Uijeongbu Budaejjigae Street

Character

Heo Gi-suk said she used to hide leftover meat from a U.S. Army base under her clothes and was sometimes arrested for taking it out. At her small food stand, customers then pushed her to turn that scarce meat into something Koreans could eat with rice: a hot stew

Her story is the strongest human thread on Uijeongbu Budaejjigae Street. Heo began with an odeng stand in 1960. After being asked to cook at an American base, she gained access to ham and other meat that was rare in postwar Korea. She first stir-fried it, then changed the dish after customers complained that fried meat alone did not work well with rice

That adaptation became the core of budae jjigae: processed American meat cooked with Korean kimchi, chili seasoning and other ingredients in a shared pot. Heo’s Odeng Sikdang became a permanent restaurant, and other budae jjigae businesses gathered along the same road

The experience

The street is compact. Korea Tourism Organization describes about a dozen restaurants concentrated around roughly 150 metres, so the visit is less about covering distance than choosing among closely packed specialists

The dish itself carries the neighborhood history. Ham, sausage and other processed meats sit in the same pot as kimchi, gochujang, noodles and Korean side ingredients. The combination now feels familiar across Korea, but in Uijeongbu the proximity of former U.S. military facilities remains part of the explanation for why those ingredients met here

Restaurant owners have also maintained a recognizable local style without a formal recipe agreement. In a 2012 interview, one owner told *The Korea Times* that restaurants on the street naturally converged around the taste customers expected from “Uijeongbu budae jjigae”

The oldest businesses turn the meal into a family history as much as a food stop. Some have passed through several generations, while the street around them has been formally branded around a dish that began as an improvised use of ingredients people were not supposed to have

History

Budae jjigae emerged in the years after the Korean War, when meat was scarce and U.S. military bases created an unusual local supply of Spam, sausages, ham and other processed foods. The Korean name literally means “army-base stew,” but the dish was eaten in Korean communities around the bases rather than by American soldiers themselves

Heo Gi-suk’s account places Uijeongbu at the center of that transition. She described taking leftovers from the base, selling stir-fried meat at her stand and then turning it into stew after customers asked for soup with their rice. Other restaurant owners interviewed by *The Korea Times* accepted Odeng Sikdang as the street’s original budae jjigae restaurant

As the dish became popular, more restaurants opened nearby. Uijeongbu formally named the road “Uijeongbu Jjigae Street” in 1999; the name later became Uijeongbu Budaejjigae Street

The official street now contains 12 listed restaurants and hosts an annual food festival. What began with food scarcity and an illegal flow of military leftovers has been converted into one of Uijeongbu’s clearest pieces of local identity

Before you go

The street is small enough that restaurant choice matters more than route planning. Menus and opening hours differ by business, and the cluster extends only a short distance from the central gateway