Bungsegwon: why Koreans measure a neighbourhood by its winter snack cart

The cart outside exit 3 has no sign. There is only a clear plastic tarp fogged on the inside and a row of cast-iron moulds, which a woman in quilted arm sleeves flips with a hooked rod, one clack at a time. Three middle-school students wait with their phones out. A man in a padded jacket holds a folded note between two fingers and says nothing, because the order is understood before he reaches the front. When the batch is done she tips the fish-shaped cakes onto a wire rack, and the queue moves forward a step.

A word for living near a fish-shaped bread

The cakes are bungeoppang (붕어빵), crucian carp bread. Thin wheat batter goes into a fish-shaped mould with a spoonful of sweet filling, the mould is closed, and it is turned over a gas flame until the scales go crisp. On many carts it sits next to ingeoppang (잉어빵), a branded cousin named after a larger carp, with a thinner shell and filling pushed right out to the fins. Some carts also make gukhwappang (국화빵), a smaller chrysanthemum-shaped round cooked from the same batter.

Koreans have a joke word for the pull these carts have. Property listings advertise yeoksegwon (역세권), meaning a home within walking distance of a subway station. Bungsegwon (붕세권) borrows the suffix to mean a home within reach of a bungeoppang cart. It is said half as a joke and half as a real complaint, because the carts are seasonal and they move, and a corner that had one last winter may not have one this year.

There is no fish in fish bread, as the saying goes, and Koreans use the line for anything whose name promises more than it delivers. For the cakes it is simply true, since there is nothing from the sea in the batter.

붕어빵에는 붕어가 없다.

Red bean or custard, and the tail-first question

The oldest filling is pat (팥), red bean paste cooked with sugar until it is dark and slightly grainy. Custard came later. It is called syukeurim (슈크림), from the French chou à la crème by way of Japanese, and it split the country into two camps, each with its own abbreviation: patbung (팥붕) for red bean, syubung (슈붕) for custard. Online the argument is played with mock seriousness. At the cart it is settled by pointing, since many vendors keep the two fillings in separate rows of the mould and will mix a bag if you ask.

The second argument is where to start. Some people bite the head off first and some start with the tail. The tail-first side points out that the tail is all crust and cools fastest, so it is the safer first bite. Newer carts try sweet potato, cheese, or a pizza-style filling with corn and sauce, usually written on a strip of paper taped to the tarp. Those come and go, but the red bean row stays.

The eomuk pot and the counting of skewers

Many winter carts run a second business on the side: a long steel tray of eomuk (어묵), fish cake folded onto wooden skewers and left to soak in broth. Older Koreans still call it odeng (오뎅), and both words show up on hand-lettered menus. The broth is made from dried anchovy, kelp and chunks of radish, and for many customers it is the real point. They take a skewer, then fill a paper cup from the ladle hooked over the edge of the pot. The broth comes with the skewers. It is not a separate order.

Visitors usually get the payment system wrong. At many stalls you eat first and pay after, and the vendor works out what you owe by counting the bare skewers in your hand or in the cup beside the pot. Keep yours until you settle up. Some carts add a spicy version, maeun eomuk (매운 어묵), stewed in a red chilli broth in a separate compartment. Busan treats eomuk as its own city product, and its bakery-style eomuk shops sell versions stuffed with vegetables or cheese. Still, most people first meet it as a cup of broth drunk standing next to a stranger at a Seoul cart.

Hotteok, from Namdaemun's queue to Busan's seeded version

Hotteok (호떡) is the cart snack with the most regional variety. The standard version is a disc of yeasted dough pressed flat on an oiled griddle around brown sugar, cinnamon and crushed nuts, which melt into syrup as it cooks. At Namdaemun Market (남대문시장) in Seoul, a short walk from Hoehyeon Station (회현역) on Line 4, the queue to watch is for yachae hotteok (야채호떡). It is a savoury version, deep-fried and filled with dangmyeon (당면) glass noodles and chopped vegetables, and handed over in a paper sleeve.

Busan's version is ssiat hotteok (씨앗호떡), seed hotteok, sold from stalls around BIFF Square (BIFF광장) in Nampo-dong, near Jagalchi Station (자갈치역) on Busan Metro Line 1. The vendor fries the disc, cuts it open with scissors and fills the pocket with sunflower and pumpkin seeds, which soak up the syrup. Other winter carts sell gyeranppang (계란빵), a small rectangle of sweet bread baked with a whole egg cracked on top, and gun-goguma (군고구마), sweet potatoes roasted in a barrel-shaped oven and sold in paper bags. Roasted chestnuts, gunbam (군밤), are sometimes sold alongside.

Where the carts actually stand

Myeong-dong (명동) has its evening rows of street-food stalls, and they are worth seeing, but they work differently. They are built for crowds of visitors, open late and offer a wide menu. The carts Koreans track are smaller and plainer. They stand at subway exits, outside the gates of apartment complexes where people walk home from the bus, and on the corner nearest a primary school when classes let out. You also find them on the edges of neighbourhood markets such as Mangwon Market (망원시장), near Mangwon Station (망원역) on Line 6, or Tongin Market (통인시장), a few streets west of Gyeongbokgung.

Because the carts move and the vendors set their own hours, finding them has become a small crowd-sourced hobby. People pin sightings on map apps, post photos to neighbourhood community boards and describe a cart by a landmark rather than an address: the one by the pharmacy, the one outside the chain bakery. The practical lesson is to look where people walk home, not where they go out. A short line of commuters at a tarp-covered cart at the end of the working day tells you more than a ranked list will.

Seasons, cash, and the first bite

The carts follow the cold, not a calendar. They tend to appear when coats come out in late autumn and thin out as spring warms up. Hours are up to the vendor: late afternoon into the evening is common, and so is closing early on bitter or wet days. Namdaemun's stalls follow the market's own schedule, including closing days, so confirm current hours with the market or on the Visit Seoul or VisitKorea tourism sites before you plan a morning around them. For Nampo-dong, check the Busan city tourism site.

Prices are written on cardboard and things are sold by the handful, a few pieces for a small note. Prices move with the cost of flour and beans, so read the sign instead of trusting a number you saw online. Carry small bills and coins. Some carts write up an account number for bank transfer, gyejwa iche (계좌이체), which only helps if you have a Korean bank account. Some take cards and many would rather not, so don't wait until you are at the front of the queue to find out. A 50,000-won note can take all the change a vendor has.

Almost everyone makes the same mistake once, with the first bite. Bungeoppang fresh from the mould and hotteok fresh from the griddle hold sugar much hotter than the shell suggests, and hotteok syrup runs. Start from the tail, hold hotteok upright in its paper cup and give it a minute in the cold air. Then keep the paper bag until you find a bin, because carts seldom have one.