Refugee Kitchen · Cold Wheat Noodles
Milmyeon
Photo: Shizu K (shezzz) / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
It only exists because the ingredients for the 'real' noodle dish refugees wanted — buckwheat and potato starch — simply weren't available in wartime Busan.
Chewy wheat noodles are served in a cold, tangy broth with sliced beef, cucumber, and a boiled egg, doused in vinegar and mustard to taste. Busan noodle shops sell it as the city's answer to naengmyeon, especially in the summer heat.
Why it's made this way: North Korean refugees who fled to Busan during the Korean War wanted to recreate the naengmyeon of Hamheung and Pyongyang, but buckwheat was scarce, so they substituted wheat flour from American food rations instead, and the resulting dish became a Busan specialty in its own right.
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Part of World of Street Food — 3248 dishes from 118 countries.
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