Korean Food Is Not Delicious

Before I am judged and berated by angry foodies and lovers of Korean cuisine, please hear me out.

I have lived and studied in South Korea when I was in my late 20s and have gone back many times since for business travel. I have eaten authentic and traditional Korean food both in South Korea and in Sydney. I want to be clear that i don't hate Koreans or Korea but let's all be honest, Korean food in general is terrible. And you know what, that's ok because you can't win them all.

Why is Korean food bad?

  • 99% of all Korean food consists of these ingredients soy sauce, garlic, onions, gochujang, and sesame oil. Gochujang is used in almost everything.
  • On balance and subtlety, there is basically none. No skill involved with the seasoning/preparation. Everything is either saturated and over-seasoned or totally unseasoned.
  • When seasoned, its basically let's throw water, ingredients and gochujang.
  • Beef, pork and chicken dishes are either simply fried or seasoned with more gochujang or not seasoned at all.
  • I once asked for no chilli in my chicken and rice dish. It came out with plain rice and plain flavourless, unseasoned chicken!
  • Seafood dishes are basically made by grabbing any nearby fish, crab, octopus, throwing them into a pot, add gochujang and boil. 3 Michelin stars please.
  • Take a slice of meat. Don't season it. Slice an onion. Slice a pumpkin. Put it on a flat top grill. Dip in gochujang. World's Best BBQ.

Am I crazy or is Korean food more over-hyped than bitcoin?

Please discuss this. I would like to hear everyone's thoughts.

Poll Options

  • 140
    Korean food is divine and blessed by Korean Jesus himself
  • 111
    Korean food is the result of missing pages from a Chinese/Japanese cook book
  • 32
    You are racist
  • 28
    I have never tasted Korean food

Comments

  • +22

    To me, what you have just said points to Korean food lacking variety rather than "bad". I guess you have never had mum's boiled broccoli and Brussels sprouts? Now that's bad!

    • +4

      It is both variety and the basic nature of the dishes. There seems to be no finesse or thought put into the cooking. No balance of seasoning, little complimenting flavours and minimal thought given to cooking time and prep

      • Sometimes simplicity and balance can be the hardest thing to achieve in a cuisine. I believe that Korean food captures this perfectly.

        • Korean food is hearty and umami-rich by virtue of the ingredients, but the OP is correct that there's little finesse in its preparation. Even excluding famine food like army stew, it's all hardy dishes that can be quickly and easily prepared like rice cakes. Almost anyone can whip up half decent kimbap or bibimbap, or grill some meat.

      • And what is your view on vegan food?

        • +16

          Overall I prefer vegan foods such as beef and chicken that graze on non-animal products. However, I do still like some foods that aren’t vegan such as large fish like tuna.

        • +2

          Overall I prefer vegan foods such as beef and chicken that graze on non-animal products

          Um, beef and chicken aren't vegan.

        • @Strand0410: Um, cows are vegan!!!!!!!

        • @KoreanBBQ:

          Lolwut

        • @KoreanBBQ: LOL. Had to read that 2-3 times to understand it.

      • +1

        Look man, I don't care what you think about Korean food, but don't you dare say a word about Bitcoin.

      • +1

        Just because food doesn't have 15 ingredients as part of a 10 course meal at a fine dining restaurant doesn't make it bad. Good food is all in the flavour and whether it actually tastes good. Korean food tastes good

      • Have you ever actually seen someone cook Korean food?

    • +12

      oh man, yes. I grew up WASP in the 60s and you don't know bad food is until you have to eat vegetables boiled so long in water that they are grey and reduced to their constituent parts. Then meat that is so overcooked you could use it as shoe leather. If your mother was particularly adventurous you got spicy sausages done with Keens curry powder so they turned green. Now I'm getting PTSD flashbacks.

      I do like Korean fried chicken.

      • +1

        Sounds like you and i grew up in the same house, try2! You are not my kid sister by any chance?

        • If your Christian name starts with an "R" I may well be, my parents lacked a bit in the imagination department as well.

    • OP, maybe go and live in North Korea and create another Thread, God speed.

