. There is not exactly a lot to see, and for most of the tourist attractions I can say for sure that you can find similar places closer to Seoul or in any other part of Korea, but with less hype and crowds. However, if you're a food enthusiast like I am, there are plenty of new and delicious snacks/treats you can taste in Jeonju; they're not exactly traditional Jeonju foods, but over the years the Hanok Village morphed into a weird modern fusion marketplace for street foods that older generation locals lament but younger generations thoroughly enjoy. This blog post will be mostly must-eats, with a few attractions here and there. It's a long one, so be prepared!
Jeonju is easily accessible by bus. A ticket from Dong Seoul Bus Terminal to Jeonju cost 20,800 KRW one-way, with one rest stop along the way. Without traffic, estimated time is about 3 hours but we arrived an hour late since it was the weekend. We had a light breakfast right before departing since we were planning to eat heavy upon arrival. From the terminal, the Hanok Village is about 5-10 minutes away by taxi. I had a very light load (all I packed was pajamas and an extra set of underwear) so instead of stopping at the hotel we just went straight to sightseeing.
1. Pungnamjeong (풍남정) Bibimbap
One of Jeonju's most famous dishes is bibimbap. Of course, bibimbap is now accessible pretty much everywhere and is not particularly tastier in Jeonju, but since they're known for it you might as well have some while you're there. This restaurant is located right by the entrance of Hanok Village. They've got 4 menus total: 3 different types of bibimbap and bulgogi. We sampled the 3 bibimbaps.
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| Banchan (side dishes) |
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| Yukhui bibimbap (beef sashimi) |
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| Dolsot (hot stone bowl) bibimbap |
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| Regular Jeonju bibimbap |
To be honest, I caught a pretty bad cold on the day we arrived at Jeonju, and most of the foods were completely tasteless. :-( It was a pretty depressing day for me. I could feel the textures of the food but I had no sensation of taste or smell, and had to rely on my friends' comments and my own imagination to get a better idea of the food. For bibimbap, the most recommended would be the dolsot just because it's a lot warmer and hearty. Tastewise they are all pretty much the same.
2. Jeondong Church
This is a Catholic church also located at the entrance. They open it to the public only in certain hours of the day. It's a pretty church, and I don't know any stories about it. Worth a look, though.
3. Skewers
There are plenty of skewers stalls inside the Hanok Village, and this is one of the famous ones. "Mun" is short for "muneo" which means octopus, so you can get grilled octopus on a stick, or chicken topped with Imsil cheese. Imsil is a place in Korea that is known for producing cheese (not common in Korea).
4. Renting Hanbok
Hanbok is Korean traditional clothing, and can be rented for a few hours while you walk around Hanok village. It's very common to do when you're here, and I thought it was quite cute to see a bunch of foreigners dressed in Hanbok and taking a group picture. You can also rent old school uniforms - old meaning 1960-70's style.
5. Tteokgalbi Wanja Skewer
Tteokgalbi means galbi (ribs) shaped into patties that look like rice cakes (tteok), and wanja also means some sort of patty. Supposedly this dish also originated in Jeollado, the province in which Jeonju is located. Street food stalls put a twist to this and made them into skewers, adding a creamy cheesy sauce on top. The meat itself is also quite sweet since it's marinated and seasoned with a bunch of things I don't really know. It's delicious anyway.
6. Gilgeoriya Baguette Burger and Cheese Rolls
Gilgeoriya is a cafe that sells mostly beverages and juices. Their baguette burger is just an additional menu but apparently this is the most famous. Basically it's a baguette filled with meat, veggies, and barbecue sauce. The bread is very crispy, but in my opinion the vegetables were too overpowering.
The next two were bought at random stores, but are fairly common. One is blueberry flavored beer (also available in other fruity flavors) and fried cheese rolls.
7. Omokdae
At the end of the main street, you'll run into another entrance marked with a boulder, and a steep path that leads to Omokdae. According to the Korean Tourism Organization:
Omokdae is located on top of a steep hill and is one of the places where Yi Seong-gye (who later became King Taejo, the first king of the Joseon Dynasty) stopped to celebrate his victory on his way home from a war with Japanese invaders at Hwangsan Mt, Unbong at the end of the Goryeo Era. It is also a place where Mokjo, one of Yi’s forefathers, had once lived.
It's a huge pavilion that overlooks the Hanok Village, with beautiful views of treetops. We took off our shoes and chillaxed here for a couple of hours. If the weather's nice it's also a great spot for a nap!
Then we walked down another path hoping to come across the mural street, but ended up getting lost. We wound up at some random picturesque street, which luckily led into Hyanggyo, one of our other destinations.
8. Hyanggyo
Jeonju Hyanggyo is an old Confucian school from the Joseon dynasty, centuries ago. It also was the filming location for Sungkyunkwan Scandal (popular K-drama), and you can also rent Seonbi clothing, seonbi meaning aristocratic scholar from older times. There is no entrance fee - the place is rather small but quite nice to look at and take a short walk. I like to imagine what studying in a place like this would have been like in the Joseon dyansty.
Now it's time for more FOOD!
