Namdaemun Market: One Line of Food Alleys, Starting with Kalguksu

46 metres from Hoehyeon Station, Exit 5

From Exit 5 of Hoehyeon Station (Line 4), the map route to Namdaemun Market’s kalguksu alley (42-1 Namdaemunsijang 4-gil) is 46 m, about a minute, and to the braised-hairtail alley (map point, 16-17 Namdaemunsijang-gil) 228 m, about 3 minutes (TMAP pedestrian route calculations; the end points are the map’s representative points).

By a map app’s walking route, the kalguksu alley is 46 m, about a minute, from Exit 5 of Hoehyeon Station on Line 4. The braised-hairtail alley is 228 m, about three minutes. Both end points are the single spot the map uses to stand for each alley. The market’s website says it is a five-minute walk from Exits 5, 6 and 7 of Hoehyeon Station. Find on a map

At the top of the exit stairs, the market reaches her ears first: the rattle of cart wheels, voices calling out goods, the smell of broth simmering somewhere. Lulu doesn’t lift her camera for a while; she just walks. What she wants to show her friend may be this smell more than any photo.

According to press reports, Seoul’s Jung-gu district announced this July that it had fitted the market’s seven entrance gates with matching sculptural structures and LED lighting, and relaid the worn asphalt walkways in stone. The same reports say it also put up signboards for themed alleys, such as the braised-hairtail alley, and overview maps at four main entrances. In the corner of her notebook Lulu writes: “For my friend: if lost, look for the alley signs first.”

The kalguksu alley and its long counters

Namdaemun Market website, themed alleys: the kalguksu alley appears on the left a short way past the market’s Gate 5. Stalls line both sides, with the middle left clear for people to pass. Each stall has a narrow cooking space and a long counter with stools in front. The food listed is kalguksu (knife-cut noodles), sujebi (hand-torn dough soup), janchi-guksu (thin noodles in broth), yeolmu naengmyeon (cold noodles with young radish kimchi), chalbap (sticky rice), boribap bibimbap (barley rice mixed with vegetables) and naengmyeon. The same text says that whatever you order, a small taste of another dish comes with it, and calls this the alley’s particular trait: order kalguksu and a taste of naengmyeon comes with it; order naengmyeon and a taste of kalguksu comes.

According to the website’s page on themed alleys, the kalguksu alley appears on the left a short way past the market’s Gate 5. That 5 is a market gate number, not the subway exit number. Stalls line both sides, the page says, with the middle left clear for people to pass. Each stall has a narrow cooking space and a long counter, with stools in front. Find on a map

A 2023 article on the Seoul city news site, “Seoul in My Hand”, explains that temporary doors against the wind and a roof make the alley look like a building of its own, but that it is really an open-air alley with noodle stalls along both sides and a roof laid over the top. The same article puts the alley’s history at sixty years or more, and says the menu settled around kalguksu and barley rice about forty years ago. Lulu copies the passage into her notebook and adds, in small letters, “2023 article”. Whether the roof and doors are the same today is something a three-year-old article can’t tell her.

The website lists kalguksu (knife-cut noodles), sujebi (hand-torn dough soup), janchi-guksu, yeolmu naengmyeon, chalbap (sticky rice), barley-rice bibimbap and naengmyeon. Then the page adds one more trait of the alley: whatever you order, a small taste of another dish comes with it. Order kalguksu and a little naengmyeon arrives; order naengmyeon and a little kalguksu.

Lulu steps to one side of the alley entrance and looks in: a row of backs along the long counters, steam rising from the narrow kitchens. She doesn’t sit down today; this is a seat to take with her friend. Instead she copies the website’s line about the small taste into her notebook and adds a note for her friend: “If a little extra comes, enjoy it. If it doesn’t, don’t mind.” The website gives the alley’s hours as 06:00–21:00. That is for the alley as a whole, though, and individual stalls may differ.

Hairtail, since around 1988

Korea Tourism Organization’s travel information (last modified April 2025) says Namdaemun’s braised-hairtail alley took shape around 1988. Hairtail was cheap then; merchants braised it hot and spicy to their own taste, word spread, and the dish became famous. The area had been an ordinary row of eateries rather than a hairtail alley, it explains, and as the dish caught on, the shops around switched to it one by one. Each restaurant buys its hairtail from different waters (Yeosu, Jeju, Mokpo, Busan) and cooks it a little differently, so the taste varies a little from place to place. Opening hours and closing days, it says, differ by shop.

