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Read guide →Korean cuisine (hansik) is built around balance — fermented sides (banchan), a steaming bowl of rice, and a main dish that changes with the season. Meals are served all at once rather than in courses, and sharing dishes at the table is the norm. The depth of flavor comes from slow-fermented pastes like doenjang (soybean) and gochujang (chili), which form the backbone of soups, stews, and marinades across the country.
Seodaemun-gu houses Sinchon and Ewha — university neighborhoods known for affordable food, vibrant nightlife, and a youthful dining culture. The area is dense with budget-friendly Korean restaurants, late-night delivery options, and cafés that stay open until the early hours. It's a neighbourhood where eating well on a student budget is entirely achievable.
It's delicious. Those who like duck meat must go there.
This is a duck specialty restaurant that has been recommended for a long time in an alley on the main street of Hongje Station. Since Hongje-dong, near Hongje Station, is a neighborhood that can be considered close to my house, I visited with a light step. I heard from an acquaintance who introduced me that the side dishes were really great, and that alone was enough to make the visit worthwhile. Since it is a place that mainly operates as a neighborhood business, I think I didn't even know it existed until now. The menu is divided into two types: soup and grilled food, and for the soup, you have to make a reservation 2 hours in advance. I heard that the duck soup is delicious, but I had to avoid soup in the hot weather, so I ordered duck stew. The side dishes were mainly rare items such as marinated dried squid, pickled vegetables, pickled radish, and myeong-ina-mul. They were all delicious without being too salty, and the soybean paste tasted like country soybean paste, as if they had made it themselves. The characteristic of duck stew is that deodeok is added along with duck meat, and because of that, the amount of duck meat is not much. If there are three or more people, you should order a large size rather than a medium size. The seasoning of the jomulleok was added to the duck meat, so the broth didn't really come out, maybe because the grill was big. The taste wasn't too stimulating, and the sweetness was very restrained. Unlike most duck jomulleoks, they didn't use much technique in the seasoning, such as adding pumpkin to replace the sweetness. It didn't taste so plain, so I didn't get tired of it right away. The deodeok had a unique texture that was crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside when grilled, and it shined even more when paired with the duck meat. It had a decent chewy texture and went well with the soft duck meat. If you ask for the fried rice that you can't miss after eating jomulleok, the owner will make it for you. Since it's based on the jomulleok seasoning, it tasted like eating light kimchi fried rice.
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