Siksa-dong dumpling hot pot lunch with Mom and her friend: Arirang

Today I headed to Ilsan to catch up with my mom and her friend, whom I hadn't seen in ages. I was so excited that I took them to her favorite food, mandu (Korean dumplings), at Arirang Gaeseong Son Mandu Siksa Branch (아리랑 개성손만두 식사점), a Korean restaurant in Siksa-dong and one of Ilsan's best-loved dumpling spots. Finding a great place to eat with her friend after so long made me really happy, so let me introduce it to you.

Is parking easy at Arirang Gaeseong Son Mandu Siksa Branch?

Yes. There are free parking lots right in front of and behind the restaurant, which makes it easy to park. It's also convenient for group visits.

The wide parking area is easy even for beginner drivers, and the big sign helps you spot the restaurant right away.

Inside the restaurant and how to order

The interior is a long layout built around 4-person tables, and it's spacious enough for groups of 4, 6, or even 10 or more. You order with the tablet device on each table.

The tables are pushed together here and there, so you can sit however many you are, and I liked how open and airy the big room felt. Ordering whatever you want from the tablet on the table was simple and convenient too.

What's at the self-service corner?

Kimchi and yellow pickled radish are set out as the basics, and if you run low you can take as much as you like from the self bar.

Yellow pickled radish is a must with good mandu, so I loved being able to eat as much as I wanted.

What's in the Gaeseong mandu hot pot, and how much is it?

The Gaeseong handmade mandu hot pot (개성손만두전골) is ₩12,000 per person and comes with 3 handmade mandu, 1 steamed Gaeseong mandu, and kalguksu (knife-cut noodles). There were three mandu dishes on the menu, including the handmade kalguksu and the handmade mandu beef shabu, but with 4 mandu per person and vegetables to simmer in the pot, I ordered the hot pot!

Since this Ilsan mandu place is so generous with the mandu per serving, the thoughtful owner steamed some of them and moved them to a separate bowl for us.

You can eat the extra mandu when you get to the kalguksu near the end of the hot pot, so he set them aside for us. 👍 The owner's thoughtfulness really stood out and I loved it.

How big and how good were the handmade mandu?

The mandu in the hot pot are handmade and about the size of a palm. They come out already steamed once, so as soon as the pot boiled I fished out a mandu to try. I figured the ones in the pot would be ordinary, but when I lifted one out into my bowl, I was amazed.

These weren't the ordinary mandu we all know; they were handmade and palm-sized, sitting right in the hot pot. I gasped at the size, put one in my bowl, and quickly split it in half to taste.

Chive-packed meat mandu and mild kimchi mandu

I really love meat mandu, so I split that one first. It was packed with fresh green chives, and the clean, not-greasy flavor went so well with the hot pot that I dunked it in the broth and wolfed it down without a thought for anything else. Mom's friend, whose favorite is kimchi mandu, liked that it wasn't too spicy and said it went perfectly with the hot pot broth.

When do you add the kalguksu noodles?

Add the kalguksu when the vegetables start to run low. With napa cabbage, bok choy, bean sprouts, even sliced rice cakes (tteokguk tteok) and other toppings, the hot pot was so good that the vegetables were already hitting the bottom. That's exactly the moment for the noodles.

Top up the broth, add the silky-looking noodles, and boil it down once more until rich, and the kalguksu is done. The broth is so good that the hot pot, noodles and all, was the kind of delicious where you could eat with a friend and not notice if one of you dropped dead, haha.

Is Arirang Gaeseong Son Mandu a good lunch in Siksa-dong?

For a filling, tasty lunch with generous portions in Siksa-dong, Ilsan, come have lunch at Arirang Gaeseong Son Mandu Siksa Branch!

• Address: 81-1 Dongguk-ro, Ilsandong-gu, Goyang, Gyeonggi, South Korea
• Parking: available (free)
• Hours: daily 10:00-21:00
• Gaeseong handmade kalguksu (unlimited refills): ₩10,000 per person
• Gaeseong handmade mandu hot pot: ₩12,000 per person (3 handmade mandu + 1 steamed Gaeseong mandu + kalguksu)