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Bindaetteok at Gwangjang Market: What 142 Reviews Say

Travel Analysts

📄142 reviews name the bindaetteok at Gwangjang Market and 55 say how the mung bean pancake tasted: 39 good, 8 average, 8 not. Plus price, sides and stalls.

Pieces of fried mung bean pancake on a foil-lined plate at a Gwangjang Market stall counter, beside a bottle of makgeolli and a paper cup of dipping sauce

💡Quick Answer

Is the bindaetteok at Gwangjang Market good? Of 1,458 reviews of the market, 142 name the mung bean pancake and 55 say how theirs tasted: 39 call it good, 8 call it average and 8 did not like it, for the grease, the texture or a flavor that did not suit them. Three reviewers between 2024 and 2026 report paying 5,000 won. Bindaetteok is named in 9.7% of Gwangjang Market reviews, against 0.1% at Namdaemun Market and 0.2% at Mangwon Market. We did not verify current prices.

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Bindaetteok Belongs to Gwangjang Market

Bindaetteok is the mung bean pancake fried in stacks along the food aisles of Gwangjang Market. One reviewer who ordered it describes the dish in a sentence:

It’s made from grinding mung beans, adding vegetables and meat then pan-frying. — Google Maps review of Gwangjang Market, 5 stars, August 2025

We hold rated review samples for three Seoul markets, collected without filtering by rating. The pancake is named in 142 of the 1,458 reviews of Gwangjang Market. At the other two it barely exists.

🏮 Market	Reviews in the sample	Name bindaetteok
Gwangjang Market	1,458	9.7% (142)
Namdaemun Market	1,376	0.1% (1)
Mangwon Market	1,089	0.2% (2)

Inside the Gwangjang Market sample it leans toward the happy reviews: 10.4% (127) of the four- and five-star reviews name it, against 6.2% (15) of those with three stars or fewer. Reviewers write it as bindaetteok, mung bean pancake, 빈대떡, 綠豆煎餅 or 緑豆チヂミ, and two call it nokdujeon. All of those were counted.

The trade-off: a mention is not a meal. Most of the 142 only list the pancake among the things the market sells. The next section keeps the reviewers who say how theirs tasted.

Fifty-Five Reviewers Say How the Mung Bean Pancake Tasted

We read all 142 reviews in full, in the language they were written in, and sorted each one by what it does with the dish.

🥞 What the review does with the pancake	Of the 142 that name it
✅ Ate it and says it was good	27.5% (39)
🟡 Ate it and calls it average	5.6% (8)
❌ Ate it and did not like it	5.6% (8)
Ate it, gives no opinion	6.3% (9)
Recommends it without describing their own	9.9% (14)
Says they did not try it	4.2% (6)
Only lists it among the market’s foods	40.8% (58)

Of the 55 who give a verdict, 39 say the bindaetteok was good. Eight call it average and eight did not like it.

It was crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside, and full of flavour. — Google Maps review of Gwangjang Market, 4 stars, August 2026

We can’t get enough of the mung bean pancake. We had it twice during our visit. — TripAdvisor review of Gwangjang Market, 5 stars, October 2019

The verdict holds among unhappy visitors too. Nine of the 55 verdicts come from people who rated the market three stars or lower, and four of the nine still say the pancake was good. One two-star review, written in Japanese, names it as one of the few things at the market that are both cheap and good.

The middle exists as well:

They were pretty okay, but the yukhoe was definitely the highlight. — Google Maps review of Gwangjang Market, 5 stars, August 2026

The trade-off: these are people who chose to write about a pancake. Thirty-nine of 55 is what reviewers report, not the odds that you will like it.

What Goes Wrong: Grease, Texture and a Flavor Some Find Flat

Sixteen reviewers were lukewarm or disappointed, and their reasons repeat. Three say the pancake was greasy. Others say it had little flavor, or that the texture was not for them.

Both were very greasy as they are all heavily fried. The mung bean one was pretty tasteless. — Google Maps review of Gwangjang Market, 3 stars, September 2025

we tired them but the texture was not to our taste — TripAdvisor review of Gwangjang Market, 4 stars, May 2025

Language matters here. Chinese-language reviews give 16 of the 55 verdicts and five of the eight negative ones. One says outright that the dish does not suit Taiwanese taste.

The low-rated reviews we collected separately, which we read for quotations and never count, describe the same fault in more detail:

It’s very dense, not much taste and actually very oily. — Google Maps review of Gwangjang Market, 2 stars, November 2024

The reviewers who liked it point the other way. Ten describe the bindaetteok as crisp, four of them as crisp outside and soft inside, and two say it is best eaten hot. One gives the condition:

Mung bean pancake beat eaten there n then when it’s hot n crispy. — TripAdvisor review of Gwangjang Market, 5 stars, October 2022

The trade-off: the same fry that makes it crisp makes it heavy. Nothing in the reviews tells you which stall fries a lighter one. What they do say is to eat it hot, at the stall.

How Reviewers Eat Bindaetteok at Gwangjang Market

🔎 What reviewers describe	Reviews
Crisp, or crisp outside and soft inside	10
🍶 Paired with makgeolli, beer or soju	8
A version or side with meat, chives or seafood	6
🧅 Served with raw onion in soy sauce	4
Greasy or oily	3
Large: one is a lot for one person	3
The beans ground at the stall, in view	3
💵 Paid 5,000 won (April 2024, October 2025, August 2026)	3

Four reviews mention what comes with it: raw onion in soy sauce.

served with a delicious soy sauce onion dip — TripAdvisor review of Gwangjang Market, 5 stars, August 2019

One of the four, written in Chinese, notes that the onion came with the pancake eaten at the stall and not with the one taken away.

