Heyri Village noodle shop in Paju: anchovy-broth janchi guksu

Cheonje Guksu

Walking Heyri Village, then lunch at Cheonje Guksu

While traveling around Heyri Village in Paju, I was looking for somewhere nearby to eat a solid meal and ended up at Cheonje Guksu.

There's a lot to see when you walk around Heyri Village, and the walking time adds up, so I needed somewhere comfortable to eat in the middle of the trip. So this time I picked a noodle dish that felt easy on the stomach.

The prices were good too, so it was easy to visit without feeling burdened, and I was satisfied with how filling and generous the portions were!

The restroom is inside and separated by gender, so you can use it comfortably~

What we ordered at Cheonje Guksu and the side dishes

Janchi guksu Single-serving suyuk Perilla oil tofu

The basic side dishes were kimchi, cucumber peppers, and tofu. The kimchi really goes well with the noodles, and munching on the cucumber peppers before the food arrived kept things from feeling boring!!

Single-serving suyuk: enough for two to share

The suyuk (boiled pork) was clean and light to eat, and it went surprisingly well with the janchi guksu. One bite of noodles, one piece of suyuk — it felt like a satisfying meal came together!

It's meant as a single serving, but it worked well shared as a side between two of us~ They serve it with a topping you can put right on the pork, and that combination was the highlight!

Perilla oil tofu made with home-grown soybeans

The soft tofu with the nutty aroma of perilla oil added was light and clean to eat. If you prefer clean, nutty side dishes over strongly seasoned ones, this will suit you well!!

They use soybeans they grow themselves, which I think makes it taste even better!!

Dipping the tofu fully into the soy sauce and topping it with salted shrimp seems to add even more savory depth~

How is the anchovy broth and noodle portion in the janchi guksu?

Janchi guksu is a warm-broth dish, so it was good to eat when I got hungry mid-trip! The noodles slurp down easily and the broth is on the cleaner side, so I finished a bowl in no time.

The anchovy broth has absolutely no astringent taste and is clean — the kind of flavor that cures a hangover even without an actual hangover!! It was surprising how clean yet deep the broth tasted.

The noodle portion was so generous that even after slurping away, it didn't seem to shrink!! It's addictive to eat even when you're stuffed, because it's just that good.

The kimchi really went well with the noodles!! One bite of noodles, one bite of kimchi, and your palate is completely refreshed.

Fried tofu skin, chives, and zucchini in the noodles — so good. It felt like a different league from an ordinary janchi guksu, and I found myself drawn to visit this charming place.

The janchi guksu I ordered at Cheonje Guksu had a broth that stood out, but the texture of the noodles was more impressive than I expected. Sometimes it's disappointing when the noodles are too soggy or mushy, but at Cheonje Guksu the noodles kept a good bounce even inside the broth. When I lifted the noodles with my chopsticks, the strands separated naturally instead of clumping together, so it was easy to eat one bite at a time. With noodle soup especially, it's not just the noodles themselves that matter but the overall harmony with the broth — and here the noodles soaked up the broth well without becoming too heavy, so they were easy to slurp down together with the soup. Piling the noodles up and eating them with the warm broth gave a light yet clean flavor, and I kept reaching for more without any strong seasoning at all.

Being able to freely grab as much cucumber peppers and kimchi as I wanted was such a great system!!!

Worth adding to a Heyri Village day trip?

Paju's Heyri Village is a great spot for a date, browsing cafés and sights, so a lot of people include it in their travel course. If you're like me and want a warm bowl of noodles after looking around Heyri Village, stopping by Cheonje Guksu is a good option.

On this day, I got to look around Heyri Village and eat delicious food, making for a really fulfilling trip to Paju :)