What is a pocha/ 포차
- FLip Korea
- Apr 23
- 3 min read
Pochas are frequently mentioned in Korean society and, surprisingly, are very important to Korean people.
You might have seen or heard the word pocha in K-drama, movies, or from your Korean friends. But if you didn’t visit Korea or you haven’t been to one yet, it might make you curious about what it could be.
Pocha comes from 2 Korean words combined 포장 (packaging but used as a word for take-away, from the idea of packing something to take it home) and 마차 (covered carriage (shop in this case)).
Traditionally, pojang-macha is a street tent (with/without wheels) or a street stall where you can eat some traditional food or snack and drink alcohol at a reasonable price. Some even offer chairs and sometimes tables as well.
In some K-dramas and movies, it depicts very well how most Koreans like to stop a pojangmacha to have a quick drink and snack when they feel upset after work or, especially in K-dramas, sometimes unsettling happens.
At night or early morning, you can see them pushing their wheeled pojangmacha to go home, and in the evening you see them back in business.
You can still see the street pochas but nowadays Korea has also many “indoor” pochas, and they took the country over!
Pochas could very well be compared to pubs. They are similar in structure and idea of drinking overall. They are small to medium places with metal/plastic tables, where people usually grab a drink and eat some delicious food after work, college, or simply meet with friends before going to a club.
For the indoor ones most of them will have a chair in which you can put your jacket/belongings and some pochas even give you a bag ()
Most often people drink soju, beer, somaek (soju+beer), and makkeolli. So, don’t be surprised if you go to a pocha and you might not see vodka or tequila on the menu.
As for food, you’ll find snacks such as dried squid and fries with sausages, Korean soups, and stews, rice balls, chicken, etc. To be honest, the main celebrity of purchase is the alcohol, the food is usually a supporting character.
But if we talk about the traditional street pochas you’ll mostly see Tteokbokki/ 떡볶이, (baby) Kimbap/ (꼬마)김밥, diverse Korean Pancakes/ (salty) 전 (sweet) 호떡, Deep fried foods as shrimp and squid/calamari rings/ 튀김, Boiled organs, Blood sausages/ 순대, Korean fish cakes/ 어묵국, Oden and oden soup/ 오뎅 (국), boiled eggs/ 삶은 달걀, etc.
Just a needy tip: for any purchase, you’ll get unlimited Oden soup
Don’t be surprised that when you go to a pocha you won’t see that quite ambient they might show it in the cinema. It will mostly be loud; from both the music and the people who usually play drinking games quite loud. But that is the fun in “drinking” games, right? So, be prepared in case you suddenly hear a group yelling 마셔라! 마셔라! (drink drink!).
Some drinking games are Titanic/타이타닉, The bottle cap/병뚜껑 게임, Nunchi game/눈치게임, 3-6-9/삼육구, Baskin Robbins 31/베스킨라빈스 31, Image game/이미지 게임, and many many others. You’d be surprised how many drinking games Korea has considering that it has over 1000 years of a drinking culture.
You wonder: but what if I drink too much? Don’t worry Korea also has a vast menu of hangover food to choose from:
- Ox blood and bone hangover soup/션지/ 벼 해장국
- Beef rib soup/ 갈비탕
- Cabbage (napa) soup/ 우져지국
- Jjamppong/ 짬뽕
- Bean sprout soup/ 콩나물국
If you visit Korea do not miss going to a Pocha, be it indoor or outdoor.