Chinatown Birthplace · Black Bean Noodles
Jajangmyeon
Photo: moriza / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0
The restaurant credited with popularizing it has since been turned into an entire museum dedicated to nothing but this one noodle dish.
Thick wheat noodles are tossed in a glossy black sauce of caramelized fermented soybean paste, diced pork, and vegetables, usually topped with a fried egg or cucumber strips. It remains Korea's most popular delivery and street-corner meal, but its roots trace straight to Incheon's Chinatown.
Why it's made this way: Dockworkers and merchants at Incheon Port frequented Chinese restaurants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries looking for something cheap and fast, and Gonghwachun — founded by a Shandong immigrant in 1905 — is widely credited as the restaurant that popularized the dish under its now-famous Korean name.
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Part of World of Street Food — 3248 dishes from 118 countries.
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