Daegu beef restaurant with 8 side dishes and a dessert bar: Gogi 9dan

I visited Gogi 9dan Chimsan Direct Branch, a beef restaurant in Chimsan-dong, Buk-gu, Daegu, on a weekday evening. My partner has been working hard on a diet, so the two of us went to properly restock on protein and treat ourselves. It's close to Chimsan Kolon Hanulchae and the Chimsan 2-dong Welfare Center, so it was easy to find — and from the side dishes to the meat to the dessert, this Chimsan-dong favorite delivered on every front.

• 📍 197 Chimsannam-ro, Buk-gu, Daegu, South Korea
• ⏱️ Daily 11:00–21:50 / break time 15:00–17:00, last order 21:00

Where is Gogi 9dan Chimsan Direct Branch, and where do you park?

Gogi 9dan Chimsan Direct Branch sits right next to the Chimsan 2-dong Welfare Center. If you're taking public transit, get off at Dongchimsan Intersection or near the nearby CBS broadcasting station and it's right there.

This Chimsan-dong favorite has its own dedicated parking — the entire 1st floor is used as a parking lot, so parking is a breeze. If it's full, you can use the National Health Insurance Service parking lot right next door, so driving here shouldn't be a worry. (Free after 6pm, though.)

Looking at the sign on the stairs going up, the lunch specials caught my eye too! Beef tartare bibimbap, a meat set meal, and minari shabu kalguksu — a solid lineup at reasonable prices, seems like a great spot for nearby office workers to grab lunch.

As soon as you walk into the 2nd floor entrance, you see the open butcher station where the chef personally cuts the meat. I found myself just staring at the careful, attentive slicing for a moment.

Inside Gogi 9dan: seating for group dinners and gatherings

The interior of Gogi 9dan Chimsan Direct Branch is spacious, with big group tables for 8 or more people alongside plenty of roomy 4-person tables — comfortable and airy. The tables are well spaced out and it felt open, and the window seats were nice too. My partner and I came as a pair and happened to get seated by the window... lucky us.

Since it's a barbecue restaurant, plenty of families come in too. There's a kids' playroom and baby chairs available.

• ✔️ Puffed rice snack service with the receipt review event
• Side dishes are also sold to take home

Gogi 9dan menu: full platter or half platter?

Every table at Gogi 9dan has an order tablet, so you can order right from there. They also give you a paper menu, which helped a lot with deciding. Meat can be ordered as a full platter or a half platter. And this Chimsan-dong favorite has its own ultimate value set — the 9dan set with raw beef tartare, stew, jjolmyeon noodles, and sushi with wasabi, available when you order a grilled meat item.

The 8 basic side dishes at Gogi 9dan

Not long after ordering, the basic side dishes arrived. There was a good variety, and each one felt carefully made. The two things my partner and I loved most were the spicy marinated crab and the well-seasoned japchae (glass noodle stir-fry); there was also seasoned seaweed(?) or vinegared seaweed(?), plus pickled chwinamul (aster greens) and mul-kimchi (watery kimchi) that cut nicely through the richness of the beef. The salad and pickled onions rounded things out — every combination was a hit.

Fresh ribs vs skirt steak: one half-platter of each for two

Beef wouldn't be complete without fresh ribs, so we ordered that along with the tender specialty cut skirt steak, each as a half platter.

With beef, ordering a lot of just one cut can get monotonous, but being able to order half platters made it easy to eat as a pair and grill a variety of cuts. Comparing several cuts while eating is really the best way to go.

Maybe because the charcoal fire was so strong, the meat cooked almost instantly as soon as it hit the grill, and that delicious meaty aroma rose right up. I'd eaten light at lunch just to save room for this!!!

We started with the skirt steak, which has a nicer amount of marbling than the somewhat fattier rib meat. It's great eating with my partner, who has serious cooking experience and always knows what to eat first.

Personally, I like skirt steak grilled just lightly. I'm a medium-well person, so I ate it with a bit of pink still left, and I could taste all three: chewy, savory, and tender.

I lightly grilled some napa cabbage from the mul-kimchi and had it alongside, and also tried it with the pickled onions — but honestly, salt is still the best partner for beef. With skirt steak especially, you really need to taste the meat's own flavor without much sauce.

Next, we put the fresh ribs on the hot charcoal. They have more fat than the skirt steak, so they were even more savory. My partner said the fresh ribs were tastier — definitely a softer texture compared to the skirt steak.

The fresh rib meat paired really well with the pickled chwinamul and pickled onions, which cut through the rib's distinctive richness nicely. The meat clinging to the bone was unspeakably good. I think I understand now why Gogi 9dan comes up whenever people mention Chimsan-dong barbecue restaurants.

What's in the 9dan set?

When you come to Gogi 9dan, the 9dan set is a must-order alongside the grilled meat.

Round, flower-shaped sushi pieces + fresh wasabi. Top them with grilled skirt steak or fresh ribs and a touch of fresh wasabi for an upscale beef sushi bite.

The hanwoo (Korean beef) tartare comes tossed in a mustard-based sauce, savory and tender — the kind of flavor you keep wanting more of.

The jjolmyeon noodles came in a spicy-sweet-and-sour sauce with chewy noodles, crunchy bean sprouts, and shredded cabbage — spicy but you just keep wanting more. Absolutely delicious... but that's not the end, the highlight was still to come.

A raw pork and kimchi stew comes out, and you cook it yourself on an induction burner set next to the grill.

We sliced up some extra chili peppers and boiled them into it, which made the stew even spicier and helped clear our palates after all that meat.

Right as our meal was wrapping up, a staff member came by and brought us old-school-style patbingsu (shaved ice dessert) for dessert. Sweet and cool, exactly what we needed.

The self-serve dessert bar: patbingsu, plum tea and coffee

Gogi 9dan's dessert corner has plum tea, sweet iced mixed coffee, and an Americano made with Starbucks beans. There's even a separate freezer with ice cups, making the finishing touch complete.

I had the plum tea, my partner had the coffee. And one puffed rice snack, fried in-house.

From the grilled meat to the meal courses to the dessert, we ate until we were full, and I thought it would be a great place to bring the family too. If you're looking for a beef restaurant in Chimsan-dong, Daegu, I'd recommend Gogi 9dan Chimsan Direct Branch.