Renewed Giheung butcher BBQ: hanwoo chuck flap & Iberico, Dongbaek

What is Dongbaek Hanokjip?

Dongbaek Hanokjip Charcoal Grill Butcher Restaurant (동백한옥집 숯불구이 정육식당) is a charcoal BBQ place for beef and pork in Dongbaek, Giheung, Yongin. As the name says, it's a big restaurant decorated in hanok (traditional Korean house) style. The meat is good and tasty, so I'd visited from time to time, and when I heard it had been renewed so you can pick up your own meat like at a butcher restaurant, I went to check it out.

Dongbaek Hanokjip location, parking and hanok interior

Dongbaek Hanokjip is by Exit 1 of Eojeong Station, with a parking lot behind the building. It's a standalone hanok-style building, so it really stands out even from far away. The parking lot makes it easy for anyone coming by car.

The inside is also cozy and hanok-style, and it's spacious, so it handles big groups, company dinners and family meals with no problem.

The tables themselves are wide, so it's a much more comfortable setting for enjoying your meat, and the ventilation is good, so the charcoal smoke doesn't fill the room, which I loved.

Dongbaek Hanokjip menu and prices

Here is the menu at Dongbaek Hanokjip.

• LA galbi (marinated beef short ribs) 600g ₩69,000
• Raw beef short rib platter 550g ₩78,000
• Marinated beef emperor cut 600g ₩69,000
• Marinated beef emperor cut 150g ₩19,000
• Marinated grilled pork 550g ₩44,000
• Minari hanwoo yukhoe (raw beef) ₩25,000
• Hanwoo yukhoe bibim naengmyeon (spicy cold noodles) ₩12,000
• Hanwoo yukhoe water naengmyeon (cold noodle soup) ₩12,000
• Water buckwheat naengmyeon (house-made noodles) ₩8,000
• Bibim buckwheat naengmyeon (house-made noodles) ₩8,000
• Hanwoo doenjang sul-bap (soybean paste rice) ₩10,000
• Hanok doenjang stew ₩7,000

How do you order at the renewed butcher restaurant?

At Dongbaek Hanokjip's butcher restaurant, you pick the meat you want from the display case, scan the barcode at the counter, then go back to your table and grill it yourself. Even though it reopened in butcher-restaurant style, you can still order LA galbi, beef short rib and emperor cut easily by kiosk. We came this time to try the butcher style, so we headed to the area with all the different cuts on display.

Hanwoo and Handon cuts in the display case

Dongbaek Hanokjip sells hanwoo (Korean beef) and Handon (Korean pork). The beef and pork both had visibly excellent marbling and looked high quality. The beef came in lots of cuts like sirloin, ribeye, shrimp-cut, chuck flap and striploin. The pork had plenty of good grilling cuts like pork belly, neck and Iberico jowl.

Maybe because it's the butcher-restaurant style, the prices are also a much better value, so you can eat quality meat more cheaply and happily.

What two of us picked: chuck flap, pork belly and Iberico jowl

We brought back 3 kinds of meat from the Dongbaek Hanokjip display case in total! Hanwoo chuck flap, Handon pork belly and Iberico jowl.

Side dishes, self-serve bar and ₩4,000 drinks

The side dishes at Dongbaek Hanokjip were neat and clean.

There was a good spread of sides that go well with meat, from seasoned bean sprouts with chives to soy-pickled garlic stems, white kimchi and salad. If you run out, you can refill at the separate self bar.

Drinks are self-serve too. Maybe because of that, soju and beer were both ₩4,000. In Seoul lately lots of places charge ₩6,000–7,000, so ₩4,000 feels really cheap.

How does charcoal-grilled hanwoo chuck flap taste?

We started grilling the beef first! Since it's hanwoo, the marbling on the chuck flap is just insane, right? (T_T) It's thick and looks really high quality.

The chuck flap, turning golden brown over the charcoal!

I cut it into bite-size pieces and cooked the inside a little more. If you cook the outside evenly, the juices stay locked in and it tastes even better.

I moved the nicely cooked chuck flap to the side so it wouldn't burn. See how glossy it is? (T_T) Moist and perfectly cooked.

It's delicious just dipped in salt, and also good with the onion sauce. The chuck flap's distinctive beefy aroma and tender juices came together so well, and my mouth was full of flavor.

Whole Iberico pork jowl and Handon pork belly

At Dongbaek Hanokjip the beef grill and pork grill are different, so when we moved on to pork, a staff member swapped the grill for us. We finished the chuck flap in no time and were ready for pork, haha.

The Iberico jowl here comes as a whole piece, so you grill it whole until golden brown, then cut it into bite-size pieces to eat.

I heard pork is more tender and tasty when cut against the grain, so I cut the jowl into long strips against the grain. Look at that appetizing jowl!

I tried it right away, and it was full of that rich, nutty flavor jowl is known for. The texture was great too, and I thought, yep, this is Handon.

The pork with the perfect ratio of fat to lean got grilled up nicely too.

I tried the golden-brown pork belly too, and it was better than I expected. Full of juice, and delicious no matter how much I ate. The two of us finished all the meat in no time.

Is Dongbaek Hanokjip butcher BBQ worth a return visit?

Dongbaek Hanokjip Charcoal Grill Butcher Restaurant definitely has a great atmosphere and good-quality meat, so I think it's a Dongbaek BBQ place you can enjoy any time without regrets.