Korean Job Discussion Forums

[naughtybynature]

I am looking to move to South Korea in August and was hoping to get an idea of how much certain foods are so I can have an idea of how I will budget...

I have heard meat is quite expensive which is concerning because I like to keep my diet high protein...so any alternate suggestions would be great...I've heard seafood is nice but i'm not sure if it is expensive or not?...

So much for a kg of:
Chicken
Turkey
Beef
Tuna
Shark
Venison
Porridge Oats

How are prices for fruits such as blueberries?...a dozen eggs?..

Also is there much disparity in prices between regions?...

Thanks very much...

[Deja]

Chicken breasts - 15.000KRW/kg, really good ones, but this is extremely hard to find. My, very large, e-Mart had them this March first time ever (been there for a year before now, never found fresh chicken breast)
Turkey - never found it. Duck can be sometimes cheaper, and is available in a lot more variaties than Chicken/Turkey, but it is not just breast, it is with the fat, so meat itself is quite pricey.
Beef - you need to be very specific for this one There's US beef (quite cheap compared to the rest), Australian (from 9000KRW to 90.000KRW/kg, depending on what you need. More meat/less fat things tend to be cheaper in Korea so round rarely hits 20.000KRW/kg, whereas beef ribs, boneless tend to cross 40.000KRW)
Tuna - Sorry, I have no clue. But very good alaskan salmon is below 30.000KRW/kg. Frozen 1KG is ~22.000KRW, which is more per KG/meat I think (it is smoked)

I never noticed egg prices! (I need to have some always, but can never eat too many to consider them expensive really)

Bluebeeries - well, dried fruits can be below 15.000KRW, but fresh strawberries tend to cross that price.
The only fruit I found not to be ridicolously overpried are bananas (~2-3$/kg give or take some, depending on "sale") and pomengranate. The rest you need to get at a street cart, otherwise the prices are 10-15$/kg.
Vegetables are also quite expensive with only carrots, onions and garlic not being uber-expensive.

Above are e-Mart prices, Costco might be cheaper, I never checked since the closest to me is quite far to "take home".

Oats are available in grain form in Korea and are quite cheap.

That said, I tend to have 3-5 protein meals a day, with oats or coconut milk (2.5-3$ per 400ml can), and I can do with ~500-700.000KRW a month without a hassle.

[nora]

Wow, deja must know the worst places to shop.

A bag of frozen chicken breasts, 1 kg is between 7-9000 won, and they are usually on sale, 2 bags for 12,000 at Homeplus.

I bought 1.5 kilos of American beef for about 7000 at a local market. The Australian beef the guy had was about 9,000/k. It DOES depend on what country and cut you're talking, but general beef, nothing special, in a market is between 5-25,000 for American/Australian/Korean (in that order).

Blueberries - frozen, a bag will be about 8,000-12,000 depending on sales and time of year.

If you want to keep protein high on a budget, chicken and beans, those are the two keys. Beef and pork aren't too bad price-wise, but fruits are going to kill you unless you buy local fruit, only in season, and if the weather is good. A bad year weather wise and the price on stuff will double easily.

[mayorhaggar]

I dunno where you are coming from but I'm from the US and groceries here seem fairly cheap to me. Meat seems just about as expensive as it was in California, like 7000W to 10000W or so for chicken or steak.

The main thing you might not like is that the variety of stuff available at average grocery stores is totally different from somewhere like the US--here it's all aimed at producing Korean dishes as you might expect. So venison, shark and oats? Might be kinda hard to find. The big city markets like E-Mart and so on have a much bigger variety, and lots of imported food, though some stuff is still hard to find. I've been looking for corn flour and can't find any, for instance.

Squid and octopus are huge in cooking here (not my cuppa tea) and other Westerners here enjoy cooking it because it's so ubiquitous and it's cheaper than other kinds of meat.

[Deja]

[cdninkorea]

Regarding meat, Costco will be your best friend, I think. I've never seen chicken breast (frozen) or tilapia (also frozen) cheaper. They also have the only water-packed canned tuna I've found; every other kind is packed in oil. Believe it or not though, I consider tuna a small luxury here, since 8 cans of water-packed tuna is 24,000 won Oh, Costco also carries all kinds of frozen fruit: blueberries, cherries, mangoes, strawberries, raspberries, etc.

For things like oatmeal and protein powder, I'd go with www.iherb.com

[Captain Corea]

The poster above me hit on the points I was going to make

Costco - ground beef, breasts, tilapia
- Frozen berries

iHerb for your powders

[Deja]

are these meat prices similar in retail Costco:
http://www.ezshopkorea.com/shop/step0.php?b_code=B20070626050833&c_code=C20070820055520
?