Welcome to Mongtan: Why a Corner of Mongolia Looks Like Seoul

Cool Girl City · Central Asia

I Didn’t Fly to Mongolia Expecting to Find Korea

I went to Mongolia for Naadam.

The wrestling. The horse races. The Nine White Banners marching under military escort. The whole experience I had been imagining since I decided that yes, apparently I was going to fly halfway around the world to Mongolia.

I was not looking for South Korea.

And yet, within a very short amount of time, I started seeing things that made me do a double take.

A CU.

Then a GS25.

Then Tous Les Jours.

Suddenly, I wasn’t looking at these places as a traveler seeing Korean brands for the first time.

I was looking at them as someone who had lived in Korea.

I knew what these stores looked like. I knew what the signage looked like. I knew what it felt like to walk into a Tous Les Jours because I’d done it before, not as a tourist attraction, but as part of everyday life.

And now I was standing in Ulaanbaatar.

It was one of those strange travel moments where your brain needs a second to catch up with what your eyes are seeing.

Because Mongolia was supposed to feel completely different.

Instead, parts of it felt oddly familiar.

And eventually I learned there was a name for that feeling:

Mongtan.

woman standing under korean architecture in ulaanbaatar mongolia

I Know This Place

I have a slightly unfair advantage when it comes to noticing Korean influence.

I lived in Korea. I taught and studied there, and I spent enough time there that certain things stopped registering as “foreign” to me.

Tous Les Jours was one of those things.

I ate there while I was in Korea, back when I was younger and my palate was still very much figuring itself out. In fact, I actually preferred Paris Baguette at the time because I wasn’t particularly accustomed to the flakier French-style pastries.

Apparently, my bakery opinions needed some time to develop.

Years later, Tous Les Jours followed me home to Kansas. And eventually, somehow, it followed me all the way to Mongolia.

That’s why seeing those Korean brands in Ulaanbaatar hit differently for me.

I wasn’t thinking, Oh, look! A Korean bakery.

I was thinking, Wait. I know this place.

What Is Mongtan?

Here’s where things get really interesting.

Mongtan is a mashup of Mongolia and Dongtan, a Korean new-town nickname. [VERIFY terminology/source]

The name is being used to describe parts of Ulaanbaatar where Korean retail, food, design, and pop-culture influence have become increasingly visible.

And once you know the word, suddenly a lot of things start making sense.

Because this isn’t just one Korean restaurant. It’s not one Korean grocery store.

It’s not a tourist attraction designed to make visitors say, “Wow, Mongolia has Korean stuff!”

It’s a larger urban phenomenon.

Mongolia + Dongtan = Mongtan.

And I happened to walk straight into it.

Explore the beginnings of the Korea journey

Seoul Street Is 30 Years Old

The funny thing is that Seoul Street itself isn’t new.

It was established in 1995, connected to the sister-city relationship between Seoul and Ulaanbaatar. The street is also home to Seouljeong, a traditional Korean-style pavilion that dates back to the beginning of that relationship. (See photo above.)

So the Korean-Mongolian connection wasn’t something that suddenly appeared because CU started opening stores.

There was already history here.

For decades, Seoul Street functioned more as a symbol of the relationship between the two cities than as some giant destination.

And then I showed up.

By complete coincidence, my Airbnb was literally behind Seoul Street.

I hadn’t planned this.

I didn’t book my lodging because I wanted to investigate the Korean influence in Ulaanbaatar. I just happened to be staying there.

And then I learned something that made the coincidence even better:

2025 marked Seoul Street’s 30th anniversary.

And I was there.

I didn’t even know it at the time.

I later learned that there had actually been a celebration happening while I was in Ulaanbaatar, which I only discovered afterward because finding information about local events in English wasn’t exactly the easiest thing.

So apparently the universe had arranged a 30th-anniversary Korean-Mongolian celebration directly behind my Airbnb and neglected to send me the memo.

Very on brand.

When Seoul Street Became Something Bigger

The history is interesting.

But what really caught my attention was what was happening now.

Korean convenience stores have expanded rapidly throughout Mongolia.

According to the research I found, CU recorded its first overseas profit in Mongolia in 2024. GS25’s Mongolian revenue has also grown dramatically, while Tous Les Jours has expanded beyond Ulaanbaatar into other parts of the country.

And then there’s the cultural piece.

Mongolia has a young population, with more than 60 percent under the age of 34 according to the research behind this article.

For many young Mongolians, Korean pop culture isn’t some strange imported phenomenon.

K-pop is familiar. K-dramas are familiar.

Korean fashion and design are familiar.

So when Korean businesses arrive, they’re not necessarily introducing an entirely foreign aesthetic.

They’re building on something people already recognize.

And that’s what makes Mongtan more interesting than simply saying, “Korean stores are popular in Mongolia.”

Because the story isn’t really about Korean businesses arriving.

It’s about what happens after people make them their own.

