Dak-kkochi

Chicken pieces threaded on bamboo skewers and grilled over charcoal with either a sweet soy or spicy gochujang glaze.

Dak-kkochi is arguably Korea's most popular street food after tteokbokki, and the sight of skewers rotating over a charcoal drum outside a pojangmacha or in a covered market is as quintessentially Korean as the smell of the sauce browning over the heat. The chicken — usually thigh for its juiciness and flavour — is cut into even cubes, threaded onto soaked bamboo skewers, and grilled slowly while being basted repeatedly with one of two classic sauces: a sweet soy-honey glaze or a fiery gochujang-based red sauce, with some stalls offering both and letting customers choose. The tradition of street skewered meat is ancient in Korea, appearing in historical records of Goryeo-era marketplaces where vendors sold grilled meat on sticks to travellers along major trade routes. Modern dak-kkochi culture is particularly associated with university neighbourhoods like Hongdae in Seoul and Jomaru in Incheon, where students buy several skewers for the price of a proper restaurant meal. The school vicinity stalls (buyeok) near middle and high schools are also beloved institutions, with students stopping to buy one or two sticks as after-school snacks. Dak-kkochi represents the democratic, affordable, intensely flavoured end of the Korean grilling spectrum.