Soy sauce rice with aged galbi at a Dasan Station BBQ: Udontan

Of all the BBQ restaurants I've been to lately, Udontan near Dasan Station really won me over. I liked it so much that right after eating I told a friend who lives in Dasan to go check it out! Today I'm sharing my review of the aged galbi set menu at Udontan 👀

Where is Udontan Dasan Main Branch? 5 minutes on foot from Dasan Station

Udontan Dasan Main Branch is just 5 minutes from Dasan Station, so it was easy to find. It's near the Dasan Station plaza, so it's great for walking in, and also nice as a stroll through the Dasan neighborhood.

What the dining room at Udontan feels like

The interior of Udontan Dasan Main Branch overall felt like an upscale lamb skewer restaurant! The tables aren't cramped and are spacious enough for a group. Rather than the usual chaotic BBQ-restaurant feel, it's a clean space that would work well for company dinners or family gatherings, haha.

What comes in the aged galbi set at Udontan

We ordered the set menu that includes aged galbi. It's 700g of aged galbi with bone, and you pick either doenjang jjigae or kimchi jjigae — the doenjang jjigae looked so good in pictures that we went with the beef rib doenjang jjigae. There's also an event where ordering the set menu gets you a free serving of pork neck, so I'd recommend going for the set if you can.

There's also a Naver receipt review event where they give you fried rice or honeycomb tripe as a service — a lot of places do this, so don't forget to grab it!

The four sauces and the side dishes

I thought the restaurant looked clean, and the table setting turned out to be pretty neat too! The side dishes and sauces stood out from a typical BBQ restaurant.

There was cumin sauce (jjeoran), a distinct house-made ssamjang (dipping sauce) different from the usual kind, and an oil sauce packed with cod roe and garlic — clearly different from other BBQ restaurants, and you could really see the owner's sense of style there!

For side dishes, we got seasoned bean sprouts, dressed lettuce, salad, perilla leaf pickles, and what seemed like freshly made kimchi geotjeori (fresh kimchi salad). This geotjeori was reeeeally good. Fresh, spicy, and so well-seasoned it could put kalguksu (knife-cut noodle) kimchi to shame, ㅠㅠ.

700g of aged beef short rib, grilled for you by the staff

The 700g of aged galbi arrives! King oyster mushrooms, potatoes, and small green peppers came along too, stylishly arranged, haha. The thick meat clinging to the big bone caught my eye right away, and the thickness of the cut had me excited even before it hit the grill.

The great thing about Udontan near Dasan Station is that the staff grill it for you! Aged galbi is thick, so it's hard to grill well yourself, but the staff grilled it perfectly from start to finish, which was such a relief. They even told us the best moment to eat it, so all we had to do was enjoy.

Why the beef rib doenjang jjigae is worth ordering

While watching the aged galbi get golden brown, right when we started getting hungry, the beef rib doenjang jjigae arrived!

It had big chunks of whole tofu and was made with a savory, country-style soybean paste base, so the broth was rich and deep from the first sip. It's plenty tasty as just doenjang jjigae, but with beef rib in it too, the umami from the meat made it even richer and fuller, ㅠㅠㅠ. Personally, I'd really recommend ordering the doenjang jjigae!

Which sauce suits the aged galbi best

Meanwhile, the aged galbi finished grilling. Since it's beef, it cooks fast, which was nice, and the doneness was just right — tender and juicy enough that you could really taste the aged galbi!

We tried the aged galbi with all four sauces, and salt or the cumin sauce suited it better than the cod roe oil sauce. The aged galbi itself is so tasty that a plainer sauce that highlights the meat's flavor works better than a strongly seasoned one!

The best pairing: galbi with soy sauce rice

But my recommendation is this soy sauce rice! My partner loves trying all kinds of combinations, and when we put a bowl of rice on a plate and drizzled it with the basic pepper-and-onion soy sauce like a soy sauce egg rice, it was unbelievably delicious...?

Topping it with a bit of onion and eating it in one bite with the aged galbi made me feel like I was in heaven, it was reeeeally that good! Honestly, I feel like Udontan should be advertising this combo themselves, haha ㅠㅠ. For us, the best pairing for aged galbi is soy sauce rice!

The free pork neck and the pork skin add-on

After completely satisfying ourselves with the aged galbi, we grilled up the free serving of pork neck. The staff grilled this one too, which made it so, so easy!

The aged galbi was so good I wondered how the other meat would compare, but the pork neck was also better than expected — tender and delicious. Even though it's pork neck, it wasn't dry at all — moist and soft, which made me think this place really takes its meat seriously!

By this point we were so full, but since everything was so tasty, the drinks kept flowing, so we ordered a pork belly skin as an extra side. They pressed the skin with a hot plate and grilled it crispy outside and chewy inside, so it was really delicious! Every meat here was so good that I recommended it to a friend right away — if you're heading to Dasan Station, Udontan is a true local favorite you should definitely visit 👍🏻👍🏻

⏰ Weekends/holidays 12:00 - 24:00 / Weekdays 16:00 - 24:00