Pojangmacha are the orange-tented street stalls that appear across Seoul from late afternoon until the early hours, serving food and alcohol to workers, students, and late-night drinkers. The strip along Jongno, a short walk from Insadong, is the city's most atmospheric concentration of them — a line of carts that fold out into tarpaulin-walled rooms with plastic stools, where strangers end up shoulder to shoulder over the same dishes.
The standards are tteokbokki (spicy rice cakes), eomuk and odeng (fish cake on skewers and in broth), tornado potatoes, and soondae (blood sausage), washed down with soju, beer, and makgeolli. They are at their best on cold evenings, when hot food, warm drink, and the glow of orange canvas make for one of Seoul's most egalitarian social rituals — office workers, artists, and labourers all sharing the same stools under the same tent.