Navigate Korean restaurants, order food, discuss your preferences, and understand Korean dining culture including the iconic side dishes (๋ฐ์ฐฌ).
Estimated Time: 45โ55 minutes
| Korean | Romanization | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| ๋ฐฅ | bap | rice / meal |
| ๊ตญ | guk | soup |
| ์ฐ๊ฐ | jjigae | stew (thicker than ๊ตญ) |
| ๋ฐ์ฐฌ | banchan | side dishes (free refills!) |
| ๊น์น | gimchi | kimchi |
| ๊ณ ๊ธฐ | gogi | meat |
| ์๊ณ ๊ธฐ | sogogi | beef |
| ๋ผ์ง๊ณ ๊ธฐ | dwaejigogi | pork |
| ๋ญ๊ณ ๊ธฐ | dakgogi | chicken |
| ์์ | saengseon | fish |
| ์ผ์ฑ / ์ฑ์ | yachae / chaeso | vegetables |
| ๋ฉด | myeon | noodles |
| ๋ฌผ | mul | water |
| ๋งฅ์ฃผ | maekju | beer |
| ์์ฃผ | soju | soju (Korean spirit) |
| Dish | Korean | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Bibimbap | ๋น๋น๋ฐฅ | Mixed rice with vegetables, meat, egg, and gochujang |
| Bulgogi | ๋ถ๊ณ ๊ธฐ | Marinated grilled beef |
| Samgyeopsal | ์ผ๊ฒน์ด | Grilled pork belly (cook it yourself!) |
| Kimchi Jjigae | ๊น์น์ฐ๊ฐ | Spicy kimchi stew |
| Tteokbokki | ๋ก๋ณถ์ด | Spicy rice cakes (popular street food) |
| Japchae | ์ก์ฑ | Sweet potato glass noodles with vegetables |
| Samgyetang | ์ผ๊ณํ | Ginseng chicken soup |
| Ramyeon | ๋ผ๋ฉด | Korean instant noodles |
| Kimbap | ๊น๋ฐฅ | Korean rice roll (like sushi roll) |
| Sundubu Jjigae | ์๋๋ถ์ฐ๊ฐ | Soft tofu stew |
| Korean | Meaning |
|---|---|
| ์ ๊ธฐ์! | Excuse me! (to call a server) |
| ๋ฉ๋ด ์ฃผ์ธ์. | Menu, please. |
| ์ด๊ฑฐ ๋ญ์์? | What is this? |
| [dish] ์ฃผ์ธ์. | Please give me [dish]. |
| ํ๋ ๋ ์ฃผ์ธ์. | One more, please. |
| ๋ฐ์ฐฌ ๋ ์ฃผ์ธ์. | More side dishes, please. |
| ๋งต์ง ์๊ฒ ํด ์ฃผ์ธ์. | Please make it not spicy. |
| ๊ณ์ฐํด ์ฃผ์ธ์. | Check, please. / Bill, please. |
| ๋ง์์ด์! | It's delicious! |
| ์ ๋จน๊ฒ ์ต๋๋ค. | I will eat well. (said before eating) |
| ์ ๋จน์์ต๋๋ค. | I ate well. (said after eating) |
| ๋ฐฐ๋ถ๋ฌ์. | I'm full. |
| Korean | Meaning | Korean | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| ๋ง์๋ค | delicious | ๋ง์๋ค | not tasty |
| ๋งต๋ค | spicy | ๋ฌ๋ค | sweet |
| ์ง๋ค | salty | ์๋ค | sour |
| ์ฐ๋ค | bitter | ์ฑ๊ฒ๋ค | bland |
๐ก Culture Note โ ์ ๋จน๊ฒ ์ต๋๋ค: Koreans say this before every meal. It literally means "I will eat well" and expresses gratitude to the person who prepared or paid for the food. After eating, say ์ ๋จน์์ต๋๋ค ("I ate well"). It's considered polite and essential!
Customer: ์ ๊ธฐ์! ๋น๋น๋ฐฅ ํ๋ํ๊ณ ๋์ฅ์ฐ๊ฐ ํ๋ ์ฃผ์ธ์. (Excuse me! One bibimbap and one doenjang jjigae, please.)
Server: ๋ค, ์๊ฒ ์ต๋๋ค. ์๋ฃ๋์? (Yes, understood. Any drinks?)
Customer: ๋ฌผ ์ฃผ์ธ์. (Water, please.)
Server: ์ฌ๊ธฐ ์์ต๋๋ค. (Here you are.)
Customer: ์ ๋จน๊ฒ ์ต๋๋ค! ... ์, ๋ง์์ด์! (I'll eat well! ... Ah, it's delicious!)
Q1: What do you say before eating a meal?