밥은 먹었어?

The line, explained

This is the line you will hear in every K-drama, usually from a mother, a grandmother, or someone who is clearly in love and not ready to admit it. On the surface it asks about food. Underneath, it says 'I care about you.'

밥 means cooked rice, but because rice sits at the centre of a Korean meal, 밥 also just means 'a meal'. 밥 먹었어? is 'did you eat (a meal)?' The 은 after 밥 is the topic marker — it gently puts 'the meal' up for discussion. Dropping it (밥 먹었어?) is also completely natural.

먹었어 is 먹다, to eat, in the casual past tense. The important thing is what is NOT there: no question word, no 'did', no change in word order. The sentence becomes a question purely through the rising tone at the end. In writing, that is the question mark. In speech, it is your voice.

Why does such a simple question carry so much? For a long time, having enough to eat was not guaranteed in Korea, and asking after someone's meal was the most practical way to ask after their wellbeing. The habit stayed. Today it is a greeting, a check-in, and in dramas, a way for a character to say something tender without saying it.

The usual replies: 응, 먹었어 (yes, I ate), or 아직 (not yet) — which, in a drama, is the cue for the other person to say 같이 먹자, 'let's eat together'.