Korean menu translator for visitors to Korea

How to use

1. Take a photo of the menu or choose one from your photos. The text is read on your device (about 4.5 MB of text-reading data downloads the first time).
2. Check the text that was read, fix any wrong letters, then tap “Translate”. You can also type or paste the menu text.
3. Each dish gets a card: translated name, romanization, the original menu text, common ingredients, allergens and diet notes (estimates).
4. Pick “My diet & allergies” once. It is saved on this device, and dishes that may conflict are flagged at the top of their cards.
5. Tap “Show to staff” for large Korean sentences. Show the screen to the staff.

What the labels mean

Pork

The usual ingredients include pork, ham, sausage, sundae (blood sausage) or bacon.

Contains meat (halal status unknown)

Contains meat other than pork, such as beef, chicken or duck. We can't tell whether it was halal-slaughtered or certified.

Seafood

Contains fish, shrimp, shellfish, squid or fish cake.

May contain salted seafood / fish sauce

Contains jeotgal (salted seafood) or fish sauce, or an ingredient usually made with it, such as kimchi.

May use anchovy or meat broth

Soups, stews and noodle soups are often made with anchovy-kelp stock or beef/pork bone broth.

Egg · Dairy

The usual ingredients include egg (also in mayonnaise) or milk, cheese, butter or cream.

May contain cooking wine / alcohol

Soy-marinated meat and fish, boiled pork dishes, and Japanese-style rice bowls and noodles often use cooking wine (matsul), rice wine or mirin.

May be spicy

Contains gochujang (chili paste), chili powder, chili oil or kimchi.

Vegan / vegetarian possible (estimate)

An estimate from the usual ingredients. “Check with staff” means there is something whose contents we can't see, such as broth, kimchi or sauce.

Alcohol

Alcoholic drinks such as soju, beer, makgeolli or wine.

Not in our dish list

A name that isn't in our list of 343 dishes. We show the original text and romanization, translate only the words in our dictionary, and show how much was translated.

Ingredients that are easy to miss in Korean food

Kimchi

Most kimchi is made with salted seafood such as anchovy sauce or salted shrimp (white kimchi and dongchimi usually aren't). Kimchi also goes into other dishes: kimchi stew, kimchi fried rice, kimchi pancake and dumplings.

Broth

Even soups that look vegetable-only, such as soybean paste stew or bean sprout soup, are often made with anchovy and kelp stock. Seolleongtang, gomtang and galbitang are beef bone or beef broths; gamjatang and dwaeji-gukbap are pork bone or pork broths.

Sundae

Pig intestines stuffed with glass noodles and blood (seonji). Eaten in sundae-guk soup and often served with tteokbokki at snack shops.

Fish cake (eomuk)

Made from fish paste, usually with wheat flour. Common in tteokbokki, gimbap and fish cake soup.

Salted shrimp (saeujeot)

Served as a dipping seasoning with bossam, suyuk and sundae soup.

Sauces (gochujang, soy sauce, doenjang)

Made from soybeans. Many gochujang and brewed soy sauces also contain wheat.

Cooking wine

Often added to bulgogi and galbi marinades and to braised fish.

Bibimbap and naengmyeon

Bibimbap is often topped with beef and egg. Naengmyeon broth is usually beef stock (or dongchimi radish water).

Jajangmyeon and jjamppong

Usually contain pork; jjamppong also contains seafood.

Halal

Unless a restaurant is halal-certified, there is no way to tell whether the meat was halal-slaughtered. Ask whether the restaurant has a certificate.

Good to know

• All labels are estimates based on the dish name and its usual ingredients. Recipes differ between restaurants.
• This is not halal or vegan certification information. If your allergy is serious, always confirm with the staff.
• Menu photos and text are read on this device and never sent to our server.
• Translations use Jjikmeok's dish list and ingredient dictionary (no outside translation service). Words not in the dictionary stay in Korean.