Spicy Chicken Feet — Korea's Fiercest Drinking Snack

Spicy chicken feet — Korea's ultimate late-night drinking snack

Spicy chicken feet, known as dakbal in Korean, are widely regarded as the single most intense drinking snack in all of Korea. Whether you're in Seoul, Busan, Daejeon (a major city roughly 1.5 hours south of Seoul), or Daegu — every Korean city has at least one red-lit stall or bar down some back alley flogging fiery red chicken feet. They're an essential part of Korea's late-night food culture, and among Korean street food, they're the undisputed heavyweight champion of the spicy category.

I'm Korean, living in Korea, and I'll be honest — I don't eat dakbal all that often. But in the winter of 2025, my wife and I made the trek to Hanshinpocha, a popular Korean bar chain. It's quite far from our place and getting there is a proper mission, but every now and again that craving for this particular kind of heat hits, and you've simply got no choice but to go.

Chicken feet aren't just a Korean thing

Chicken feet are eaten across the globe, not just in Korea. In China, they're called fengzhao and served as a dim sum staple — you can even grab packaged chicken feet snacks from corner shops, that's how mainstream they are. In Thailand, fried and braised chicken feet are a common sight at street stalls. In the Philippines, they go by the nickname "adidas" and are wildly popular as grilled barbecue skewers. Mexico puts them in soup, and in Jamaica, chicken foot soup is a perfectly ordinary everyday dish.

Here's the thing that makes Korean chicken feet completely different from all of those, though. In most countries, chicken feet are enjoyed for their texture or used to add body to a broth. In Korea, chicken feet essentially mean heat — pure, unrelenting spiciness. Coated in a thick sauce built on gochujang (fermented chilli paste) and gochugaru (chilli flakes), they look so intimidating you'd think "how on earth do you eat that?" — and yet once you reach for one, you genuinely cannot stop. Koreans seek this out on purpose. Tears streaming, nose running, the lot. Here's a fun bit of trivia for British readers: the UK processes over 850 million chickens a year, and most of those 1.7 billion feet get rendered into pet food or exported to China. In Korea, they'd be smothered in chilli paste and devoured with beer. Rather different fate, isn't it?

Types of spicy chicken feet you'll find in Korea

Walk into any dakbal restaurant in Korea and the menu is surprisingly varied. The same basic ingredient — chicken feet — tastes completely different depending on how it's prepared.

Soupy dakbal — spicy chicken feet you simmer at your table

This is the spicy gukmu-dakbal we ordered at Hanshinpocha. A mountain of chicken feet drenched in angry red sauce, heaped on a black iron hotplate, topped with sesame seeds and spring onion — it looks properly fierce even before you taste it, right?

It arrives looking like a finished dish, but you're not done yet. You fire up the gas burner built into the table and simmer it down further. At first the sauce is fairly thin and liquidy, but as it bubbles away, the broth reduces and the sauce starts properly coating every last chicken foot. That's the whole point of soupy dakbal — you control the heat yourself, adjusting the flame and deciding how long to reduce. When the liquid has shrunk down to a thick, sticky glaze, that's your moment. Think of it a bit like a fondue situation — interactive, messy, brilliant with drinks.

Prices and spice levels

At Hanshinpocha, the Hanshin dakbal (bone-in chicken feet with beansprouts) costs 22,000 won (roughly £13), and the boneless version is about 23,000 won (around £14). You pick your spice level from three tiers: level 1 (standard), level 2 (spicy), and level 3 (very spicy). I'll be straight with you — level 1 is already properly hot. If you're not confident with spicy food, start there and work your way up.

Pouring in the beansprout broth

When the chicken feet arrive, this bowl of beansprout broth comes alongside them. At first glance you look at the feet and think "hang on, this is supposed to be the soupy version — where's the soup?" That's because you pour this beansprout broth onto the hotplate yourself and cook it all together. The moment the broth hits the plate, the sauce dissolves and everything turns a vivid, fiery red. That's when the real fun starts.

Spicy chicken feet close-up

This is what they look like up close. If you've never seen chicken feet before, the visual can be a bit startling, honestly. The toes are right there, fully visible. But for Koreans, the first reaction to this sight is "oh, that looks delicious." Different worlds, I suppose.

