Japanese restaurant after a 6km Namsan hike, Seoul Station: Furato

Why we headed to Seoul Square's basement after 6km on the Namsan fortress wall course

Furato Shokudo Seoul Square Direct Store is in the basement 1 dining arcade of Seoul Square, right in front of Seoul Station. Since September I've been chasing a stamp tour of the full Hanyangdoseong fortress wall whenever I have time, and today was day two — the Namsan course.

The Namsan course starts near Jangchung Gymnasium and comes down toward Baekbeom Plaza on Namsan. Almost 6km later, my family was starving and completely wiped out. Since it's an easy trip home from Seoul Station, we went looking for a restaurant nearby.

Seoul Square — you know, the building that used to house Daewoo E&C. There's actually a great dining arcade in the basement. I'd only ever been there back in the Daewoo days, so I still had this old, run-down building in my head. Whoa... after the remodel, it's completely transformed.

If you head toward Namdaemun Police Station, there's a stairway that goes straight down to the basement. You can also enter through the building's main entrance and take the escalator down.

Furato Shokudo Seoul Square opening hours and last order

This is Furato Shokudo.

Furato Shokudo hours / Opens at 11:00 / Break time 15:00–17:00 / Last order 20:15 / Closes at 20:50

A gyukatsu restaurant with no smoke and no greasy air

The interior was really clean. Gyukatsu (breaded beef cutlet) restaurants can sometimes have sticky floors or hazy smoke, but at Furato Seoul Square Direct Store, oddly, there wasn't a single trace of smoke — and I couldn't even see the vents. The floor was spotless too, which left a great impression.

The scale of the receipt review event?! You can participate separately on Naver, Kakao Map, and Google. Wow wow, that's on another level.

How ordering works: tap your phone on the table

For anyone who struggles to pick their preferred level of doneness, there was a detailed explanation posted. Oh — you just unlock your phone and tap it on this center spot to order. So smart. I'd never seen this style of ordering before, so it felt fun and novel.

Steki set, soft-boiled egg omurice and barbecue chicken rice bowl

Ilrang, our resident steki (grilled steak) fan, got his steki set, and I was stunned the moment it landed. The portion was seriously generous. See it? Two rows of meat!!! Sometimes a steki set tastes great but you finish it and still feel hungry — no worry of that here at Furato Seoul Square Direct Store.

This is my soft-boiled egg omurice. The moment it arrived I actually gasped — it looked just like a lemon cake. How does egg cook this smoothly? Is this even possible with egg? So pretty~~~~~

Why we chose rice bowls over gyukatsu at Furato Shokudo

This one's my husband's barbecue chicken rice bowl. Honestly both of us love gyukatsu, but today, after walking more than 6km and then all the way from Baekbeom Plaza to Seoul Square (and, actually, before the stamp tour we'd already spent a solid two hours at an art museum...), we were too exhausted to deal with grilling gyukatsu piece by piece.

So we picked something we could just eat comfortably, and it turned out to be a great call. It wasn't just the chicken that was good — the rice had some kind of seasoning mixed in, maybe egg, maybe bean sprouts, something unusual and delicious, he said. It was so good I wanted a bite, but he finished it too fast!! Sob.

You cut into the omurice and pour the sauce over it. Oh, this is really — so good. Pretty and delicious!!!!! Ilrang, our steki-loving one, kept trying to trade his meat for a bite of it. Hahaha.

The side dishes are well made too

Gyukatsu restaurants often skimp on side dishes, but Furato Shokudo's side dishes are solid.

Is Furato Shokudo a good dinner after the fortress wall hike?

We'd burned so much energy all day between the museum and the fortress wall course. Eating dinner at Furato Seoul Square Direct Store helped us recover, and it was a perfect way to end the day.

The hearth-style interior. Really cool.

The first-floor lobby. It looked so nice after the remodel that I had to take a photo, haha. At Furato Shokudo, it's not just the steki set — every menu item comes in a generous portion. Highly, highly recommend.