  • Its very tasty and extremely healthy cuisine. Usually BBQ is served with various types of kimchi, sesame/lettuce leaves some salt oil stuff and rice. Very tasty and filling for what it is. I love the hang-over soup especially in the cold (minus) weather. But each for their own

    • +18

      For males and females, South Koreans have the highest rates of stomach (gastric) cancer per person among 48 countries surveyed by the American Association for Cancer Research in 2002.

      Researchers believe salty and pickled foods are most problematic. According to the World Health Organization, a person should eat no more than 5 grams of sodium per day; Koreans eat 13.4g.

      Key Korean ingredients are kimchi, jang (fermented pastes), soy sauce, sesame, garlic and chili. Among these, the flagship ingredients unique to Korean cuisine are kimchi and jang; both are pickled and heavily salted.

      Moreover, Koreans tend to eat vegetables in pickled, rather than fresh, form, but it is the latter which are anti-stomach cancer agents.

      • -6

        High salt content is common in all Asian cooking styles that I have come across

      • -1

        i think average recommended DI 500mg

        max recommended DI 2g

        5g is crazy

        but a packet of instant noodle already 2g sodium , so yeah.

        better than sugar i guess.

      • I love Korean food and love going to Korean restaurants. All that banchan and bibimbap and kimchi soups and japchae, mmm.

        But you are spot on about the salt content. I drink SO much water while dining in Korean restaurants.. my thirst becomes unquenchable. Doesn't happen anywhere else.

        :(

    • Korean BBQ isn't Korean cuisine. Just an FYI.

  • +1

    Based on your description above, I think it is quite unlikely that you have ever lived in Korea. At most I think you might have dated a Korean for a period of around 2 years.

    • +30

      🤣 you created an account just for this?

      • +7

        Why can't they be in Australia even if they love another country? Also don't think anyone said they like or dislike Korea.

    • So I recently just went to Korea for the first time. Food was so bad I googled "why Korean food tastes terrible" and this thread came up. It was downright unedible if you've ever had real Chinese or Japanese food. Korean food definitely lacks everything OP has mentioned. I usually don't eat Western cuisine besides fast-food, and travelling in Korea made me crave fast-food…

  • +5

    I like Korean food but like all cuisines, there are a lot of fail dishes. Perhaps the fact that I don't like chilli food attributes to my distaste for a number of their dishes.

    However, I do like (using English):

    • Spicy rice cake
    • Korean BBQ meats, particularly marinated beef ribs.
    • Various Korean flavoured fried chicken
    • Seafood pancake
    • Stir fried clear noodles with beef/seafood
    • Bibimbap
    • Ginseng chicken soup
    • Egg soup
    • Korean style hot pot (less chilli of course)

    Arguably, a lot of soy sauce is used in Cantonese dishes. Take it away and what do you have left?

    Not all cuisine is delicious for everybody. Over time, I got sick of Polish food.

    • I'm not a fan of spicy foods either and agree Korean food has plenty of options for round eyes like me. My personal go to meals are:

      Seafood pancake (haemul pajeon)
      Stir fired glass noodles (japchae)
      Bibimbap (hot stone is better imo)
      Beef bulgogi
      Spicy pork stir fry (jeyuk bokkeum)
      Dumplings (mandu)
      Korean fried chicken

      I have Korean food every couple of weeks as there are three or four Korean restaurants within about 100m of my front door.

      EDIT: Crap, just saw this thread is four years old.

      • EDIT: Crap, just saw this thread is four years old.

        We've all done that. This post has bumped to the top of the forum because of your reply, so now more people will see it, don't worry.

  • +3

    Whether it is 'good' or 'bad' I don't think Korean food is over-hyped at all, it's not even that popular. If you want over-hyped just look at Thai or Japanese.

    • It's over-hyped. It's just not over-saturated.

      Imagine the hype around flip phones, everyone continued to want flip phones even after the hype ended, but then it never really got saturated.

      Talking, eating or singing about "some Korean thing" is 2016/2017 and maybe 2018's fad.

  • +20

    I know this will stun and amaze you but everybody has different tastes and much of the time they have nothing to do with how the food actually tastes eg. people prefer food that family members makes even though no one outside the family does.

