Late-night Korean dinner in Jung-gu, Daegu: two rice bowls at

#DaeguJongno restaurant #rice bowl place

I work late nights sometimes. And on those days! You need to eat something good. You need the energy!

A Korean-lettered sign on Jongno-gil: Hyangtaek

These days I've developed a habit of chasing down places that are truly tidy and genuinely delicious, and that's how I found Hyangtaek. I was mulling over today's pick while heading over, and I loved it from the entrance. After seeing so many signs cluttered with foreign languages, this all-Korean sign felt warm and familiar.

Branches keep popping up — Dongdaegu Station, Daebong-dong, and now here on Jongno-gil near my office. This spot used to be Onsen, a tempura rice bowl place, and it feels like they kept the old space and made it pretty.

The entrance looks like a tiled-roof hanok house, the ceiling is gorgeous, and just from the outside you can tell the interior will be worth it!! The kind of place where eating here just melts your tiredness away. It reminds me again how much a building's exterior and interior matter! ☺️☺️

Hyangtaek Daegu Jongno Branch / paid parking recommended, public transit best / high chair available / dining hall seating / suited to groups of 2-3

Hyangtaek's menu and Sindongjin rice

Hyangtaek pursues a clean, fresh Korean food culture built on ingredients grown on our own soil. Let's take a look at the menu.

(Flip from the last page first, haha!) Hyangtaek apparently uses Sindongjin rice, whose grains run about 1.3 times bigger than regular rice. There's always a reason a place is good. Lately I've picked up the habit of guessing which rice a place uses when I open the lid on my rice bowl, and seeing it was Sindongjin here got me pretty excited.

A summer-only menu and chicken bulgogi. Both seasonings looked mild and delicious.

Among the rice dishes, the mackerel gondre rice bowl and eggplant doenjang rice bowl are Hyangtaek's signature menu items, along with the yukhoe bibimbap and chamnamul squid rice bowl; in noodles there's the herring roe bibim noodles.

On the side menu, there's:

• Grilled deodeok and mushrooms
• Mushroom platter
• Galbi platter
• Cheongsong-style chicken bulgogi

Today, let's try the mackerel gondre rice bowl and the chamnamul squid rice bowl.

Banchan and how to eat it

Oh! The water here is good too. I think it might be roasted Solomon's seal tea, but I didn't ask. Delicious!

I read through the instructions on how to eat it properly. Then I checked out the side dishes that came out: gopchang gim, garlic chive soy sauce, salted squid, and pickled radish, plus a simply seasoned doenjang they bring out separately.

The garlic chive soy sauce and gim go beautifully together. I'm waiting eagerly for the rice to arrive!! The method, apparently, is to wrap the rice in the gopchang gim once it comes, then top it with the salted squid.

Chamnamul Squid Rice Bowl (₩13,000) ⭐️⭐️⭐️

My first impression: "not a strong seasoning." Maybe it's the chamnamul's fragrance, or maybe the squid just never had a fishy smell to begin with, but the squid's texture and the chamnamul's pleasant chewiness go well together. The sauce isn't too salty or too spicy.

Once it's all mixed together, even while writing this I want to take another bite. Mixing is always better with chopsticks! Chamnamul is always delicious, no matter when you eat it. The squid's great too.

Mackerel Gondre Rice Bowl ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Wow, this really lives up to being a signature dish. Why would you even think to put fish and greens together in a rice bowl? This flavor makes that question moot — no explanation needed. The gondre and the well-grilled mackerel pair beautifully. I was tempted to steal more bites from the person across the table who'd ordered something else, haha! But since I was the one treating, that would've been too embarrassing, so I held back!

I added a bit more of that garlic chive soy sauce I'd gotten earlier as a side dish and took a bite — again it starts off mild and fragrant, and then the mackerel's texture rolls satisfyingly in your mouth. I'll have to come back again just to have this mackerel gondre bowl one more time.

The side menu on the wall

The dishes below are proudly displayed on the restaurant wall as the side menu. Seeing the grilled deodeok and mushrooms reminds me of Insoon, who never buys it herself because it's pricey. I should bring my parents along sometime and order the sides generously too, to treat them properly.

These days, I chat for a while after arriving at a restaurant before finally digging out the hidden utensils. Same story here — even wet wipes are tucked away, so make sure to find them and put them to good use while you eat.

Interior with exposed rafters, kids welcome too

If you want an exciting meeting or a warm, friendly meal at a restaurant, the interior is something you just can't overlook.

They kept the exposed rafters and added soft lighting behind wooden lattice windows. All of that adds up to a small but genuinely cozy Korean-restaurant feel.

Also, they have a baby high chair and apron on hand, just so you know!!