Eight pair it with a drink. Makgeolli, the cloudy rice wine, is the usual one; a Japanese reviewer had it with beer, and another describes the pancake as what locals eat while they drink.

Three say one pancake is large, and three name what they paid: 5,000 won each, in April 2024, October 2025 and August 2026. We did not verify the current price.

the mung bean pancake was tasty (5,000 KRW for a huge piece) — TripAdvisor review of Gwangjang Market, 4 stars, April 2024

Six name a version or a side with meat, chives or seafood. One reviewer says the pancakes are sold with or without meat or seafood, and the description quoted at the top of this article includes meat. If you do not eat meat, ask before ordering. Three reviewers mention the beans being ground at the stall.

The trade-off: eating it at the counter gets you the onion and the heat, and it means finding a seat. One reviewer who enjoyed the pancake adds:

Shame you have to find a corner to eat them. — TripAdvisor review of Gwangjang Market, 4 stars, June 2019

Which Stall: The One Name Reviewers Give

Most reviewers do not say where they ate it. Five say the pancake is sold all over the food aisles, and four place the stalls at the center of Gwangjang Market, where the main aisles cross. One of the four adds that any of the stalls at the crossing is good.

Only one stall is named: Soonhee Bindaetteok (순희네 빈대떡), in three reviews, all written in Korean or Chinese. Two list it among the market’s famous names. The third ate there and called the pancake excellent and the service poor: a staff member would not let the group put their bags on an empty chair.

Two more reviews refer to an original bindaetteok stall without naming it, and two mention a mung bean pancake vendor who appeared on Netflix, also without a name. In the low-rated reviews we read but do not count, Soonhee’s name comes up again, praised in some and criticized in others.

On queues the reviews hold two data points, both from before 2021. One from July 2019 describes a long line for the pancake, and one from February 2020, when visitors were few, found none.

The trade-off: three mentions do not rank a stall. What the reviews support is narrower: the pancake is everywhere in the food aisles, one name is known, and nobody in the sample compares two stalls side by side.

Methodology

Figures come from the SeoulFoodTour research corpus. This article uses one part of it: 1,458 rated reviews of Gwangjang Market from Google Maps and TripAdvisor, collected without filtering by rating, of which 242 give one to three stars and 1,216 give four or five.

What counts as naming the dish. A review is counted when it names bindaetteok, mung bean pancake or the equivalent in Korean, Chinese or Japanese. That gives 142 reviews: 62 from Google Maps and 80 from TripAdvisor, dated March 2019 to September 2026, with 78 from 2025 or 2026. Fifty-seven are written in English, 39 in Chinese, 25 in Korean, 16 in Japanese and 5 in other languages. A review that says only “pancake” is not counted, because the ones we read mix seafood pancakes, kimchi pancakes and sweet hotteok. So the counts are floors.

How the verdicts were sorted. All 142 were read in full and each was placed in one row of the verdict table by hand. A review counts as a verdict only when the reviewer ate the pancake and says how it was. The details table is separate, and a review can appear in several of its rows.

The other two markets. The same search was run on our samples of Namdaemun Market (1,376 reviews) and Mangwon Market (1,089 reviews), which found one and two reviews.

The second set. A separate pass aimed at low ratings added reviews that we use for reading and for quotations and never count: a sample collected to be negative would pull every proportion down. One quotation in this article comes from it and is introduced as such.

Quotations. Every quotation is from a review written in English and is reproduced exactly as it appears in the original record, spelling included. Reviews in other languages are counted and described in our words, never quoted.

What this article does not do. It does not verify today’s price, and it does not say which stalls are open or how they are run now. A review records what was true on the day it was written.

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❓ Frequently Asked Questions

What is bindaetteok?+

Bindaetteok is a Korean pancake made from ground mung beans and fried. Reviewers of Gwangjang Market also call it mung bean pancake, and two call it nokdujeon. One reviewer who ordered it says it is made by grinding mung beans, adding vegetables and meat, and pan-frying. Those who liked it describe it as crisp outside and soft inside.

Is the bindaetteok at Gwangjang Market good?+

Of the 142 reviews in our sample that name it, 55 say how it tasted: 39 call it good, 8 call it average and 8 did not like it. The other 87 ate it without saying how it was, recommend it, list it or did not try it. These are people who chose to write about it, so read it as what reviewers report.

How much does bindaetteok cost at Gwangjang Market?+

Three reviewers report paying 5,000 won for one mung bean pancake, in April 2024, October 2025 and August 2026. We did not verify the current price.

Which stall has the best bindaetteok at Gwangjang Market?+

The reviews do not rank stalls. Soonhee Bindaetteok (순희네 빈대떡) is the only one named, in three reviews, and four reviews place the pancake stalls at the center of the market. One reviewer says any of the stalls at the crossing is good. We did not check which stalls are operating today.

Is bindaetteok greasy?+

Three of the 142 reviews say so, and grease is the most specific complaint among the sixteen average or negative verdicts. Ten reviews describe the pancake as crisp, and two say it is best eaten hot at the stall.

What do you eat with bindaetteok?+

Four reviews mention raw onion in soy sauce served alongside. Eight pair it with a drink, most often makgeolli, the cloudy rice wine. One reviewer notes that the onion came with the pancake eaten at the stall and not with the one taken away.

Is bindaetteok vegetarian?+

Not reliably. One reviewer describes meat in the batter, and another says the pancakes are sold with or without meat or seafood. Six reviews name a version or side with meat, chives or seafood. Ask at the stall before ordering.