Baby-friendly Dongtan kalguksu restaurant with single servings: Yubok

If you're looking for kalguksu or webfoot octopus near Dongtan Central Park, this is a great spot to check out!

What kind of restaurant is Yubok Haemul Kalguksu Dongtan Direct Branch?

Yubok Haemul Kalguksu Dongtan Direct Branch is a Korean restaurant near Dongtan Central Park at 경기 화성시 동탄공원로3길 3 1층, serving seafood kalguksu and stir-fried webfoot octopus. It's open 11:00–21:00, closed every Tuesday, with no break time and last orders at 20:30. There's a baby chair and parking is available too.

I had a shoot in Dongtan, and once it wrapped up in the morning I was craving kalguksu, so I searched around and found a place called Yubok Kalguksu nearby. It's a chain, so I decided to visit the direct-run branch!

Parking and waiting time at Yubok Haemul Kalguksu

There's a wait during busy hours, so it seems to already be a local favorite among Dongtan residents. You can park in front of the restaurant, or use the Central Park public parking lot 3 minutes away for 1.5 hours free — and if you show proof of parking, they give you a canned drink.

Inside the Dongtan branch

The inside is nice and clean too. When I visited around 11:30 on a weekend, a little less than half the seats were still open, but by nearly noon it was completely full. If you want to avoid the wait, I'd recommend going a bit earlier.

Since the kalguksu is cooked fresh at the table, each table has its own gas burner and basic seasonings.

Can you order kalguksu as a single serving?

Yubok Haemul Kalguksu Dongtan Direct Branch's menu has kalguksu, webfoot octopus, savory pancakes, egg-wrapped octopus hot plate, mandu and more. What I really liked was that most kalguksu places require you to order for two or more people, but here you can order kalguksu and octopus each as a single serving. So I ordered one serving of pufferfish seafood kalguksu, one serving of grilled webfoot octopus stir-fry, and the king meat mandu.

The broth apparently minimizes seasoning and uses wild dried pufferfish simmered for a long time. Each table also has handy tips for how to eat the kalguksu or octopus stir-fry most deliciously!

Side dishes and the free barley rice for the baby

The basic side dishes are diced radish kimchi and radish. Since I visited with a baby, I was going to order a separate bowl of rice — turns out the adult version comes as barley rice topped with gochujang (red chili paste), while the baby version thoughtfully comes topped with roasted powder instead. Nice touch.

Pufferfish seafood kalguksu, 11,000 won a serving

I was surprised by the amount of sea squirt and clams in a single serving. The vegetables were generous too — so much that I wondered how it could possibly be this price.

One bite in, the noodles were chewy, and thanks to the oysters, sea squirt, and clams loaded into the pufferfish broth, the soup was clean yet refreshing. Even the baby seemed to genuinely love it and kept asking for more — a flavor that everyone from adults to kids can enjoy.

Midway through I tried a bite of the kimchi, and honestly the kimchi is the real kicker here. Kimchi really matters at a kalguksu restaurant, and this place's kimchi was genuinely delicious.

King meat mandu, 7,000 won

The king meat mandu (dumplings) were packed with green onion and well-seasoned, so they were perfect even without soy sauce. They were tasty on their own, but dipping them into the kalguksu broth to eat like a moist mandu soup was also a great combination.

Flame-grilled webfoot octopus stir-fry, 17,000 won

Lastly, the fiery red grilled webfoot octopus stir-fry.

Since it's char-grilled octopus, it has a subtle smoky flavor along with a delicious spiciness. Just like the tip card mentioned earlier, mixing the kalguksu noodles into the octopus sauce is truly amazing — spicy but addictive. If you order both octopus and kalguksu, you have to try this combination at least once.