5 Items Available Only at Korean Convenience Stores – Snack Edition

[waves-of-light.livejournal.com]

Convenience stores have a special appeal, especially in Korea. As you step inside one of those clean, bright stores that stay open 24/7, hottest K-pop and the cashier’s apathetic greeting welcome you.

Convenience stores may not offer the best deal, but they make sure that the shelves are up to date all the time. No matter which part of the country you visit, convenience stores will offer the newest food trend of Korea on sight.

It is a recent trend among large scale convenience store chains in Korea, such as GS25, CU, and 7-Eleven, to produce private label products. In this 5 Items Available Only at Korean Convenience Stores series, we will explore some of the trendiest items available only at Korean convenience stores.


Earlier this year, Wednesday Food Talk invited insiders from snack industry to talk about history of Korean snacks. Throughout the hour-long episode, what surprised me the most was the fact that only 2-3 percent of the new products survive in the snack market in Korea. The market is dominated by decades-old classic snacks like Shrimp Cracker and Choco Pie, yielding only a tiny room for new snacks.

This means that you have to act fast to try freshly released snacks before they vanish. Fortunately, convenience stores in Korea do excellent jobs introducing new products all the time.

Here are some of the popular new snacks available only at Korean convenience stores!


1. Butter Caramel Pringles
Oh, pink Pringles! Cute! …Wait, butter caramel flavor? This snack is an outcome of endeavor to apply recent trend of Korean snack market, dan-jjan-dan-jjan, or “sweet-savory-sweet-savory,” which refers to the perfect combination of sweetness and saltiness (Chicago popcorn presents an ideal example of this). People who like this Pringles say that saltiness of Pringles and sweetness of caramel balance just well.



2. Sesame Oil and Seaweed Potato Chip
In Korea, people spread a thin layer of sesame oil and little bit of salt on seaweed. This potato chip takes this addictive banchan and remakes it as a savory snack.



3. Nougat Biscuit
This Taiwanese Nougat Biscuit is one of the most popular products among Korean tourists to Taiwan. Korean convenience store chain, CU, started selling this imported snack this month.



4. Kimchi Jjigae Potato Chip
You may be surprised to find a Kimchi Jjigae flavored potato chip, but what’s shocking about this product is not the taste, but the way people enjoys it. Just like how they enjoy Kimchi Jjigae with rice, people crunch this snack and mix with rice. Yes. Seriously.



5. Fried Chicken Snack
As much as they know how to fry their chicken, Koreans are obsessed with fried chicken days and nights. This gave birth to Crispy Chicken, a fried chicken flavored snack. Reviews say that is tastes like the skin of fried chicken.




Crushing the chips into the rice seems interesting to me? I'd probably try a spoonful.

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Comments

[chimpansee.livejournal.com]

I would love to try #2 but not many of the others seem that appealing to me. :/ Maybe the kimchi jjigae chips because I love me some kimchi jjigae, but eating them with rice seems yuk tbh!!

[lightframes.livejournal.com]

Sesame oil and seaweed chips sound good.

[shazz-chan.livejournal.com]

If the chicken snack is similar to pork scratchings I'm all on board!

[broadway-bound3.livejournal.com]

I've tried fried chicken flavored chips and I think a tomato pasta flavor. Haha. I'm interested in the fried chicken "skin". The convenience stores are treasure troves of interesting snacks.

[strangerstheme.livejournal.com]

I'd have never in my life imagined mixing chips with rice. I can't still wrap my head around it even after seeing the photo lol
I would like to try the sesame oil and seaweed chips

[sra-interesante.livejournal.com]

last one sounds almost decadent .... omg! that way i could taste chicken skin without people judging me

i have seen people (like my friends and even my younger brother) crushing fries to put them on their sandwiches, so put them on rice too would be that weird , actually spicy fries would be a better idea because they use only regular fries lmao

[waves-of-light.livejournal.com]

I crush chips into my sandwiches too. It's delicious! But only specific chips into specific sandwiches because I'm a mess lol.

[shuumi-miss.livejournal.com]

Sandwiches filled with crushed fries is the most delicious thing ever, lol. It has been a must at birthday parties since I was a child and I don't know anybody who doesn't like/do it here.

[mjspice.livejournal.com]

Wow @ all of these.

Lmao I see my family isn't the only one mixing chips & rice. XD

[carmine-pink.livejournal.com]

Me too, my country is a rice-eating nation like Korea and sometimes I eat rice with salty chips like Pringles. It's not common but I don't see why it would be all that "shocking" lol

[winegums.livejournal.com]

same here, we eat curd-rice a lot and my friends used to crush chips into their rice for a little texture/taste contrast with the rice. I'm surprised it's thought of as a 'weird' food habit lol, it's no weirder than making chip butties.

[kyokomurasaki.livejournal.com]

it's no weirder than making chip butties

I feel like a lot of people who aren't familiar with chip butties would consider that weird lol. Though I'm not going to judge, every culture eats things that are considered "weird" to somebody else. It's just a matter of what you're used to.

[annayism.livejournal.com]

ahhhhh i tried so hard to find the fried chicken chips when i was in korea but i couldn't find the ones in the picture!!! so sad :(

[frequency.livejournal.com]

i would definitely try the caramel pringles. and that chicken skin snack tbh.

[degloss.livejournal.com]

omfg I love posts like these! I snapped my friend who's in Korea on the last post with the limited edition fall food chains but she hasn't sent me any pictures so I guess she didn't try any ):
the sesame oil and seaweed sounds sooooo good

[psharp10.livejournal.com]

tbh all of these sound good -- and with kimchi jjigae chips mixed in rice would be good!! sometimes i mix namkeen in rice and eat it so lol, i can totally see why people would mix the chips in rice

[winegums.livejournal.com]

yep. That's the beauty of rice, you can eat it with literally anything/any flavour. My south indian friends loved to crush chips into their curd-rice, it wasn't bad at all.

[nadumolla.livejournal.com]

Lol maybe it's coz I'm asian but mixing rice with chips seem pretty normal to me. My friend's been doing that forever and after trying it for myself it's actually good. I mix some chester's fries with rice and fried meat if I want to spice things up and let me tell you best decision I've ever made.

[meyouthisthat.livejournal.com]

all these sound pretty amazing. would love to try them, though i'm not much of a snacker and wasn't really looking out for snacks when i was in korea