[dropcap size=big]I[/dropcap]n Netflix’s Street Food: Asia series, each delicacy spotlighted became an object of culinary desire that viewers needed to put in their collective mouths ASAP. When the series made its way to the already famous Gwangjang Market in Seoul, Korea, every tasty fried or fermented food that appeared on camera was now more than merely famous—it was Netflix famous, meaning food hunters from all across the globe would be seeking out and eating the delightful dish after drooling over it back home in front of their 60-inch Samsungs.
Gwangjang Market is arguably the most well-known of Seoul’s many street food areas, with over 5000 stalls, some of which offer a selection of Korean comfort foods that elicit warm and fuzzy feelings of a Korean grandma’s cooking. Much of the market’s vast choices are simple-to-prepare dishes like odeng guk, a basic soup adorned with skewered fishcake, or kimchi mandu, a dumpling filled with kimchi and pork.
Bindaetteok (sometimes nokdujeon) or mung bean pancake is considered by some to be the rockstar of street eats in Gwangjang Market. Why shouldn’t it be? Its deliciousness materializes right before your eyes. Buckets of mung beans that have been soaking overnight are emptied onto a traditional millstone for grinding. Out of it flows a coarse batter that is then blended with kimchi, mung bean sprouts, and green onion—ready for frying. Next, circles of mung bean batter sizzle in a shallow pool of oil until they form into crispy ½ inch thick discs. The cook, typically a working mother, grips one of the bindaetteok with her kitchen shears and cuts the pancake into four equal sections. The rest of the pancakes are stacked like golden doubloons waiting to be served, and with the most popular bindaetteok stalls selling over 1000 pancakes per day, they may as well be made of gold.