Cooking YouTuber Who Made Dalgona with Lee Jungjae Selects K-Hotdog and Tteokbokki as World’s Best Street Foods

Actor Lee Jungjae from Squid Game and cooking YouTuber Nick DiGiovanni are doing a dalgona candy challenge. DiGiovanni Instagram

World-renowned cooking YouTuber Nick DiGiovanni, who gained attention for his dalgona candy-making challenge with Lee Jungjae from Squid Game 3, has introduced what he considers the world’s best street foods. Among his selections are the corndog, famous as a K-hotdog, tteokbokki, and dalgona. In Korea, he shared his experiences tasting street food with Suho from the group EXO.

Squid Game protagonist Lee Jungjae is doing a dalgona making challenge with cooking YouTuber Nick DiGiovanni. Nick DiGiovanni Instagram

On July 9 (local time), Nick DiGiovanni introduced his list of the 13 best street foods in the world in a post on Yahoo’s “Yahoo Creators” section. In his introduction, he wrote, “Some people travel to see the sights. I travel to eat snacks. From Iceland’s famous lamb hotdog to Singapore’s chili crab, I set out to taste the legendary street foods of the world. These are dishes praised by locals, lined up for by tourists, and perfected by chefs over decades. Do these foods truly live up to their reputation?”

EXO Suho and Nick DiGiovanni, who chose Korean corndog as the best street food. Yahoo Creators Capture

DiGiovanni’s top 13 include: Icelandic lamb hotdog; Singapore’s Michelin-starred Hawker Chan’s chicken rice; Singapore chili crab; Singapore black pepper crab; Thai crab omelet; Vietnamese waterfall chicken & sticky rice ball; T?rkiye’s 100kg doner kebab; T?rkiye’s mackerel sandwich; Malaysian durian; Mexico·US birria taco. For Korea, he chose Korean-style corndog, tteokbokki and sundae, as well as dalgona and other bunsik (Korean snack foods).

Reference photo of Tteokbokki to aid article understanding. Asia Economy DB

DiGiovanni said, “In Seoul, I tried the popular Korean snack, the corndog, with Suho from the K-pop group EXO. A hotdog and mozzarella cheese are skewered, coated with potato pieces and breadcrumbs, deep-fried, and then sprinkled with sugar. Served with ketchup, mustard, and chili sauce, it becomes the ultimate snack, combining sweetness, saltiness, chewiness, and crispiness.” He continued, “Suho and I also ate tteokbokki at a bunsik restaurant open 24 hours. The chewy rice cakes in gochujang sauce were warm, sweet, and moderately spicy?truly outstanding. The shop also offered sundae, twigim, and eomuktang. While not all of them matched my personal taste, I was impressed by the variety.”

Nick DiGiovanni also ate sundae, twigim, and eomuktang, and although none of them were exactly to his taste, he found the variety impressive. The photo is a stock image of sundae unrelated to the article content.

Before leaving Korea, he experienced dalgona with his friend and fellow food creator Doobydobap, saying, “This honey candy, which became world-famous through Squid Game, comes stamped with a shape, and the mission is to cut out the shape without breaking it. It was much harder than I expected, but it was a very fun and sweet way to end my Korean food tour.” He added, “This culinary journey was probably the most delicious trip I’ve ever had. However, what remains with me even more than the flavors is the pride, passion, and history behind these foods.”

Previously, on June 28, DiGiovanni posted a video of himself doing the dalgona challenge with actor Lee Jungjae on his Instagram account, which has since received over one million likes.

Yahoo described Nick DiGiovanni as “the world’s top food content creator, MasterChef finalist, and New York Times bestselling author, with over 50 million followers on social media.”