    • +9

      Hmmm, this is true and explains why noone else likes my mother's delicious Tuna and vegemite pasta bake!

  • +1

    Korean Food Is Delicious

  • +3

    Korean food is delicious. But it just lacks variety, you'd find the same stuff in every single restaurant. Maybe you've eaten it too frequent so the monotonous flavour makes you think it's terrible?

    I wouldn't go to Korean restaurants more than once every 3 months to prevent from this kind of issue.

    • No, Korean food doesn't lack variety.

      You just eat at the wrong set of restaurants.

  • +23

    What is the point of this post?

    • OP was lonely and felt like a whinge.

      • His mouth probably got burnt on some cheap Korean food and thought that he'd just generalise the entire place.

  • +1

    Did you live in an area they was famous for chili or something. I spent 5 years there and your comments don't ring true for me at all. I am not a big fan of Korean food either but the comments about gochujang aren't true.

  • +1

    I have a career and I like food.

  • -4

    Welcome and thanks for posting something stupid. I don't understand why people….they just can't…I mean, if you don't like something, then don't eat it. You don't have to go out of your way and scream it out so the whole world knows your opinion. Especially for something as broad as …I HATE KOREAN FOOD. This is like a 5 year old kid argument. I sense OP probably post snapchat/insta/fb every 5 minutes about anything in his/her life that they think is highly relevant/interesting, but really, they're just calls for attention. So to that bravo, here's a comment.

    • +4

      I'm actually a very busy man but I felt so passionate about this that I took 5 mins out of my busy schedule to share my thoughts with Ozbargainers. Please keep this discussion civil.

      • -7

        Good for you, you busy man. Maybe you can go make your own restaurant or your own cuisine instead of sharing your thoughts about something stupid. Please don't waste people's time

        • +8

          If it's so stupid then why are you wasting your time giving an opinion?

        • +1

          @Divad: I was thinking the same too. Hah.

    • Do tell us what you really think.

  • +1

    Does that mean if I don't eat their food I cannot do the Gangnam style? Op Op Op Op… opn Gangnam style … ! :-P

  • +2

    Agreed, I do not like Korean food at all except for Fried chicken.

    • seriously, prefer wicked wings

    • Fried chicken isn't Korean food.

      Sushi isn't Australian.

  • +3

    I reckon OP would get along with this guy.

    • Jesus people are stupid.

      "I wore a blue dress yesterday, does anyone else feel like blue dresses reflect rain drops too badly? Why do people even wear blue dresses?"

  • -1

    Could someone explain the difference between Chinese, Thai, Korean restaurants here in Australia? To be honest they all just seem to be rice and stir fry.

    • +1

      there are probably a lot of chinese people in thailand, probably a lot less so in korea - but probably makes things kinda mix together

      i'd say that there is no 'traditional' chinese food because china is really big.. it's hard to pin it down to a few dishes. some areas are like casseroles, others are hotpots, others are like kebab type stuff. i think on average it's not as chilli hot as thai food.
      in Australia a lot of 'chinese' food is probably unrecognizable to a lot of mainland Chinese.. Chinese people have been here a long time

      i'd say thai: noodles like pad thai, thai curries (lots of coconut), larb, generally very spicy

      korean: bib bim bap seems the most common, bulgogi and korean bbq - does seem to use a lot of the red sauce that op complains about

      • +3

        There are still "traditional" Chinese food, it's just because historically China was fragmented into multiple cultures so to define traditional Chinese food the region has to be defined as well. Kebab type meats are primarily Uyghur-Chinese, whilst Hotpot is more usually in North East China (around Beijing) where the temperature is below freezing. The typical stuff you see in Australia (yum cha, spring rolls, fried rice) is more Cantonese style, or places like Ding Tai Fung is Taiwanese.

    • chinese resaturants seem to serve a lot of these; dumplings, spring rolls, pan fried chicken and beef, fried rice, pan fried vegetables with hoi sen sauce, in china they have street market vendors t night open to sell a lot of variety fiids like omelets, meat on skewers, crushed flavour ice, you think about it, they probably got it

    • +6

      if you cant tell the difference between Thai, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Malaysian food.. its not that the food taste similar to you it is because you haven't bothered or cared to learn the difference.

