Gwangbokdong Food Street is a well-known food alley in Busan that features a variety of restaurants, ranging from decades-old to contemporary. There are numerous delicious foods in Busan that are not readily available in Seoul; therefore, today we will show you some of the best local food places on Gwangbok-dong Food Street!
광복동 사진
How to get there
Gwangbok-dong Food Street is located in Changseon-dong, Jung-gu, Busan, between Jagalchi and Nampo stations on Busan Subway Line 1. It makes no difference whether you get off at Jagalchi Station or Nampo Station. Take Exit 1 at Jagalchi Station, go one block, turn left, and you’ll be on the street in 5 minutes. From Nampo Station, take exit 7, immediately turn left, and walk about 5 times till you reach the market.
Also, because the market is very close to Yeongdo in Busan, you should visit it while you’re there.
Recommended food and restaurants
Jonggakjip (종각집): A 60-year-old Noodle and Kimbap restaurant
Address: 7, Gwangbok-ro 49beon-gil, Jung-gu, Busan (near Gwangbok-dong Community Center) (Address in Korean: 부산 중구 광복로 49번길 7)
Business hours: 11:00–22:00, daily
Price range: 3000~7000 won (about 4 dollars)
This restaurant is an old restaurant that was even featured on a famous Korean food TV show. The representative menu items are Gimchobab and Jonggak garak noodles, and this restaurant sticks to the old-fashioned way. Gimchobab is the old name for kimbap, and it tastes the same as before! Also, although it doesn’t have a special taste, it’s clean, and anyone can enjoy it.
Milyang Sundae Pork Soup and Rice (밀양돼지순대국밥 부평동2가점)
Address: Miryang Sundae Pork Gukbap Bupyeong-dong 2-ga Branch, 6 Gwangbok-ro, Jung-gu, Busan (Address in korean: 부산 중구 광복로 6 밀양순대돼지국밥 부평동2가점)
Business hours: Open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year
Price range: Around 10,000 won (about 8 dollars)
Pork Gukbap is a popular local food in Busan, and it is a Busan-style version of the national cuisine ‘Gukbap’. It is a restaurant meal in which swine bones and meat are cooked in soup, then sliced and served as a garnish with rice. It is very common in Korea to consume soup and rice with soju! Although it lacks an elegant atmosphere, it is a location I frequently visit to have a drink and chat with close friends. And this restaurant is a franchise with several branches in Busan. Although it is a franchise, the reason I recommend it is because it is close to the most basic and standard taste.
Furthermore, despite the fact that the number of such soup restaurants in Korea has reduced dramatically since the coronavirus outbreak, there are still many examples of these businesses that operate around 24 hours a day. This is due to the qualities of the cuisine known as soup. This is because the soup base must be boiled and kept for 24 hours.
Grandma Gaya Milmyeon (할매가야밀면)
Address: 56-14 Gwangbok-ro, Jung-gu, Busan (부산 중구 광복로 56-14)
Business hours: 10:30–21:30, everyday
Price range: 8,000 won (about 6 dollars)
Milmyeon is a Busan-style cold noodle dish made with flour and starch noodles and boiled pork in a pig broth-based stock. In the Busan and Ulsan regions, it has nearly replaced the status of naengmyeon in other regions. It is similar to naengmyeon but has a distinct flavor and is difficult to find outside of this region and Gyeongsangnam-do.
Street foods: fish cake (어묵), tteokbokki (떡볶이), and seed hotteok (씨앗호떡)
These three foods can be considered representative street foods in Busan. Since it is street food, rather than recommending a specific restaurant, I recommend buying it from a suitable food truck in an alley.
Fish cake is a representative Korean street food made of minced fish made into skewers and is especially famous in the coastal region of Busan. Hotteok is a food made by mixing flour with sugar into a bread-like shape and then frying it. Normal hotteok has no special contents inside, but the famous Seed Hotteok in Busan has nuts-like seeds inside the hotteok, giving it a much more delicious texture. And as everyone knows, tteokbokki is rice cakes in spicy soup! In particular, the tteokbokki sold in these markets is often spicy, so be careful!
The price per piece is approximately 1,000 won ($1) for fish cakes, and 3,000 to 5,000 won ($3) for seed hotteok and tteokbokki.
Be sure to check the price before eating to avoid being overpriced!
If you’re curious about the fastest and cheapest way to get from Seoul to Busan, read this article!