평양집

About

North Korean-style naengmyeon and mandu.

The tabletop charcoal grill at this 52-year Yongsan institution glows from 7 AM until late evening, seven days except Monday. The earliest crowd — hungover office workers, locals nursing hangovers with milky naejang-gomtang — shuffles in before sunrise. By dinner the room fills with groups circled around round aluminum tables, smoke rising from every burner. A staffer in an apron moves table to table tending the coals, adjusting airflow, swapping out ash-clogged grates without being asked. Chadolbagi arrives on metal platters, the beef brisket sliced translucent enough to curl as it hits the fire. It cooks fast — thirty seconds per side — fat rendering into the grill slats while the edges crisp. You pull it onto a cabbage leaf with chopsticks, dab gochujang, fold. Between rounds the house kkakdugi cuts through the richness, though regulars save room for yangbap: chopped tripe stir-fried with that same pickled radish on a screaming-hot iron plate, finished with a ladle of gomtang broth and a crack of black pepper. The rice crisps at the edges. Gut and grain, sour and char — it's the closer everyone orders after grilled beef or gopchang. Weeknight evenings before seven you can walk in. Weekends after five expect an hour's wait unless you've phoned ahead. The valet parks for ₩3,000; free public lot by Samgakji Station if you'd rather walk. Budget ₩70,000 per head for multiple cuts and the rice. Cards and cash both work.