Yesan chicken restaurant with outdoor plaza dining: Sijang Dakbokkeum

Open-air market dining at the Yesan Market plaza

When you think of Yesan in Chungnam, you can't leave out Yesan Market, right?🥰 These days if you travel to Yesan, the market has pretty much become a must-stop on the itinerary. Yesan Market (예산시장) is Yesan's traditional market, a place that has served as the heart of daily life for locals for a long time, and lately it's been drawing even more people thanks to all kinds of street food and the open-air, night-market-style dining you can enjoy right inside.

What's especially nice is that you can take out food from different stalls, bring it to the plaza inside the market, and sit down at a table to eat, so it's great for a quick drink while you're traveling🍻 And this time at Yesan Market I discovered a slightly special menu item you can only try here! It's the shishito pepper dakbokkeum (spicy stir-fried chicken) sold at Sijang Dakbokkeum (시장닭볶음)🌶️🍗 It's not something you commonly see anywhere in the country, which made me even more curious, so I had to try it. It goes well with rice and is perfect as a drinking snack, so I got to enjoy the plaza's open-air vibe along with it haha

Daily 11:00–20:30

If you're in Yesan, Yesan Market is a stop you really should make at least once😊 There's a parking lot, so it was convenient to come by car too. On weekends it gets really crowded, so I hear you can feel the buzz all the way from the parking lot to the market.

The most fun part of Yesan Market was being able to eat right in the market plaza🍽️✨ You take out whatever you want to eat from inside the market and bring it over to the plaza, and the tables aren't assigned to anyone — if there's an open seat, it's first come, first served.

There were lots of people grilling meat here and there, and plenty spreading out the food they'd each taken out haha. There's such a variety of food in the market that it'd be great to grab a bit from several stalls and eat it all together in one spot. It really felt like a proper open-air night market🍻

Sijang Dakbokkeum's shishito pepper dakbokkeum menu

And the place I found while wandering the market was Sijang Dakbokkeum🍗🌶️ They sell dakbokkeum stir-fried with shishito peppers, and apparently this style of dakbokkeum is something you can only get at Sijang Dakbokkeum. It's a bit different from the jjimdak (braised chicken) or dakbokkeum I usually eat, so I was even more curious haha

It also looked fine to take home, so if you want to bring back a little edible souvenir from Yesan Market, keep this in mind. They also sell slushies for cooling off on hot days🥤

• Shishito pepper dakbokkeum ₩25,000
• Extra shishito peppers ₩2,000
• Extra cheese ₩3,000
• Quail eggs, bunmoja (thick glass noodles) or Vienna sausages ₩2,000 each

The menu is shishito pepper dakbokkeum at ₩25,000, with a good range of add-ons😊 Rice, alcohol, water and drinks can be bought separately at the grill-rental shop where you eat the dakbokkeum🍚🍻

You grab chopsticks and napkins yourself😊 And if you write a receipt review, you get a free apple juice too🍎🥤 We picked up what we needed and headed over to the plaza.

Once you order, they stir-fry the chicken and shishito peppers right away🔥 Watching it sizzle in the pan right in front of you makes you hungrier and hungrier while you wait lol. They don't just stir-fry it, they give it a charred, smoky finish too, so a savory smell and smoky aroma kept wafting up. It was also nice that it was packed fresh off the pan, so you can eat it hot.

A takeout spread with extra cheese and shishito peppers

Our takeout order was done!🥰🍗 We carried the packed dakbokkeum straight to the market plaza. Wandered around Yesan Market, looked at everything, took out some good food, grabbed a spot in the plaza, and now we were fully ready to dig in haha. Taking food out right in the market and eating it there has a different kind of fun compared to eating in a regular restaurant!

We ordered the shishito pepper dakbokkeum at ₩25,000 with extra cheese for ₩3,000 and extra shishito peppers for ₩2,000🌶️🍗 Since the chicken and shishito peppers are stir-fried together, I was really curious how it would taste! The moment we opened the container, that smoky aroma came rushing out🔥 With the extra shishito peppers the portion looked generous, and with cheese on top it was mouthwatering from the visual alone.

Eating it right away, the cheese stretched and stretched🥹🧀 Adding cheese was definitely the right call! Putting a shishito pepper on a piece of chicken and rolling it up in cheese gave you spicy and savory in one bite — so good. The cheese softened the heat of the sauce just a little, which was nice haha. Extra cheese is a must!

And there were way more shishito peppers in there than I expected🌶️ The peppers' distinct aroma comes through, and every now and then one hits you with a burst of heat lol. Eating them one by one, at some point you land on a spicy one and your mouth goes numb🔥 If you love spicy food, definitely add the extra shishito peppers!

Inside there was chicken, tteok (rice cakes) and shishito peppers🍗 The sauce felt like a standard jjimdak sauce with extra spice added — sweet and salty, with the heat creeping up at the end. Add the smoky flavor on top of that and it's a different experience from the jjimdak I usually eat🔥 The tteok had soaked up the sauce nicely too, with a great chewy bite.

For the chicken, I picked out the drumsticks and wings to try🍗💕 The chicken itself was on the small side, but the sauce had soaked in well so it was delicious. With that gentle smoky flavor and the fun of eating open-air right in the plaza, it somehow tasted even better than it would at home haha. Eating while people-watching in the market — the atmosphere definitely played a part.

Being a smoky shishito pepper dakbokkeum, it was a bit different from the chicken dishes I usually eat🌶️🍗 The spicy kick of the shishito peppers, the sweet sauce and that charcoal-like smoky flavor make it good with rice and just as good as a drinking snack. And since you can enjoy it open-air in the market plaza, I'd recommend it for when you want a quick drink while traveling🍻

Coming to Yesan Market, looking around, hunting for food and then trying a special dakbokkeum on top of that made the trip feel really well spent🥰 Instead of just walking into a restaurant, taking food out in the market and sitting down in the plaza gave it a different vibe and really made it feel like a trip. If you visit Yesan Market and want something a little special instead of the usual, give Sijang Dakbokkeum's shishito pepper dakbokkeum a try🍗🌶️