Starting Work at 2:30 AM to Sell 300 Meals: The 'War-like Day' of Cheongnyangni Market's Pot Rice

In a quiet alley of Gyeongdong Market in Seoul, a savory aroma fills the alley whenever it is mealtime. As if by appointment, customers are drawn to the restaurant by the scent of pot rice. The star here is the set meal (baekban), which includes freshly cooked pot rice along with 11 side dishes. Including the rice and side dishes, a total of 13 items are served. While it is popular enough to sell an average of about 300 meals a day, a war-like amount of time passes before these meals are set on the table.

2:30 AM, Unceasing Knife Work and Fire Control

The day for owner Kim Yeong-rae begins much earlier than others, at 2:30 AM. This is because all 11 side dishes, which change every day, must be made by hand. It is a rule that all side dishes are made fresh every day. While dipping hands into cold water, she makes soy sauce seasonings and prepares blue crab salad and mushroom jangjorim. Although she adjusts the seasoning with skilled hands, everything relies on her eyes and intuition. As her family says, "Even if you try to follow it by writing it in a notebook, it doesn't work," her 40 years of culinary expertise is difficult to convert into numbers.

The key to determining the taste of the rice is the rice itself and the fire control. To ensure the taste, this place consumes about 1,600kg of rice per month, using only rice from the Cheongju region. The rice is soaked for about 3 hours to reach the optimal state. Twenty aluminum pots are placed on the burners simultaneously. Because aluminum pots have high thermal conductivity, the rice can burn if one loses focus for even a moment. Kim delicately adjusts the fire, moving between high, medium, and low heat. When the water evaporates and white grains of rice begin to appear, she quickly covers the lid to let it steam. With the know-how that "once the bubbles disappear, you must let it steam," the finished rice is glossy and full of stickiness. The chewy scorched rice (nurungji) and savory scorched water (sungnyung) served after scooping the rice are another reason people visit this place.

7:00 AM, Exploding Orders and the Delivery War

Once it passes 7:00 AM, the restaurant transforms into a full-scale battlefield. Delivery order calls from market merchants pour in. When an order comes in, the number of meals is written on newspaper to categorize them, and delivery workers pick them up. Since the freshly cooked pot rice must be delivered before it gets cold, time is life. The process of loading up to 10 meals on a single motorcycle and navigating the maze-like market alleys is a grueling task that is difficult to perform unless one is a veteran.

During busy hours, the whole family is deployed. The ex-husband in charge of deliveries, the mother joins to help with cooking, and the son-in-law, who is trying to learn the mother-in-law's cooking skills, also joins in. The son-in-law is working hard to inherit his mother-in-law's expertise, saying, "To learn cooking, I also have to learn how to make kimchi." If deliveries are backed up, they even get on motorcycles and run. As they say, "We run toward hungry merchants before the food gets cold," their movements are relentless. If an accident occurs where the rice burns, they express distress because the rice is wasted, but the non-stop kitchen does not stop. Although they burn about four or five pots a day, they continue their intense daily routine by washing and reusing them.

The Weight of 300 Meals, and a Rewarding Conclusion

After a forced march lasting more than 12 hours a day, the settlement time arrives. In a routine that continues from opening at 6:30 AM to 9:00 PM, they sell an average of about 300 meals a day, a moment when the results of their hard labor are confirmed by numbers. Although it is a job with a heavy physical burden, enough to suffer from a herniated disc, the greetings from customers as they finish their meals keep them going.

The owner's words, "It is rewarding and happy when people say goodbye after greeting us," contain the sincerity of those who have endured a hard day. The pride in filling someone's day sturdily with freshly cooked pot rice and heartfelt side dishes is the strength that sustains this war-like daily life. According to the EBS documentary video, they are continuing the vitality of the market through this intense process that repeats every day.