The Korean bakery rabbit hole:

One Bakery, Three Countries: What Tous Les Jours Actually Serves in Korea, Mongolia, and Kansas

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The Korean Brands Taking Root

Walking around Ulaanbaatar, I started noticing the Korean brands differently.

CU. GS25. Tous Les Jours. Dessert39.

To someone unfamiliar with Korea, these might just be convenience stores and a bakery.

To me, they were visual landmarks.

I knew what they were before I even had to think about it.

And that recognition became part of the weirdness of the trip.

I had gone to Mongolia expecting a culture that would be almost completely outside of my previous experiences.

Instead, I kept encountering little pieces of a place that had already shaped my life.

That’s the thing about globalization that doesn’t always make it into the glossy travel brochures.

It isn’t always dramatic.

Sometimes globalization looks like walking down a street in Ulaanbaatar and recognizing the convenience store you used to see in Korea.

Sometimes it looks like ordering a pastry from a Korean bakery.

Sometimes it looks like an entire neighborhood acquiring a nickname that combines a Mongolian city with a Korean new town.

And sometimes it looks like carbonara.

Which brings me to Tous Les Jours.

Dive into more delicious stories

The Korean Bakery I Somehow Keep Finding Everywhere

I first knew Tous Les Jours from Korea.

Years later, I found one in Kansas.

And then, in Ulaanbaatar, I found it again.

At this point, I apparently have a very specific travel superpower. I can find the same Korean bakery in wildly different parts of the world.

But the Mongolian version stopped me in my tracks. Because I walked inside expecting a bakery.

Instead, I discovered that I could sit down and order hot food.

Not a sandwich. Not something prepackaged. Not just pastries and coffee.

Actual food cooked to order.

I watched the cook throwing spices into a pan and sautéing everything while I waited.

It was around lunchtime, so naturally I ordered pasta carbonara.

And because apparently one beverage wasn’t enough, I also got an iced latte.

And pastries.

And tea came with the pasta.

This was no longer behaving like the Tous Les Jours I knew.

I was sitting in Mongolia, eating carbonara at a Korean bakery chain that I’d originally encountered in Korea.

And I was delighted.

That experience eventually became its own article, because there was way too much weirdness packed into it to squeeze into this one.

TLJ located inside of State Street Mall in front of Seoul Street.

Korea Hiding Inside Mongolia

This is the part I keep coming back to.

I’ve spent years looking for pieces of the world in my own backyard.

That’s part of what I love about Kansas City.

There are pockets of Japan, Korea, China, Vietnam, and so many other places folded into the city around me.

You can live somewhere your whole life and still find another part of the world hiding around the corner.

But Mongolia flipped that idea around.

I went somewhere completely different and found a piece of my own history hiding there.

I wasn’t just seeing Korea in Mongolia. I was recognizing a place that had shaped me.

That’s a very different feeling.

And it made me think about how we talk about globalization.

Because I don’t think the story is: Mongolia is becoming Korean.

That’s too simple.

A better way to look at it is that Mongolia is incorporating Korean culture, businesses, aesthetics, and consumer habits into its own urban identity.

The result isn’t Korea transplanted wholesale. It’s something new.

Something Mongolian.

Something Korean.

Something that didn’t exist in quite this form before the two collided. That’s what makes Mongtan interesting.

Explore more Mongolia stories:

Why Mongtan Is Worth Knowing About

If you’re planning a trip to Mongolia, you probably aren’t building your itinerary around Korean convenience stores.

And honestly, you shouldn’t. You’re going to Mongolia to experience Mongolia.

But if you’re staying in central Ulaanbaatar, I think Seoul Street and the wider Mongtan phenomenon are worth putting on your radar.

Not because it’s a traditional tourist attraction. Not because you need to check it off a list.

But because it offers a fascinating glimpse into how quickly a city’s culture can change.

And if you’ve lived in Korea, studied Korean culture, speak or read Korean, love K-pop or K-dramas, or simply recognize the brands, you may have a particularly strange moment of déjà vu.

You might walk past a CU and think:

Wait.

I know this place.

A Little Piece of Home, Halfway Around the World

The funny thing about travel is that I don’t always find what I think I’m going to find.

Sometimes that’s the entire point. I went to Mongolia looking for Mongolia.

I wanted Naadam. I wanted the landscapes. I wanted the horses and the wrestling and the things I had never experienced before.

Instead, I also found Seoul Street. I found Korean brands. I found Tous Les Jours.

I found a strange little piece of a place that had once been home and eventually I realized I was doing the same thing I always do.

I go looking for the world hiding in my own backyard.

In Mongolia, I found my own backyard’s logic hiding in someone else’s.

Maybe that’s why I travel.

Sources referenced:

Korea Herald — “Mongtan”: Mongolian capital wrapped in Korean food, retail brands
Korea JoongAng Daily — Mongolia becomes Korea’s newest retail playground
Seoul Economic Daily — Korean convenience stores draw lines in Mongolia
Korea Herald — Lee checks out Ulaanbaatar’s Seoul Street