My last meal report from our brief trip to Seoul in July was of dinner at a place we’d eaten at on our previous, longer visit in February/March of 2024: Gwanghwamun Gukbap. This report too features a return, but not to a place I had eaten at in 2024. Towards the end of that trip, after an afternoon’s wandering in one part of Seoul or the other, I had abandoned the family and headed off to Noryangjin Market to take a few of my students whose birthdays had fallen during our Seoul sojourn out to dinner at a seafood restaurant there. The missus and the boys meanwhile, accidentally emerged from Entrance 1 of the Anguk subway station near where we were staying in Insadong, turned into an alley in search of dinner and randomly walked past and then into a ramen restaurant. There they ate what they—particularly our younger boy—described to me as the best ramen they’d ever had. However, they couldn’t remember the name of the place—and since the last days of the program we were on were incredibly hectic, I never chased it down. But when we made our plan to return to Seoul this summer, the younger boy had it high on his wishlist; partly because he wanted me to try it as well, but mostly because he wanted to go back in his own right. So, we took Line 2 to Anguk and emerged from Entrance 1 and without too much trouble found the place again: Oreno Ramen. We were all curious to see what we would make of it after eating ramen in Tokyo just a few days previous. Here’s how it went.

But first a quick introduction to the place. Though we didn’t know this at the time, when I looked it up after dinner, it turned out Oreno Ramen is a very well-regarded ramen shop in Seoul. The main location in Mapo-gu has a bib gourmand from  Michelin but all three locations (there’s also one in Gangnam-gu) have strong reputations. There was certainly a very long line when we arrived for dinner around 6.30 pm on a Sunday. The line snaked through the alley and up a flight of external stairs. When you get close to the top, a staff member emerges and asks for group size and eventually lets you in. People dining solo or in pairs (which seemed to be everyone but us) mostly get shunted to the counter. Larger groups are not guaranteed seating together but if you’re lucky—as we were—you might get a small 4-top table.

The menu is simple. They only offer two things and one is an iteration on the other. Their calling card is tori paitan ramen, chicken ramen in a milky white broth. Their broth is not a pure chicken broth, however, as it incorporates some pork broth in it. If you don’t want the regular ramen you can get the kara paitan ramen which adds some red pepper to it for some added colour and heat. Beyond that, the only choices are whether to get some extra chashu and/or boiled/steamed egg and drinks and so forth. All these choices are made at a kiosk as you enter where you get a ticket to give to the server. As this is Korea, every table gets some kimchi as well and you can also ask for a side of steamed rice to help finish your soup.

We got two each of the tori paitan and kara paitan ramens and all our bowls came out double quick. We didn’t waste any time in getting stuck in either. I had one of the bowls of the kara paitan ramen and so first took a few spoons of the regular to try. Both versions were very good but if you had to choose one, the mild and milky regular is what I would recommend. It was not, however, the best ramen I had ever had and the whole family revised that previous opinion as well. But that’s only because we’d eaten a lot of very good ramen in Tokyo the previous week. And, in particular, we had eaten the outstanding tori paitan ramen at Ginza Kagari’s Roppongi Hills branch. Oreno Ramen’s take on tori paitan ramen is excellent but not quite at that level.

For a look at the restaurant and the ramen, launch the slideshow below. Scroll down to see how much it cost and to see what’s coming next on the food front.

I can’t find my receipt for the meal but my credit card statement for July tells me we paid almost exactly $36 for this meal. That’s an outstanding value for the quality—especially when you compare it to far inferior ramen at much higher prices in places like the Twin Cities. Will we go back again when we return to Seoul for another five weeks next spring? Well, considering we’ll once again be living a five minute walk from the place, odds are good that we will. Or maybe we’ll explore other parts of Seoul’s Japanese-style ramen scene.

Alright, there are not many reports left to come from Seoul. I should be done with all of those in the next week or two. The next Twin Cities report—which will go up on Wednesday, as usual—will feature another casual Mexican meal. And booze as usual on Monday.