Breakfast at China’s North Korea Border | Unique Street Food Adventure
This is dagao, a traditional Korean-style rice cake you’ll find here in Yanbian. It’s made by steaming sticky rice and pounding it until it turns soft and chewy, then rolling it in roasted soybean or sesame powder. It’s simple, but has a wonderfully nutty flavor, and it’s a must-have treat during local festivals and gatherings. It takes strength and patience, but the result is worth it. Beyond being a sweet snack or a festive food for New Year, it also carries meaning. In Korean tradition here in China, when a family moves into a new home, they often make tteok and share it with neighbors as a gesture of goodwill. This one’s yellow with soybean filling, the white one’s kidney bean, and the red one’s red bean. It has to be made and eaten fresh, otherwise the texture won’t be good.
If you want to store it longer, the rice and filling should be kept separately. Since all fillings cost the same, you can mix and match however you like. This is samgyetang, chicken soup stewed with ginseng.
It’s nutritious, and ginseng is grown locally here. This is haemul jeon, a seafood pancake loved by young people.
Many even travel from other cities just to try it. Carrot shreds, chives, squid, oysters, and shrimp are added—nutritious and visually tempting. Before eating, spread some sweet chili sauce on top according to your taste. Here we have chao niangao, or stir-fried rice cakes. These chewy slices of rice cake are stir-fried in a glossy red sauce made with chili paste, sugar, and a touch of garlic.
The flavor is the perfect balance of sweet and spicy, coating every bite with a rich, sticky glaze.
It’s a simple yet addictive comfort food, and a favorite street snack in Yanbian’s Korean community. All kinds of kimchi—customers can sample them. Doupibao fan (tofu skin wraps with rice) comes in many flavors: tuna, crab stick, corn, kimchi, and more. The kimchi’s a little salty, the rice is kind of bland,
but when you mix them together, it tastes just right—really good. This is eomuk (fish cake). Looks good, but unfortunately I can’t eat anymore. Normally youtiao are golden yellow, this is my first time seeing colorful ones. Green is spinach juice, purple is dragon fruit juice. The vendor explains the rice cake fillings to customers in broken Chinese. The lady boss calls out to customers in Korean—I can’t understand. This is soondae (Korean blood sausage), another specialty of the Korean-Chinese community. Various grilled fish cakes with different flavors—matcha, chocolate, and taro. Time to taste my haul.
Since there’s no table, I’ll just sit on the stone steps by the river. The stir-fried rice cakes are a little salty, but very bouncy and smooth—great texture. Now let’s try the kimbap. The sticky rice in the kimbap is chewy and smooth. The soondae is a bit greasy, but thankfully the onions inside help cut the richness. Thanks for watching.
Breakfast at the China–North Korea border is unlike anywhere else in China. In Yanji’s lively morning markets, the Korean ethnic community serves up specialties like rice cakes, seafood pancakes, stir-fried rice cakes, tofu-skin rolls, seaweed kimbap, potato wraps, rice sausages, and more—each bite a taste of borderland culture.
00:00 highlight
00:36 intro
01:32 Dagaō（sticky rice cake）
06:50 Hǎixiān Bǐng(seafood pancake)
10:18 Chǎo Niángāo (stir-fried rice cakes)
12:12 Dòupí Bāofàn (tofu skin rice rolls)
15:08 Zǐcài Juǎn (seaweed rolls)
16:30 Lǘ Dǎgǔn (glutinous rice rolls with bean flour)
18:42 Qīcǎi Yóutiáo (colorful fried dough sticks)
21:23 Tǔdòusī Juǎnbǐng (shredded potato wrap)
23:30 Nuòmǐ Bǐng (glutinous rice cake)
25:49 Mǐcháng (Korean-style rice sausage)
26:47 Yúbǐng (fish cake)
27:07 Tǔdòu Xiànbǐng (potato-stuffed pie)
#StreetFood #Yanji #NorthKoreaBorder #KoreanFood #Breakfast
AloJapan.com