Where to Eat in Korea: Prices, Halal and Delivery

Eating out in Korea is cheap, fast and good, and it is one of the genuine pleasures of living here. A hot, substantial lunch at a neighbourhood restaurant costs less than a coffee at a chain cafe, which tells you most of what you need to know about Korean pricing.

Two things are worth knowing before you order. Side dishes are refilled free - that is how restaurants work, not a promotion. And vegetarian is harder than it looks, for a specific reason explained below.

The kinds of place, and what they cost

Type	What it is	Price
Rice-and-soup, set-meal places	A bowl of soup or a tray of rice with sides	The cheapest hot meal in the country
Snack shops	Rice rolls, rice cakes, fried snacks, noodles	Cheaper still, and everywhere
Barbecue restaurants	Grill at the table, priced per portion of meat	Mid-range, and more for a group
Fried chicken shops	Chicken and beer, a national institution	Mid-range
Korean-Chinese	Black bean noodles, spicy seafood noodles	Cheap, and the default delivery order
Western and imported	Pasta, burgers, brunch	The expensive end

The pattern: Korean food is cheap, imported food is not. A resident who eats locally lives inexpensively, and one who eats Western concludes Korea is costly. Life in Korea covers that split across the whole budget.

Halal, Nepali and South Asian

Halal provision is concentrated rather than widespread. The areas around the larger mosques and in the migrant quarters have halal restaurants, butchers and grocers, and some places advertise themselves as Muslim-friendly without full certification - ask directly rather than assuming, including about the broth and the cooking oil.

Nepali restaurants exist in the bigger cities and are concentrated in the migrant commercial areas, with Ansan holding the largest cluster. South Asian restaurants are more numerous than specifically Nepali ones and usually cover the same ground.

Outside those areas, the practical answer is cooking at home, and spices and pulses are available online with nationwide delivery. Daily life as a Nepali worker covers the grocery side.

The vegetarian problem, honestly

Korea looks vegetarian-friendly and frequently is not, for one reason: anchovy and fish-based stock is the foundation of an enormous number of dishes, including ones with no visible meat or fish. Kimchi commonly contains fermented seafood. A vegetable side dish may have been dressed with fish sauce.

So a dish described as having no meat may still not be vegetarian in the sense you mean. What helps:

Say what you cannot eat, specifically, including fish stock and fish sauce, rather than saying "vegetarian".
Temple cuisine is genuinely vegan and is a cuisine in its own right, well worth seeking out.
Some dishes are reliably safe, and learning three or four of them by name is more useful than explaining the principle each time.
Dedicated vegetarian and vegan restaurants exist in Seoul and the larger cities and are increasing.
Cooking at home is easy, since produce and pulses are cheap and excellent.

Delivery

Extraordinary, and a genuine part of why Korean apartments have small kitchens. Almost anything, almost anywhere, quickly and late, through apps.

The barrier is the usual one: the apps want a Korean phone number for identity verification and an address you can enter in Korean. Once those work, delivery becomes the default for a lot of residents. Phones and internet covers getting the number.

Expect a modest delivery fee, and expect minimum order values. Some restaurants deliver directly as well as through apps.

How a meal actually runs

Small things that remove the uncertainty:

Seat yourself in most casual places, or wait if there is a queue system.
Water is free and often self-service, from a dispenser or a bottle on the table.
Press the table bell to call staff, or say the standard phrase. Waving is unnecessary.
Side dishes are free and refillable. Ask, or help yourself where there is a station.
Pay at the counter on the way out, not at the table, in most casual restaurants.
There is no tipping. None. Do not leave money on the table.
Solo dining is normal now, and many places have single-portion menus.

The words that do most of the work

Six phrases cover almost every meal, and using them is noticed warmly:

Say	For
Jeogiyo	Excuse me, to call staff over
Igeo juseyo	This one, please, while pointing
Mul juseyo	Water, please
Hana, du-gae, se-gae	One, two, three portions
Maepji anke	Not spicy, roughly
Gyesanhalgeyo	I'll pay now

Pointing at a menu photograph or at another table's dish is entirely acceptable and extremely effective. Many restaurants have picture menus, and the larger chains have tablets with English.

Learning Korean covers getting beyond this, which is worth doing for the food alone.

Korean eating is communal in a way that is worth flagging: stews and side dishes are shared from a central pot or plate, with everyone's spoon or chopsticks going in.

For readers from a Nepali background where food that has touched your mouth is not shared, this is the reverse convention and it can be genuinely uncomfortable at first. Nobody will take offence if you serve yourself a portion into your own bowl rather than eating from the communal dish, and in many places a serving spoon is provided. If it matters to you, do that from the start rather than enduring it.

Where this goes wrong

Saying "vegetarian" and getting a dish built on fish stock.
Assuming halal is widely available outside the specific areas.
Leaving a tip. It confuses people.
Waiting to be seated in a place where you seat yourself.
Paying for side dishes you could have had refilled.
Judging Korean prices by the imported restaurants.

Where to go next

Korean cafe culture covers where the coffee budget goes, and shopping in Korea covers cooking at home.