Mangpo Station Japanese set menu with mazesoba: Myeonsikdang, Suwon

Ten steps from Mangpo Station exit 3: finding Myeonsikdang

I had to go to a dermatology clinic near Mangpo Station today, so before my appointment I searched forever for somewhere good to eat lunch and landed on a place called 'Myeonsikdang' with a lot of great reviews. You can get there in ten steps flat out of Mangpo Station exit 3... the location is basically cheating. Amazing accessibility for a short, precious lunch break is a huge plus!

This is the famous landmark of Suwon... the white windmill building, so eating at Myeonsikdang and grabbing bread at the White Windmill after is the perfect course haha.

True to its reputation as a hot spot, every table but one was full as soon as we walked in, and even for a weekend lunch there were noticeably more customers than the surrounding restaurants haha.

Solo seats and kiosk ordering at Myeonsikdang

Myeonsikdang Mangpo Station has plenty of good solo-dining seats along the right wall too~ and they're set up nicely for stashing your bag under the chair! While we were eating, a lot of students with backpacks came in to eat alone.

Back when I used to study at a reading room, there weren't any decent restaurants nearby so I'd just get by on convenience store lunch boxes... how nice would it have been if a place like Myeonsikdang existed back then.

Anyway, we grabbed a seat and ordered from the table kiosk, and the menu was so huge we wandered around it for a while before picking the two-person set because it looked like a great, filling deal!

What comes in the 29,800 won two-person set?

Ramen, soba, pho, udon, katsu, rice bowls, and more — can you see how many menu items there are? It's basically the gimbap-cheonguk (a Korean chain famous for endless variety) of Japanese restaurants!! The two-person set we picked comes with 2 mains, 2 sides, and 1 ade for ₩29,800! We picked items with extra charges, so our total came to ₩34,800,

While we were ordering, I looked around the restaurant and noticed a message posted on the wall — you could really feel how carefully they run the place~

The large lemonade, squeezed from real lemons

The lemonade came out first, and the size of it... it's like the 'big sister' size lol. And you could see actual lemon seeds inside, so this wasn't some watered-down lemon-flavored drink but real lemonade squeezed from actual lemons haha.

I personally prefer tasting a little of several dishes over eating a ton of just one thing, but that's hard to do when you're dining as 1-2 people, right? But here, the two-person set comes with a whopping four different menu items!!!

Mazesoba and hire katsu (pork tenderloin cutlet)

This is the mazesoba I ordered along with the hire katsu (side menu)

Half-and-half katsu and the mini kimchi pork rice bowl

This is what my partner ordered — half-and-half katsu and the mini kimchi pork rice bowl!

There's also a review event where you get a free canned drink, but since the lemonade was already such a huge portion and plenty for us, we didn't bother taking part haha.

If we'd ordered à la carte instead of the set and hadn't gotten a drink included, that review event would have been really nice~ I saw other people ordering a lot of ramen too, so next time I'd like to come back for ramen and pho!

How did the food taste?

Personally, the mazesoba was really clean-tasting and the noodles were nice and chewy haha. For katsu we got hire and half-and-half, and ours was tasty too, but the mozzarella katsu at the table next to us looked so good haha. I also tried a bite of the mini pork rice bowl and it was so good I'd recommend the rice bowl category too!

A Suwon spot where a group doesn't have to order the same dish

The biggest advantage of Myeonsikdang Mangpo Station is that the menu is so varied that even a group at lunch or dinner can each order exactly what they want without needing to agree on one dish or worry about picking a place everyone's fine with! Deciding on lunch with coworkers every day is a whole task in itself, ugh. After all the back-and-forth, sometimes you end up somewhere nobody's really craving.

But here, the menu is so varied and mostly crowd-pleasing dishes that it seemed easy for everyone to pick something they liked haha. I felt it was a great restaurant whether you come with a group or eat solo haha. The building also gives 2 hours of free parking, so we could eat without worrying about parking at all haha.

If you're near Mangpo Station wondering where to eat for lunch or dinner, head to Myeonsikdang first~