Cooking them yourself at the table

Here's the gas burner going and the cooking properly under way. When there's plenty of broth, you can just let it simmer. But once the liquid gets low like this, you need to keep turning them with a ladle so they don't stick to the bottom. You can ask for more beansprout broth whenever you like, and there's no extra charge for it.

Once it's all reduced down, it looks like this. Completely different from before, isn't it? The sauce has turned into a thick, sticky coating on every single foot. Pick one up with your chopsticks and the glaze stretches in long, gooey strands — that's the sweet spot. Time to tuck in.

Adding beansprouts to dial down the heat

If it's too hot, you can pile beansprouts on top and cook them in. They add a lovely crunch and take the edge off the spice a fair bit.

Once the beansprouts start soaking up the sauce, this combination is absolutely brilliant. Beansprouts that have absorbed all that chilli sauce, eaten in one mouthful alongside chewy chicken feet — you immediately understand why beansprouts are non-negotiable with soupy dakbal.

How to eat chicken feet — the hands-on Korean way

You pull on disposable plastic gloves, pick the feet up with your hands, and gnaw the meat off the bones with your teeth. That's the Korean way. There's a definite satisfaction in pulling the little bits of collagen and skin from between the bones, but I'll be honest — it's one of the most fiddly foods you'll ever encounter. The bones are tiny and intricately shaped, and even Koreans struggle a bit at first. If you've ever wrestled with a crab claw in a crowded pub, imagine that but spicier and with more bones.

So if you're visiting Korea and fancy trying dakbal but the bone situation feels like too much faff, go for the boneless version. The flavour and texture are nearly identical, but without the bones it's a much more relaxed eating experience.

Dakbal's perfect partner — jumeokbap rice balls

Whenever you order soupy dakbal, there's one side dish you'll always end up getting as well — jumeokbap, little DIY rice balls. At Hanshinpocha, a self-serve portion costs about 3,500 won (roughly £2). The ingredients are dead simple: rice topped with seaweed flakes, pickled radish, sesame seeds, and spring onion. That's genuinely it.

But the addictiveness is no joke. You pop on your plastic gloves and squish everything together by hand, rolling it into bite-sized balls. Fair warning — the rice is hot, so you might scald your fingers a bit at first. Once you've made one and popped it in your mouth, though, there's no stopping. Eat a fiery chicken foot, then a rice ball to cool your mouth down, and before you know it you're reaching for another foot. It's an endless loop and you absolutely cannot break it.

Making the rice balls

Here's a closer look. Rice, seaweed flakes, pickled radish, sesame, spring onion. That really is the lot.

With your gloves on, you mash it all together by hand and it turns into this. The seaweed flakes work their way between every grain of rice and the whole thing changes colour.

Then you roll them into little round balls, bite-sized, and you're done. Making them is half the fun, honestly. Eating one between spicy chicken feet — switching from fiery heat to savoury, nutty comfort, then back to heat again — that's a cycle you simply can't break out of.

Honest verdict

Dakbal is a proper Marmite food, even amongst Koreans — people either love it or want nothing to do with it. The appearance is challenging, and if you're not used to it, picking the bones clean is a right faff. But once you're hooked, you're properly hooked. Your lips go numb from the spice and yet you keep reaching for more, pausing to soothe your mouth with a rice ball before picking up another foot — experience that first-hand and you'll understand exactly why Koreans can't let go of this dish.

Worth noting as well: chicken feet are roughly 70% collagen by protein content, and in Korea plenty of people eat them specifically because they're meant to be brilliant for your skin. If you're spending a fortune on collagen supplements back home, well — the Koreans might have a spicier solution.

If I'm being completely honest about the downsides, Hanshinpocha is fundamentally a bar, so it's quite loud. It's not the sort of place you'd go for a quiet meal. And personally, my biggest gripe is that it's quite far from where I live, so I can't just pop over whenever the craving strikes. Then again, it's a bar — noise comes with the territory, really.

If the bones put you off, there's always the boneless version to start with, and you can choose your spice level too — so just begin with level 1 and work your way up at your own pace.

This post was originally published on https://hi-jsb.blog.