Explore Gangneung, the South Korean city famous for a unique tofu dish

The KTX rockets eastwards from the commuter-crowded platforms of Seoul Station, ratcheting up to speed as it slices through Seoul’s sprawling suburbs. Alongside the track, the city’s urban jigsaw unfolds: high-rise towers, flyovers, building sites, construction cranes looming like Martian invaders as they labour on the megacity’s neverending expansion. Gradually, the cityscape melts into a gentler, greener landscape: hills, valleys, rivers, slate-roofed towns, paddies and pastures.

Two hours later, 100 miles east of Seoul, the train pulls into Gangneung. For most people, this east coast town is a beach resort. It has one of South Korea’s longest stretches of sandy coastline, with ribbons of yellow stretching for miles, backed by hotels, shopping promenades, coffeeshops and gelato makers.

There is, however, another reason why people visit Gangneung. This coastal city is synonymous with a special kind of tofu known as sundubu, which is traditionally served in jjigae — a stew that also includes seafood, meat or vegetables. Silky soft, white as cream, sundubu was recorded being made as far back as the 1500s. The legend goes that the recipe was developed by a member of the royal household, who mixed soy milk with seawater, creating thick, soft curds. This is what gives sundubu its characteristic velvety consistency.

Nowadays, sundubu is sold in supermarkets all over South Korea, but the majority is factory-made and mass-produced, packaged in plastic tubes. Gangneung’s sundubu is something else entirely: handmade, unpasteurised, artisanal. And to taste it, I’m told there’s only one place in town to go — Chodang-dong.

Set back a few hundred yards from the beach, Chodang-dong barely qualifies as a neighbourhood, spanning a couple of palm-shaded blocks near the inland lagoon of Gyeongpo. But this is where the town’s oldest tofu restaurants are located. Many of them have been open for decades, still run by the families who founded them. Among them is the Oldtime Chodang Sundubu Restaurant, where I meet up with owner Lee Young-soon. She’s regularly featured in Korean cookbooks, magazines and travel shows — and with her rouged cheeks, eyelashes thick with mascara and lilac hoodie, it’s not hard to see why. Flamboyant and a little fearsome, she is a character I quickly warm to.

“We make our tofu every day, by hand. Not many restaurants do that anymore,” she tells me, as we step through the sliding glass door into her tiny restaurant, which feels a bit like stepping into someone’s living room. Filled with vinyl-topped tables and potted plants, the flock wallpapered space is hung with framed black-and-white photos of former customers including, I’m told, several Korean celebrities and TV stars.

“We only use fresh seawater and top-quality soybeans,” she explains, leading me into the little kitchen, where pans sizzle and a battered old radio blares out K-pop. She lifts the lid of a giant steel vat; inside, a cloud of fresh sundubu is marinating. “We don’t strain our sundubu. It must keep its soft texture.”

She gestures for me to sit down at a table and bustles off to plate up my lunch. Sundubu jjigae can be served plain, Lee explains, but she recommends I try the spicy version. It’s flavoured with a pungent soybean paste locals call the ‘rice thief’ — because it’s so delicious, it makes you eat too much, she tells me with a cackle. The dish is served piping hot and bubbling in a special ceramic crock, accompanied by sticky rice and an assortment of banchan — side dishes including kimchi, fried flatfish, sprouted soybeans, marinated peppers and pickled radishes. For a final flourish, she cracks a raw egg into the stew. It’s hot, spicy and rich, with an umami tang and a chilli kick that tingles on the palate.

“People travel from all over South Korea to Chodang-dong to enjoy our sundubu jjigae,” Lee says. “It’s soul food: a taste of the old days, like grandmother made.” She heads off into the kitchen to start on the next batch of orders. The lunchtime rush is starting, and by the looks of things, it’s going to be a busy shift. Every table in the restaurant is taken, and a queue of customers stretches out the door and onto the sand.