On the map, the braised-hairtail alley is 182 m, about two minutes, from the kalguksu alley. Korea Tourism Organization’s travel information says the alley took shape around 1988. Hairtail was cheap then, the account goes; merchants braised it hot and spicy to their own taste, word got around, and the dish became famous. Find on a map

The area, it says, had been an ordinary row of eateries rather than a hairtail alley, and as the dish caught on, the shops around switched to it one by one. The market’s website tells it in much the same way: the shops sold kalguksu, dumplings and so on before turning to fish, and although they also served braised mackerel and pollack, customers liked the hairtail best. Having just walked past the kalguksu alley, Lulu smiles at that line.

The website names radish, spring onion, garlic and chilli powder as the other ingredients, and says the hairtail comes from Busan, Yeosu, Mokpo or Jeju, each house with its own favourite source. The tourism organization likewise says that because the fish and the cooking vary a little, so does the taste from one restaurant to the next. Here too, Lulu doesn’t sit down. Instead she writes: “A place to come back to together.”

The hours depend on whose page you read. The website’s themed-alley page gives 03:00–21:00 for the hairtail alley; the tourism organization says hours and closing days differ by shop. Lulu copies the two lines side by side and does not merge them into one.

1414 BORN Market, joined to the hairtail alley

Namdaemun Market website, 1414 BORN Market: Bondong-geori, the street where the market first formed in the early Joseon period as country merchants passed through leading cattle and horses, was remade as “1414 BORN Market” under a themed-street project. Some sixty shops in six trades gather here — farm produce, snacks and side dishes, seafood and dried fish, daily goods, butchers and ordinary eateries — split between an A-block and a B-block lane, and it connects with the braised-hairtail alley. It opens Monday to Saturday, not Sunday, from early morning until 7 pm, and individual shops’ hours may vary a little.

The website introduces 1414 BORN Market as connected to the braised-hairtail alley. It explains that Bondong-geori, the street where the market first formed in the early Joseon period as country merchants passed through leading cattle and horses, took this new name under a themed-street project. Farm produce, snacks and side dishes, seafood and dried fish, daily goods, butchers, ordinary eateries: some sixty shops in six trades, split between an A-block and a B-block lane. Find on a map

The list of trades also includes several kinds of goods you buy and take away: farm produce, side dishes, seafood, dried fish and daily goods. Lulu wonders whether her friend’s lodging has a kitchen. If not, this can stay a lane for looking.

The website says 1414 BORN Market is open Monday to Saturday, not Sunday, from early morning until 7 pm, adding that individual shops may vary a little. Lulu writes “not Sunday” in her note, and underneath, “before 7”.

The food alley, and one hotteok

The Namdaemun Market website’s “Food > Main restaurants” page lists twelve places: two hotteok (filled griddle pancake) stands and three entries associated with dumplings, plus places for bindae-tteok (mung bean pancakes), jokbal (braised pig’s trotters), Pyongyang-style cold noodles, chicken soup and hangover soup, among others. One entry describes a vegetable hotteok filled with onion, garlic chives, carrot and glass noodles, fried in oil and brushed with soy sauce.

The website’s list of themed alleys also has a food alley, described as a street selling all kinds of dishes, from rice cakes, fried rice, bibimbap and barley rice to seolleongtang, with Korean, snack and Chinese-Korean food as its main fare. On its food page the website also lists twelve “main restaurants”: two hotteok stands and three entries associated with dumplings, plus places for mung bean pancakes, braised pig’s trotters, Pyongyang-style cold noodles, chicken soup and hangover soup, among others. This piece doesn’t copy the names. It is the market’s list, not Lulu’s. Find on a map

One entry on that list describes a vegetable hotteok filled with onion, garlic chives, carrot and glass noodles, fried in oil and brushed with soy sauce. Lulu circles that line. Kalguksu to sit down for, hairtail to come back for together, and one hotteok to eat while walking. The line for her friend now has three parts.

As the afternoon slips away, the light in the alleys drops. At some arcade entrances the shutters come down; elsewhere, steam is still rising. Lulu remembers Maya’s note that the market doesn’t close at a single hour. The food alleys are no different.

At dusk Lulu opens her notebook at the edge of the market. Under “Not one place. One line.” there are now three parts. Sit at the long counter in the kalguksu alley; come back to the hairtail alley together; eat the hotteok on the move. And 1414 BORN Market as a lane for looking.

The message to her friend is short: “Let’s come on a weekday, in the daytime. Sunday is the market’s regular day off, and only the outward-facing shops open if they choose to. Hours change from alley to alley, shop to shop.” Lulu presses send, listens to the market once more, and walks back towards Hoehyeon Station.

(※ This article includes staged images created with AI.)