Hongdae Route

What Hongdae is

Hongdae is Seoul's young quarter, grown up around the fine-arts faculties of Hongik University; the name is the university's abbreviation turned street name. Street gigs, street art, clubs and distinctive cafés gather here, and its face changes utterly between day and night. In food too the range is very wide — from cheap, generous student stalls to dessert cafés popular on social media, to chicken shops and pojangmacha open late. In recent years the food area has kept spreading, to the "Gyeongui Line Forest" park made from a disused rail line and on to neighbouring Yeonnam-dong.

What to eat in Hongdae

Hongdae's food runs on two legs — stalls and cafés. The stars of the stalls are jopok tteokbokki, rice cakes topped with a fritter, and the fish cake at the pojangmacha in the lanes. By night, "chimaek" is the standard: Korean fried chicken finished crisp by frying twice, washed down with cold beer. Grill-your-own clam pubs are popular with the young too. Yet Hongdae is also a centre of Korea's café culture — from roast-your-own hand-drip to the socially-spread croffle, shops of sweets and coffee hide throughout the lanes. Moving between the hot, spicy stalls and the quiet cafés is what makes this quarter interesting.

How to walk this route

Hongdae comes into its own from evening into night. Starting from Metro L2 Hongik Univ, walk back and forth through the "Walking Street," club street and lanes, eating as you go. Start light with the stalls' jopok tteokbokki or a pojangmacha fish cake; as night deepens, settle in over chicken and beer, or grilled clams. Take a breather at a roast-your-own café between, and close on the sweetness of a croffle — the rhythm sits well. Chains and independents run mostly on cards and mobile payment, but keep cash for the stalls. Weekend nights get quite crowded, so allow time. Many shops sign in Korean only, so the local script is your landmark.