      • -1

        Maybe that’s why I’m asking, no need to be rude. There is no real difference between British, Australian and American food for example. From my understanding the cuisines are very similar, rice based and all cooked on a wok/fry pan. I’ve never met a person who isn’t Asian who prefers one type over the other, which makes me think preferences are either super picky or nationalistic.

        • +10

          all asian food is rice based.

          thai - generally sweet, sour salty. more and uses more coconut cream and milk in their cooking,
          common ingredients are tamarind, palm sugar, lime and fish sauce,

          Korean - because of their weather their food is more hearty grilled meats and rice and basic marinades. because of colder climate their vegetables are pickled so that they can consume them in colder months but this is legacy from hundreds of years ago without refrigeration.
          common ingredients are soy sauce, sesame oil garlic and vinegar

          chinese - you'll find northern chinese very similar to Korean food. hot pots and grilled meats and spicy. southern chinese because of warmer weather their use of vegetables in their cuisine is more common and less chilli
          steaming and stir frying form the basis of their cooking methods.
          common ingredients are soy sauce, sugar and salt, ginger

          Vietnamese - even warmer climate like thailand a lot of their food is served cold and fresh herbs and vegetables. food is influenced by French.
          common ingredients are fish sauce, sugar, lemon, lemon grass

          Malaysian - is some what different. warm climate but few salads, lots of grilled meats and spicy. influenced by indian, chinese, muslim cuisines. probably I would say the most diverse cuisine
          common ingredients are soy sauce, curry powder, ginger, chilli

          all the foods have a different flavour profile a yellow chicken curry in Vietnamese, thai, chinese, and Malaysian restaurants would be very different.

          hard to compare british, American and Australian food. they are very similar, influenced by the multiculturalism will probably need the same dishe cooked from the 3 countries and the decide on who cooked what…
          but if you took a Christmas dinner prepared by a typical family from each country you would easily tell by what is on the table which food belonged to which country.

        • -1

          He's not being rude. I didn't bother to learn piano, if I asked someone how to press the keys on a piano when I have one sitting in my house, I will get a blunt answer back.

        • @StoneSin: or maybe they’d try to teach and help you.

        • -1

          @Gizdonk: That's what the blunt answer is.

  • +7

    Ummm ok…. Don't eat it then.

  • +5

    Someone else is gonna complaint…the damn Japanese restaurants are charging top dollar for just slicing a fish and not doing any cooking! All sushi taste the same! The only condiments they use are wasabi and soy! They only drink tea! Japanese food is shyyyytttt!!!!

    By the way I love Korean food, especially marinated raw crab in chilli…god dyummm…taste like heaven!

  • +2

    I generally like Korean food, but there's definitely some weird stuff like 'army stew.' Seriously? You just boiled over some sausages, spam, and kimchi. 'Korean corndogs' are another abomination.

    • +1

      that's actually one of my favorites! haha

    • +1

      Mean while in aus people are singing praises for the holy mana they call bunnings sausages

    • gasps in pain

      You take that back!

      That recipe was born out of pure hunger during the Korean War. It's nostalgic and just a lovely hodgepodge of ingredients.

      I guess you're also not the type of person to eat hot pot?

      • Pauper foods are fine, but boiling spam and instant ramen barely counts as 'cooking.' It's something a broke student would eat while saving for a new car. Hot pot is similar but it uses better cuts, higher quality ingredients, a nice broth, etc., that somewhat justify the cost.

    • If you think that is weird, you shouldn't try foreign food.

      • I've been to over two dozen countries and enjoyed the food in every one, even Korea; but you can't seriously believe it takes any finesse to grill meat, or toss together a bibimbap. I'm sorry my opinion offended your delicate national pride, but calling army stew a national 'dish' is like the entire USA owning spam musubi.

        • ???

          You mentioned Korean snack food.

          Do you think it takes finesse to make a sandwich?

          It's obvious you have no idea what you're talking about.

