Korean BBQ date at Suwon Station: yuzu wasabi sauce, Ssosam 208

Seeing Jensen Huang over in Korea doing the pork-belly-and-soju thing.. made me crave it too.. so my girlfriend and I headed to Suwon Station. Just two days after I swore I'd cook at home.. anyway, we ran over, and the pork belly place we ended up at was Ssosam 208 Suwon Station Branch (쏘삼208 수원역점).

Where is Ssosam 208 Suwon Station Branch, and is there parking?

Ssosam 208 Suwon Station Branch is at 1F, 11 Deogyeong-daero 895beon-gil, Paldal-gu, Suwon, Gyeonggi, South Korea, a 5-minute walk from Suwon Station. There's no mention of dedicated parking; you'd park on the street or in the Suwon Station public lot, so I'd recommend public transport if you can.

This is Ssosam 208. It's a 5-minute walk from Suwon Station.

As for parking.. street parking or the Suwon Station public lot, but I'd recommend public transport if possible.

Oh wow.. this place has apparently been on quite a lot of TV shows.

The shape of the grill stone is pretty unusual.

Inside Ssosam 208: atmosphere and space between tables

The tables at Ssosam 208 Suwon Station Branch are spaced widely, so eating pork belly felt comfortable. I came at 4:30 PM, so maybe that's why it was very quiet. Well.. who eats pork belly from 4 PM.. haha

When tables are packed together, it's hard to even talk, and you can barely tell whether the food is going into your nose.. or your mouth. Ssosam's wide spacing was a plus.

Ssosam 208 Suwon Station Branch menu and prices

The signature items at Ssosam 208 Suwon Station Branch are the mixed stone-grill set, small (360g) at ₩35,500 and medium (500g) at ₩48,500, and you can add lava fondue cheese as a crater option for ₩5,000.

• Mixed stone-grill, small (360g): ₩35,500
• Mixed stone-grill, medium (500g): ₩48,500
• Crater option, lava fondue cheese: ₩5,000
• Pork belly: ₩15,000
• Pork neck: ₩15,000
• Cheongyeopsal: ₩18,000
• Basalt snowflake kimchi fried rice: ₩6,500
• Roe steamed egg: ₩4,500

The menu has single cuts and a mixed set for variety. I like trying a bit of everything, so I ordered the small mixed stone-grill set.

What side dishes and sauces come with the Korean BBQ?

The sides at Ssosam 208 are myeongi-namul (pickled wild garlic-chive-like greens), spring onion salad, wasabi sauce, Maldon salt, shichimi (Japanese chili blend), ssamjang (seasoned soybean paste), sesame-oil dip, rice noodles, and a secret sauce, a pretty tidy lineup. First, the myeongi-namul and spring onion salad. And the unusual wasabi sauce.

Maldon salt, shichimi, ssamjang and oil dip. And rice noodles, which you can refill once. The way the noodles are served is quite unusual too.

And the secret sauce.. a great lineup for focusing on the pork belly. I love sauces, and even I was satisfied with how many kinds there were.

Ssosam 208's volcano grill and lava fondue cheese

Ssosam 208's signature grill is a huge stone slab. The kimchi that comes with pork fat goes on the grill too, and it tastes great even without anything else..

Phew, ordered a somaek (soju-beer mix) right away.

I added the lava cheese fondue too. Honestly, not ordering the fondue for that grill is.. practically a major crime.

Next came the small mixed set: pork belly, pork neck and hangjeongsal (pork jowl). A glass of somaek while the meat cooks~~ The staff grills the meat for you at first.

The look of it is seriously impressive. That lava cheese fondue totally steals the show.. haha

As the heat comes up it bubbles away, and it honestly looks like real lava.

They said the grill is specially made, and maybe that's why the meat seemed to cook much faster.

How does the pork belly at Ssosam 208 taste?

The pork belly at Ssosam 208 had a good lean-to-fat ratio, and I had the first bite with just a little salt. Let's dig in.

As always, the first bite with just a dab of salt.. with meat this good, there's no way it's not tasty.

The complimentary doenjang stew (soybean paste stew) arrived. You get it if you book with a Naver coupon, FYI! It comes out boiling hard in a stone pot.

What is pork belly like dipped in cheese fondue?

Back to the meat.. this time let's dunk it deep into the cheese fondue I was looking forward to.

Oh..? A pretty unfamiliar taste, but I keep wanting more. Pork belly is already rich, and dipping that rich meat in cheese is a hard combo to imagine, but once I tried it, it actually goes together surprisingly well.. And the fondue has a slight spiciness, so it wasn't too heavy.

Pairing pork belly with spring onion salad, kimchi, wild garlic leaves and meljeot

Now let's eat it with vegetables. The seasoning on the spring onion salad was just how I like it, mild enough not to overpower the meat.

A bite with the kimchi grilled in the pork fat earlier, too. It's good with myeongi-namul as well.

I kept craving the cheese fondue, so I even just scooped it up and ate it on its own haha.. seems to be my taste

I also dipped into the meljeot (salted fermented anchovy sauce) quietly simmering on the grill. I made a samhap (three-way combo) with the grilled tofu that came with the kimchi, too.

What does Ssosam 208's yuzu wasabi sauce taste like?

Ssosam 208's wasabi sauce tastes like something other than wasabi was mixed in, with a yuzu-like scent? I'd been curious about it from the start, so I put some on a piece, and it's nice to dip in when you start feeling the richness.

And of course you can't skip the classic combo: garlic dipped in the sesame-oil sauce.

Add-ons: steamed egg and asking for lettuce wraps

The steamed egg I added at Ssosam 208 was a generous, old-style steamed egg. I felt like I was short on protein(?), so I ordered it, and this is what came out.

It was nice and bouncy, and tasty.

Lettuce wraps only come if you ask, so ask separately if you want them. Eating veggies too takes away a little of the guilt, after all.

A cheesy Korean-style dessert to finish

The final finish at Ssosam 208 is of course the K-dessert: rice. They even sprinkle on a heap of shredded cheese.

Koreans really run on rice power..

I ate it with the few pieces of meat left.

Final verdict on Ssosam 208 Suwon Station Branch

At Ssosam 208 Suwon Station Branch I focused on the food more than the drinks for the first time in ages, and cleaned everything up, full and happy with all the variety. Pork can feel like a plain, ordinary menu item, but you can feel the owner's philosophy here of making ordinary pork a little more special.