As I head into the home stretch with my meal reports from our week in Seoul in July, here is a very quick look at our last dinner in the city. For this meal we went back to a restaurant we ate at in February 2024: Gwanghwamun Gukbap. The restaurant is located off Gwanghwamun Square and is known for its gukbap (clear broth with rice). In 2024 we had gone there specifically to eat the gukbap, and we did eat it. But we didn’t go back this on account of the gukbap. In fact, we didn’t even order it at this meal. No, we went back for two other dishes: another that we had eaten and loved at our previous meal and one that we had very much regretted not ordering at that meal when we saw it going out to tables all around us. Were there any regrets at this meal? Read on to find out.

I should say first of all that we did enjoy their signature pork gukbap very much at our meal in 2024—though we probably added more salted shrimp to our broth than the chef (whose instructions are posted near every table) would have liked. However, we had liked their soondae (blood sausage) even more and had been thinking about it ever since (the missus, in particular, loves soondae). And we had also been thinking about the large casseroles of galbi jjim (braised beef short ribs) that we had seen on almost every table around us after we’d placed our order. Not getting it had remained a bit of a scar and we were motivated to rectify the error. I am very happy to say that neither let us down on this occasion.

The restaurant itself was largely unchanged since our visit in 2024. Their Michelin recognition display outside by the entrance has been updated to add 2025 to the list (they’ve been awarded a Bib Gourmand continuously since 2019) and that’s pretty much the only change we noticed. We were there for dinner on a Wednesday night and they were doing pretty good business after 7.30 pm, seemingly with a largely post-work crowd of office-goers, young and middle-aged. We were given a table near the entrance and quickly got down to business.

I’ve already noted that we got the soondae and the galbi jjim. In addition we got a small order of sliced boiled pork (which we enjoyed very much with the salted shrimp and other condiments along with rice) and an order of mul naengmyeon. I’d fully intended to get the gukbap again but Seoul was hot and muggy and a big bowl of chilled and refreshing mul naengmyeon was a much more attractive proposition than hot pork broth with rice. The soondae was as excellent as we remembered it and the galbi jjim was excellent as well. Zero regrets. Far be it from me to recommend that you go to a restaurant named and famous for a particular dish and order two others before it but that is what I might do. Actually, if we go back on our scheduled longer trip to Seoul next year, I might want to get another one of their braised dishes: the braised beef tendon. Oh yes, the naengmyeon did its job but was nothing out of the ordinary. But as I’ve said before, when it’s hot and humid and you’re in South Korea, you have to eat mul naengmyeon every chance you get. I am generally a man without principles but this is one of them.

For a closer look at everything we ate, click on an image below to launch a larger slideshow. Scroll down to see how much it all cost and to see what’s coming next.

Service was the usual Korean restaurant mix of brusque and efficient. Cost? The total came to 115,000 won or just about $80. Not a cheap meal in Seoul but also quite reasonable by American standards for four people, considering two of the dishes comprised large amounts of premium meat.

Okay, four more reports still to come from Seoul. I’ll try to get at least one more of those out this week. Before that, however, I’ll have a report tomorrow on very good lunch this past weekend in St. Paul at a Southeast Asian restaurant other than the one we’d left the house to eat at. Come back to see which that was.