  • +1

    Korean food is fried fermented leftovers

    The only decent KOrean food I have tried is from the high end restaurants in Seoul and Busan. They usually cost you $100-$200 per meal.

    Koreans are also the worst at assimilating into different countries. Most of the time, their number #1 customers are other Koreans who dont' speak English. Very few Korean restaurants cater to a western crowd.

    Don't get me started on their traditional style of cooking. Traditional KOrean food is way too nasty, salty and over-fermented.

    • Nope. Seoul and Busan high end restaurants are worse quality, more expensive and completely off the track of what Korean food is.

      You got duped. You just don't like Korean food and that is fine.

  • Just ask yourself, if Jesus was alive today, what would he think about Korean food?

    • +1

      He’d probably quote Proverbs 27:7 “The full soul loaths honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.”

  • +1

    Sometimes, simple is best.

  • HUH!

  • they have the broth dishes which are non-spicy

  • I’m not a big fan of Korean food either - I find that they’re either too sweet, too salty or too spicy. I probably just go about once a quarter (reluctantly) as other family members want to go.

  • +1

    Why is Korean food good?

    "99% of all Korean food consists of these ingredients soy sauce, garlic, onions, gochujang, and sesame oil. Gochujang is used in almost everything."

  • +1

    OP, I share the exact same sentiments as you. As an Asian who grew up overseas and who loves food in general, I would say Korean food is my least favourite cuisine.

    Only Korean dish I genuinely like would be the Korean blood sausages…

  • I like Korean Fired Chicken of all types.

  • +1

    option 3 chosen but i feel you need a 5th option, Trolling

  • I've only been to Korean barbecue restaurants a few times and have always thought I paid way too much for what we had. Everything kind of tasted the same and had an overall burnt taste and smell due to all the sauce in the meat. Admittedly, we did cook it on the burner at our table, so we are not the best Korean cooks.

  • i fell in love with mangchi on youtube. hotteoku (korean pizza pockets) are great.

    Went to Busan 2 weeks ago, had a great time.

    Your argument is about over-flavoured food, and you could apply this to any other country (marinated meat from the butcher in australia, full of salt and sugar, putting tomato sauce on your salted chips).
    Its good you have backed up this useless food argument with the fact that korea has a high rate of stomach cancer and ulcers, and drinking a tonne of soju im sure also contributes to this, along with the (inter)national past-time of over-eating.

    next time, share a worthwhile recipe that people can agree with you about, instead of another septic complaint not related to developing fine tuned bargaining skills.

  • +1

    well, to be fair then you'd have to look at the country history and geographic condition to understand why their cuisine become what it's today. Similar to those country where cold climate prevail their choice of ingredient won't be very fanciful. The Inuit near the Arctic won't have much to offer the rest of the world. The only issue with Korean food in Australia is that they seems to be on pair with Japanese in terms of pricing and market segment but the choice is rather limited to almost exclusively Korean BBQ, probably that's the only one they realise worth selling to the public.

    • +1

      Plenty of things other than BBQ in Melb. Han guuk guan, mook Ji bar, but so far I think Korchi City is probably the most authentic Korean one as that's where I see most Koreans eating!
      And the bonus of $8.90 soju bottles after 7! I do like to partake in a good Hite beer from ktmart, $3 for 500ml can!

      • thanks for the tips, will check them out sometimes this year.

  • 15 people think you're a racist? I hope they're being farcical.

  • I've had this thought for a long time too! But I agree with people who say rather than being "Bad", it simply lacks variety. It's true climate and terrain and culture dictates a regions cuisine. So lets face it, the climate and terrain in Korea produces food that lacks in diversity.

    I love bulgogi, seafood stews/hotpot, BBQ and stir fry glass noodles. But honestly, the key ingredient to all those dishes is either gochujang or sugar - then add sesame, garlic and chilli.

  • I agree with everything you've said.

  • -1

    agree!! made a thread kinda about this a few days ago…
    korean food is not. good.

  • +1

    You could use this analysis on alot of cuisines.

    French food, renowned for being one of the best in the world is just butter and cream using your logic. Which of course taste delicious.

    • stop eating peasant french food then

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