Minari clam soup and hot-plate squid: Haetan, a Byeongjeom restaurant

If you're hunting for a good restaurant in Byeongjeom, let me recommend Haetan Hwaseong Byeongjeom, where you can get both spicy hot-plate squid and cool minari (water dropwort) clam soup in one meal. The place is genuinely huge, so it's great for group visits, and it looked like a solid pick for company dinners in Byeongjeom too — a restaurant that specializes in squid dishes.

Where is Haetan Hwaseong Byeongjeom, and what are its hours?

Haetan Hwaseong Byeongjeom is on the 2nd floor at 1024 Hyohaeng-ro, Byeongjeom-gu, Hwaseong-si, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea. It's open daily from 11:00 to 22:30, with last order at 21:30.

Haetan Hwaseong Byeongjeom is a fairly new spot, open for about a month now. It's on the 2nd floor of the building, and the big Haetan sign catches your eye even from outside.

120 seats: is Haetan good for a group dinner in Byeongjeom?

From the entrance it already looked bigger than I expected, but once inside it was seriously spacious haha. There are a ton of tables and the spacing between seats doesn't feel cramped.

There are plenty of spots good for large groups, so it seemed fine not only for family meals but also for bigger gatherings or a company dinner. It's officially listed as a 120-seat space, so if you're looking for a good restaurant for a Byeongjeom group dinner, this one's worth a look.

What's on the menu at Haetan Hwaseong Byeongjeom?

Ordering is done easily via the tablet at the table.

The two-person set and what it's worth

• Haetan combo platter
• Minari clam soup
• Vinegared squid salad
• Squid hangover soup
• Whelk mixed noodle soup
• Steamed squid
• Fried squid dumplings
• Large pork cutlet

• Vinegared squid salad
• Squid hangover soup
• Hot-plate squid
• Hot-plate pork
• Fire cheese hot-plate squid
• Minari clam soup

The menu was pretty varied. Stir-fried hot-plate squid and minari clam soup are introduced as the signature dishes.

We ordered hot-plate squid for two and minari clam soup.

Hot-plate squid for two: big, chunky squid

First up, the hot-plate squid!

The hot plate arrives loaded with squid, onion, green onion and other vegetables, topped with a generous pile of chives. It looks exactly like the sauce is soaked in properly haha.

The squid pieces weren't small either — nice and chunky, so it was satisfying to pick up and eat. The sauce is spicy with deep savory flavor; it's tasty on its own, but even better eaten together with rice.

Since it comes out on a hot plate, another nice thing was being able to keep eating it warm throughout the meal.

Self-serve bar: rice, sungnyung and chilled bean sprout soup

There's a separate self-serve bar, so you can just help yourself to any side dish you're running low on. I liked that there's a good variety — lettuce wraps, kimchi, bean sprouts — and even rice is available there.

There's also nutty sungnyung (scorched rice tea) and cool cold bean sprout soup, perfect for sipping between bites of the spicy squid.

Minari clam soup with the spicy hot-plate squid

A big pot came filled with plenty of clams, plus minari and cheongyang chili, and it looked refreshing just from the look of it.

Taking an actual sip of the broth, the cool flavor drawn out from the clams really came through!

If the hot-plate squid is spicy and rich, the minari clam soup is the total opposite — clean and refreshing — so the combination was really great. There's fun in fishing out the clams one by one, and with the minari aroma layered in, I kept going back for more spoonfuls of broth.

Mixing rice into the sauce left on the hot plate

Even though we were pretty full, it felt too wasteful to just leave the sauce sitting on the hot plate haha. We were already too stuffed to properly order fried rice, so we just grabbed a small bit of rice from the self-serve bar.

Rice into the leftover squid sauce, a little sesame oil on top! Then some perilla leaves from the self-serve bar, torn up and mixed in, tossed together lightly like a simple bibimbap. It was genuinely great as a final bite haha.

The rich sauce soaks into the rice grains, and with the perilla aroma and sesame oil added, the spoon kept going even though we said we were full. If you're getting the hot-plate squid, save a little room and try adding rice at the end.

Haetan Hwaseong Byeongjeom: the verdict

Having only opened recently, Haetan Hwaseong Byeongjeom feels clean overall, and above all, the sheer size of the place stood out. The combo of spicy hot-plate squid and cool minari clam soup was satisfying, and being able to freely use the self-serve bar for side dishes, rice, sungnyung, and cold bean sprout soup made for a hearty meal.

Among restaurants in Byeongjeom, this is a place where you can go from a full meal to a drink, and even though it's on the 2nd floor, the open-style windows give it an outdoor-drinking-spot feel in weather like this. If you're looking for a good restaurant in Byeongjeom for a comfortable group dinner, it's a solid choice.