Jeonju Bibimbap

Even though Korea is a relatively small country area wise, where it takes about 5-6 hours to go by bus from the North to the South, Korea still hosts some regional differences. Be it political, linguistic or culinary differences are all apparent still to this day. This being a blog about Korean cuisine, I will focus on the latter here.

Different regions and cities are well-known throughout the country for varying types of food. Cheonan is associated with delicious grapes, Chungbuk is famous for their apples, Gangwondo for their dried squid and finally Jeonju for bibimbap, their wide array of small side dishes and bean sprout soup. I spent my last two weekends traveling in Jeonju and its outskirts and got the pleasure of trying the bibimbap twice.

Coming to Jeonju for the first time I refused to believe the hype and imagined that Jeonju bibimbap would taste similar to the ones I have had up in Seoul. However, even before eating, it is apparent that Jeonju makes good of its fame for side dishes. Accompanying the sizzling bowl of bibimbap was a table set with 10 or more side dishes with vegetables, mushrooms, different beans and sprouts and seafood. Now, for the uninitiated customer this might be too much to swallow since eating these side dishes is usually a case of trial-and-error. With such huge diversity, it is unlikely you will enjoy every single one of the side dishes.

Now, for the actual bowl of bibimbap itself, there is no golden rule on how a Jeonju bibimbap is made. Ingredients might vary and some, for example, contain minced meat while others contain strips of meat. The bowl of rice, vegetables, sprouts and whatnot is topped with a raw egg which gets cooked thanks to the sizzling hot bowl while mixing the whole dish. One difference I noticed from most Seoul bibimbaps is that in Jeonju the bowl comes served with the red chili paste already in the bowl, which makes it more difficult to decide the level of spicyness itself. All in all, the Jeonju bibimbap, usually accompanied with a bowl of bean sprout broth, makes it worth the travel to Jeonju.