짜장면Jajangmyeon, the Korean soul food

짜장면Jajangmyeon is one of the soul food for Koreans. I believe most Koreans eat it quite often and it won't be easy to find the one who hates it, just like we love Kimchi. The sweet and salty black sauce, it's also my favorite food! 

Though its origin is known as China, the Korean Jajangmyeon is now a unique Korean dish, totally different from the Chinese one with the same name. In my parents' generation, it was a special food that you can eat only in some events: birthday or graduation. Today, it is one of the most popular delivery foods that you can order and eat anytime, anywhere thanks to the well-developed delivery system in Korea. There's still a special occasion to eat it. Koreans usually eat Jajangmyeon on the day of moving in. I guess it's because the house isn't ready to cook and they must be busy cleaning the house, moving and arranging things so they just simply order and eat it.

짜장면 used to be written as 자장면[Jajangmyeon] even though almost everyone in this country pronounced it as 짜장면[Jjajangmyeon]. In 2011, reflecting the actual pronunciation of the public, National Institute of Korean language finally agreed to officially use both 짜장면 and 자장면 as standard Korean word. What a great news! I don't know why but 자장면 sounds tasteless compare to 짜장면. loll

If you visit Korea, 짜장면 is one of the Korean foods you MUST try, and until then, you can try the instant noodles of 짜장면 such as 짜파게티 or 짜짜로니. They are also quite good! This is it for today. Thank you for reading this post and I hope you enjoyed it :)