The gamjatang I had this morning tasted a little off. Not spoiled exactly, just… wrong somehow. Like the broth was thinner than it should be, or maybe they didn’t boil the bones long enough, I don’t know. But I ate the whole bowl anyway. That’s just what I do. Sit down, eat what’s in front of me, get up, go to work. Didn’t even think about it being strange until I was at my desk already, chewing on the fact that I ate something that tasted wrong and just… said nothing about it. Not even to myself really, until later.
Gamjatang price is something I end up thinking about more than I probably should, because I eat it a lot, and lately every time I eat it I notice the number went up again. I work at a metal shop, shifts start early, and this is the kind of thing you eat before a long day standing at a machine. Not a treat. Just food that fills you up and is warm and doesn’t take long.
What’s in the bowl
Gamjatang is pork spine bone stew. The “gamja” confuses people because gamja means potato, and yes there’s usually potato chunks sitting in the red broth, but I’ve heard the name actually comes from an old butcher’s term for that part of the spine, gamjappyeo, not from the vegetable at all. I’m not totally sure that’s right, honestly, I heard it somewhere years ago and never checked it, so take it with a grain of salt. Most foreigners think they ordered potato soup and instead get a bowl of bones with meat stuck to them and don’t know what to do with it. You pick the bone up with your hands. Nobody looks at you weird for that. There’s usually a plastic glove in a little basket on the table, or just tissues, and you gnaw the meat off close to the bone because that part near the spine, the soft cartilage and the marrow, is the best part.
There’s also ppyeohaejangguk, which uses the same kind of bones and a very similar broth, and honestly a lot of small places just serve the same bowl under whichever name they feel like putting on the sign. Ppyeohaejangguk leans a little more toward “hangover soup,” the kind of thing guys eat the morning after drinking too much soju, while gamjatang is more the everyday version. But nobody sits you down and explains which is which. You just eat both enough times over the years and eventually you get a feel for it.
The bone marrow thing
This part actually surprises people more than the name mix-up does. The broth is dark red-brown, and there’s a paste-like stuff clinging inside some of the bones, and I’ve heard visitors think that’s blood or something gross and get scared off before they even try a spoonful. It’s not blood. It’s marrow, mostly, and also perilla seed powder, deulkkae, gets mixed into the broth itself and that’s what gives it that gritty, nutty thickness. A good bowl has a good amount of that grit. If the broth looks thin and kind of clear, something’s off — and that’s close to what bothered me this morning. The broth felt watery. Like they rushed it, or skipped the deulkkae, or just didn’t cook the bones long enough. I put extra perilla powder in from the little side dish they give you, trying to fix it myself at the table, but it didn’t really help. Still ate the whole thing.
I’m not a chef. I don’t know the technical reason a bowl comes out wrong. I just know what a good one feels like after eating this stuff most of my adult life, and this one wasn’t that. Habit made me finish it anyway. Taste didn’t really come into the decision.
What it costs
Okay, prices. Around Cheonan a regular one-person bowl runs somewhere around 9,000 to 11,000 won, so maybe 6 to 8 dollars, though the exchange rate moves around so don’t hold me to the exact number. I remember it being closer to 7,000 won a while back — I can’t tell you exactly which year, my memory’s not that precise, but it feels like it jumped in a couple of steps rather than slowly, and each jump lined up loosely with news about pork prices or fuel. The owner near me just changes the number on the laminated menu and says nothing about it. Doesn’t apologize, doesn’t explain. Just a new number taped over the old one sometimes, if they’re too lazy to reprint the whole thing.
The bigger pot, meant for two or three people, with a little burner underneath so it keeps cooking at the table, runs maybe 28,000 to 40,000 won depending on the place. That’s rough, I’m guessing based on what I remember paying, not something I checked recently. It usually comes with rice, and near the end they’ll ask if you want sari, which means noodles cooked in the leftover broth — ramen noodles or sometimes udon. Some places just throw it in free, some charge maybe 2,000 won more. That sari part, honestly, is sometimes better than the meal itself. By that point the broth’s been sitting on the burner so long it’s gone thick and a little smoky, and the noodles soak it all up. When people around here are finishing a meal like this, watching for the sari moment is basically watching for the end.
Not a special occasion food
This isn’t a “night out” kind of meal here. Nobody dresses up for gamjatang. It’s the thing you eat before or after physical work, when your body wants something heavy and hot and doesn’t cost too much. Guys at my company eat it. Construction guys eat it. I’ve seen night shift guys order it at six in the morning with a soju bottle next to the bowl, though I don’t really do that part myself anymore — the drinking, I mean, not the soup.
Nobody tells you this
The reason it got more expensive isn’t really about gamjatang as a dish, it’s about pork in general. Feed costs, fuel, imports, the same stuff that made a lot of things pricier the past while. But there’s another layer to it too — the spine bones used in this dish used to be a throwaway cut, the stuff butchers basically sold cheap because nobody wanted it for anything else. Now that this exact dish is popular, that “cheap cut” isn’t cheap the way it used to be. The whole point of the dish, historically, was that it used bones nobody else wanted. That part of its identity doesn’t really hold up as well anymore.
My mother still says something like this every time we order it — that it used to be nothing, that families used to stretch a little bit of meat across a big pot with this exact thing because it was the cheap option. She says some version of that basically every single time we eat it together, and then eats her whole bowl anyway because she genuinely likes it. I don’t remember the very first time I heard her say it. I just know I’ve heard it more times than I can count over the years.
Ordering it, if it’s new to you
There’s a place like this in basically every neighborhood, small town or big city, doesn’t matter. You sit, they bring water and usually raw onion with soybean paste, kimchi, maybe pickled radish. You tell them how many people, or say “il-in-bun” if it’s just you, meaning one-person size. Some places genuinely only do the shared big pot and won’t make a solo version — if that happens you either eat more than you planned or you go somewhere else, there’s no real trick around it, you kind of learn which places do solo bowls after going a few times.
They’ll bring it out on a little burner, still cooking. Don’t rush it. Perilla powder is usually on the table or they’ll bring extra if you ask — sprinkling more in if the broth feels thin is completely normal, not weird at all, I did exactly that this morning trying to save a bad bowl, and like I said, didn’t help too much but nobody at the table cares if you do it.
Eat the meat off the bone with your hands once it’s cool enough to touch. Nobody judges you for that, in fact if you don’t do it people might think you’re strange. And near the end, ask for sari if nobody’s offered yet. That’s basically the last stage of the meal.
If you’re ever actually in Cheonan
Cheonan isn’t really a stop on anyone’s Korea trip, most people just pass through on the KTX on the way to somewhere else. But if anyone reading this ever wants to see this area on a weekend, I’d go with you and show you where the honest bowls are, the places with plastic stools and a laminated menu and maybe one older lady running the whole thing by herself. Those are usually the fair-priced ones, closer to that 9,000 to 11,000 won range. I don’t leave my apartment much on weekends, maybe once or twice a year for something that isn’t errands, but I’d make the exception for this. Somebody’s got to warn you away from the tourist-priced bowl before you order it.
Anyway. That bowl this morning wasn’t great. But I finished it, same as always, and I’ll probably go back to that same place next week because it’s close and it’s what I do, and most days it’s actually fine. One bad morning doesn’t really change much. I’ll just go again and probably it’ll be normal next time.
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