Fried chicken / Gettyimagebank

By Kim Jae-heun

A 33-year-old office worker in Seoul surnamed Kim said he doesn't know how other people are coping with soaring food prices.

"It is too cruel for me. There isn't any food that is cheap anymore. I might have to pack my lunch from now on," he said.

"My family used to dine out two times a week because my children like chicken and pizza. However, we might have to dine out once a week as food prices rose ridiculously high over the past year," a 35-year-old housewife surnamed Choi said.

Like Kim and Choi, many people are starting to feel the pinch when dining out due to a surge in the prices of food.

According to the Korean Statistical Information Service (KOSIS), the cost of eating out rose by an average of 6.6 percent in March from a year earlier, due to rising raw materials prices, delivery fees and employee wages. That is the largest increase since April of 1998 when Korea was hit by the Asian financial crisis.

The prices of all 39 restaurant food items have soared, according to KOSIS.

The price of "galbitang" or beef short-rib soup increased the most by rising 11.7 percent, followed by white porridge (up 10.8 percent), hamburgers (up 10.4 percent) and raw fish (up 10 percent).

The prices of other popular food items like "jjajangmyeon" or black bean sauce noodles and friend chicken also increased by 9.1 percent and 8.3 percent, respectively.

Chun So-ra, a researcher at the Korea Development Institute, attributed the recent price hikes food sold in restaurants to the rising cost of raw materials and increasing demand to dine out as the government prepares to ease COVID-19 quarantine measures.

"Even if people don't go out to eat, they can have food delivered to home, so people continue to spend money on restaurants. The prices of food materials continue to increase, putting pressure on food producers to further hike prices once they run out of stocks," Chun said.