Jongak Station salad spot: beef vs chicken protein box, Wystab Diet

Lunch near Jongak Station at Wystab Diet Gwanghwamun! I'm on my usual 365-days-a-year diet... ah, it's exhausting...

When you're dieting and trying to cut calories, protein — which is used not just for muscle but for rebuilding your whole body composition — is what you end up skipping without even realizing it. And that can lead to muscle loss and yo-yo weight gain!

That's when the salads or protein rice bowls here come in handy — even with carbs, they're made with slow-absorbing healthy pasta noodles and oats! And plenty of protein!

You can get at least 30g of healthy protein per box, and up to 68g with tofu noodles, so you can put together a filling, healthy meal!

I visited Wystab Diet Gwanghwamun~ The salads were generous, packed with protein for a full, satisfying meal, and the ingredients were all delicious — a really satisfying salad meal~! Let's check it out through the post~

Where is Wystab Diet Gwanghwamun, and when is it open?

• 📍 19 Jongno, B1 122-2, Jongno-gu, Seoul
• ⏰ Mon–Fri 10:00 - 20:40 (last order 20:10)
• Closed every Saturday and Sunday
• 🅿️ Parking available

Located on the basement floor of Le Meilleur Jongno Town, Wystab Diet Gwanghwamun is a solo-dining salad spot with a clean interior you can see through its floor-to-ceiling windows. Sitting right in the middle of Gwanghwamun and Jongak stations — an area packed with great restaurants, and especially inside Le Meilleur, which has plenty of competition — a salad place has to be genuinely good in taste and portion to survive. Seeing it still going strong gave me a lot of confidence in it~

Every protein box has 30g of protein or more

Every item on the protein box menu has at least 30g of protein, so it makes for a filling, delicious meal! Honestly, so many places call something a diet salad but don't even hit 20g of protein — which is genuinely frustrating! Wystab Diet doesn't have that problem~!

Seating for a solo lunch in Gwanghwamun

With a clean interior and atmospheric seating, it was nice to see people eating solo as well as office workers gathering in twos and threes, using it as a go-to spot for solo dining in Gwanghwamun! Fighting, everyone!

They had a nutrition info chart for each menu item posted right on the wall, which was really helpful for keeping track while dieting~

I also got info on a new menu item. Whoa, 60g of protein from egg strips, meat, and oats — on a really hungry day, it's got to be the protein rice bowl!

How to order a protein box at the kiosk

For the protein box, you start by choosing your protein type (chicken, smoked duck, salmon, beef, etc.), then your carb base (pasta, tofu noodles, oat rice, veggies-only, etc.), then a sauce — it was easy to finish ordering~

Today's order — Beef Light Protein Box ₩12,900, Chicken Light Protein Box ₩8,900

It was nice that even the sauces and sides could be ordered easily through the kiosk~

Beef Light Protein Box with wasabi mayo

Starting with the Beef Light Protein Box~ True to its name as a protein-packed box, it came piled generously with beef~

The meat wasn't dry at all — it was grilled with plenty of moisture, so I could enjoy the warm temperature and chewy texture, and dipping it in the wasabi mayo I chose, it felt like eating a really good steak despite being a diet meal~

The vegetables also leaned toward familiar flavors rather than pickled items or unusual (?) tastes that I tend to avoid, so anyone could enjoy them, and they were so fresh and crunchy that the meal was genuinely fun to eat~

Chicken Light Protein Box: moist chicken breast

Next up, the Chicken Light Protein Box! I ordered it expecting — well, dreading — the usual dry, moisture-less chicken breast!

But it was crispy on the outside and grilled with moisture on the inside — genuinely moist chicken breast!

Dipped in the sriracha mayo sauce, it gave me the filling satisfaction of solid protein plus juicy chicken breast, making it way tastier than the usual chicken breast steak I eat~

Chickpeas are so often overcooked to the point of being mushy, but here at Wystab Diet Gwanghwamun, both the green beans and chickpeas kept their crunch and clean surface texture, so I could enjoy the bite and texture, which made the salad even tastier~! It was a great meal!!!

Verdict: a real meal, not a meal replacement

I visited Wystab Diet Gwanghwamun for a salad lunch near Gwanghwamun. True to its signature 'protein salad' name, every menu item has at least 30g of protein, so I didn't need to take a separate protein supplement while dieting — one menu item was enough to build a healthy meal. And because the meal is so protein-rich, the fullness lasted a long time, so I didn't end up reaching for snacks~

The flavor and portion felt more like what you'd expect from an actual meal than a typical salad, so it felt like a genuinely satisfying, healthy meal rather than a meal substitute! Everyone out there dieting — go visit Wystab Diet Gwanghwamun, you can put together a healthy and delicious diet with these tasty salads~!