South Korea치맥 (chimaek)
noun · Colloquial · CHEE-mek
Fried chicken and beer, taken as a single item. A national institution: eaten in parks, outside convenience stores, at football, and delivered anywhere including the riverbank.
South Korea
Korean Slang for Food & Drink
8 Korean slang terms for food & drink, each with its meaning, how it is pronounced and an example of it in use.
Informal words for eating, drinking and the state of having done too much of either. Frequently borrowed across borders, and frequently mistranslated.
해장 (haejang)
noun, verb · Colloquial · HEH-jang
Eating or drinking to clear a hangover. 해장국 is the soup made for it, and 해장술 is the hair-of-the-dog version, which Koreans discuss with more enthusiasm than doctors would like.
혼밥 (honbap)
noun · Colloquial · HON-bap
Eating a meal alone. Once faintly shameful in a culture built on shared dishes, now ordinary — restaurants advertise single-seat counters for it.
혼술 (honsul)
noun · Colloquial · HON-sool
Drinking alone, by choice and usually at home — a beer with a film rather than a problem.
+1 more sense
존맛 (jonmat)
noun, adjective · Vulgar · JON-mat
Unbelievably tasty. Very common among young people, and technically obscene — 존 is a clipping of a crude word.
Use with care
맛집 (matjip)
noun · Colloquial · MAT-jip
A restaurant worth travelling for. Not fine dining — a 맛집 is more often a two-table place with one dish and a queue.
먹방 (meokbang)
noun · Colloquial · MUK-bang
A broadcast of someone eating a very large meal while talking to the audience. Korean in origin and now a global streaming genre under its Korean name.
소맥 (somaek)
noun · Colloquial · SOH-mek
Soju dropped into beer — Korea's boilermaker. Mixed at the table, often theatrically, and drunk in one.
+1 more sense