8. Jeondong Hotteok (baked Korean pancake)
Korean hotteok is typically oil-fried in a pan, but this place bakes their hotteok in an oven, so it takes much longer to make. You can find a variety of flavors (we ordered cream cheese and Imsil cheese), as well as ice cream hotteok and other things we weren't really interested in. I was especially discouraged because apparently it was really good but I couldn't taste anything, so the next morning when I could taste food again, we returned and I had a second shot at it. ^_^ To my delight it was as yummy as I had expected. Apart from the hotteok we also tried grilled cheese - this is literally cheese that is grilled, in its purest form and drizzled with condensed milk. Not your typical sandwich.
9. Kyodong Koroke (Croquettes)
Koreanized croquettes (pronounced koroke, or goh-roh-keh) are a common bakery dish in Korea. Normally they'd be stuffed with veggies and potato, sometimes meat, sometimes curry; but Kyodong has a few special flavors. The ones we tried were the Jeonju tteokgalbi and the bibimbap. That's right, bibimbap inside a croquette!
10. Daurang Hand-Made Dumplings
You can find dumplings of all different flavors and types - baked, fried, or steamed. Filled with meat, veggies, shrimp or whatever. They can be savory or spicy. You name it. I wanted to sample everything, but of course that's not possible, so we selected a few to take to our hotel for dinner (mostly shrimp).
11. Jo Jeom Rye Nammun Pisoondae
Soondae is pig or cow intenstine stuffed with other ingredients, in this case blood. I guess you could say this is the Korean version of a blood sausage! This place is located in Nammun Market, which is an attraction all in its own - but we came here straight to buy the soondae to go and didn't spend time browsing since we were a bit tired by this point. We bought our soondae, along with some cup ramen and a few drinks, and headed to our hotel for a last meal (basically the last few street foods that we'd bought).
Then we watched television for a few hours and called it a night!
-DAY 2-
12. Bean Sprout Soup
Jeonju is also famous for its kongnamul kukbap, bean sprout soup with rice (eaten together, not separately). There are a few big famous places, and Weng-i is one of them. We took a taxi to this place at around 9 in the morning on Sunday, and there was already a line of people waiting. There's only one menu, so no need to ponder what to eat. This place is not located inside Hanok Village, it's about 10 minutes away by foot. Address: 전북 전주시 완산구 동문길 88
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| Basic banchan |
Quick tutorial on how to eat this, according to the sign on a wall at this restaurant:
Dump your rice into the soup bowl, mix, and enjoy (this one is not mentioned, it's just how you eat it)
As for the poached egg, put in a few spoonfuls of the soup. Then rip up the roasted seaweed and add it to the egg (apparently, the seaweed should be eaten with the egg only, not with the soup). Then mix mix mix and enjoy - separately with the soup.
But of course, you can probably put it in your soup if you want, because who cares about rules? I tried it separately because that's what they suggested, but in the future I think I'll just mix it all together.
Looks a bit gross but tastes yummy - and it gives you the protein that's not provided in the soup.
As for the soup itself... in all honesty it's not that big of a deal. I mean, how spectacular can bean sprout actually taste? It's yummy in Seoul too, but I guess this place is worth a try at least, since it's so famous.
13. PNB (Poong Nyun Bakery)
This is an old and very famous bakery which apparently is the first maker of the famous Korean Jeonju chocopie. There were some family issues a few decades ago, so in Jeonju you'll find two brands of Poong Nyun Bakery - one written in Korean only and one with the English logo PNB. This PNB brand is the original, so don't get confused!
This place has other baked goods, but is most famous for their chocopies, which are a bit like whoopie pies. They've got other flavors like banana or green tea or cream cheese. I find that all of them are mediocre and overrated, but these are one of the top gifts to take home, and they even deliver. I tried a chocolate cake (more like a brownie) which I found to be my favorite at this bakery - it was so moist and sweet and chocolatey. But the pie was whatever. Not bad, but I would never crave it.
14. Dalgom Bingsu (Ice Flakes)
This was not where we originally intended to go, but the other famous bingsu place was closed so we walked into any cafe that was open. This place had a very nice, traditional interior and we stayed here for a couple of hours before heading to the terminal for our ride back home. The bingsu cost 11,000 KRW and looked pretty, but there wasn't much to eat and you can get much better bingsus in Seoul at far lower prices.
I was super stuffed at this point, since in a span of 3 hours I had eaten the bean sprout soup with rice, the 2nd attempt at the cheese hotteok, 2 mini chocopies and a large brownie, and the bingsu. I didn't eat anything for lunch, but on the bus I got a bit hungry, so I bought a corndog at the rest stop which tasted rather awful.
Anyway, this marks the end of my short Jeonju trip. I know it seems like a LOT of food and it was, but before you judge me as a total pig, we were 4 people and we only bought 1 or 2 portions of each dish to share, so it was mostly sampling a bite or so of everything rather than actually eating, like, 10 meals' worth in 2 days. Which was only possible since we were four, and awesome since we could really try a lot of things in such a short period of time. I'm still mad at myself for being sick on the first day because I couldn't enjoy the food as much as I could have, but that only gives me reason to come back again, which I definitely will! :)
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