Siheung Baegot Korean BBQ with free kimchi noodle soup: Ssosam 208

I went to Cynthia (aka Shinsegae Siheung Outlet... yes it really has that many nicknames haha) on the weekend to try to score some fall clothes, and ended up with my wallet drained and my energy completely gone 🤦‍♀️. The second the shopping was over my blood sugar crashed and I was seriously about to collapse. I figured I needed to refuel immediately, so I searched like a maniac for good restaurants in Baegot, Siheung, found a pork belly place with insane value, and headed straight there without looking back 💨

📍Address: 25-8 Seoultaehak-ro 278beon-gil, Siheung-si, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea 📍Hours: 14:00–02:00 (weekends open at 12:00) 📍Building (Dain Royal Palace 4) parking: 2 hours 30 minutes free

Parking and interior at Ssosam 208 Siheung Baegot Branch

Ssosam 208 Siheung Baegot Branch is on the first floor of Dain Royal Palace 4, and the building offers 2 hours 30 minutes of free parking. If a place near the station has a parking nightmare, I instantly lose motivation to go, but here the underground lot had plenty of space 🚗. And free parking for 2.5 hours?! That kind of parking generosity in Siheung is just touching 🥹

Walking in, the restaurant is pretty spacious with a big, refreshing floor-to-ceiling window! Looks like they throw the doors wide open in summer or on nice days. Sitting right by the window gives you that trendy outdoor-seating vibe that's popular these days ✨

The seating ranges from 4-tops to 8-tops, so this place would be great for a company dinner or a group grill session around Baegot. ><

Side dishes, sauces and the free kimchi rice noodle soup

The moment we sat down the side dishes started lining up — wild garlic greens, lettuce wraps, kimchi, seasoned bean sprouts 🥬. It's not a table-breaking number of side dishes, but honestly they've gathered exactly the all-star lineup you need for pork belly. Nothing to skip, totally satisfied 😋

They set out garlic wasabi sauce, salted shrimp, Maldon salt, cumin, ssamjang (Korean dipping sauce), and garlic oil soy sauce. The one that stole my heart was the minced garlic wasabi sauce 🧄 — that sharp wasabi kick makes you want to inhale meat endlessly, absolutely wild.

They just handed us kimchi noodle soup as a complimentary side 🍜, and you can even get one free refill?! The second I took a sip of the broth I thought, yeah, this is a soju crime if you don't drink it haha. Instantly understood why the restaurant is named 'Ssosam' (soju + samgyeopsal) 🍻

What comes in the pork belly fondue kimchi stew set: 300g pork belly and kimchi stew for two

We were so hungry we went straight for the ultimate hearty option, the pork belly fondue kimchi stew set. It's 300g of pork belly plus kimchi stew for two, and it's under ₩50,000?? 💸 The value here is just insane.

The meat quality was also crazy good... They use top-grade Korean pork (Handon) within 5 days of slaughter, aged carefully for 96 hours, seared first over 500°C charcoal to lock in juices, then finished at 208°C 🥩. No wonder the juices don't stop ㅠㅠㅠㅠ

The best part? The staff grill everything from start to finish 🫶. We didn't even touch the tongs — just sat there like baby birds opening our mouths ><

You can tell the owner really knows what they're doing, because they put kimchi and bean sprouts on the grill, drizzle sesame oil, and stir-fry it right there... The smell alone should be illegal ㅠㅠ

Wrapping golden pork belly with sesame-oil-coated grilled kimchi is pure paradise 😇

Cold buckwheat noodles and pollack roe steamed egg on the side

We ordered cold noodles (mul-naengmyeon) to wash the pork fat down, and honestly the taste was the familiar one everyone knows! Still, the broth was so refreshingly cold it cleared out all the pork belly grease and set us up for round two 🧊

The salted pollack roe egg custard (myeongnan gyeranjjim) looked like a plain egg custard at first — 'where's the roe...?' — but the moment I dug in with a spoon, the umami of the roe hit 💥. Turns out the roe was packed generously at the bottom haha. Scrape it all the way to the bottom, everyone!!

The main event: pork belly fondue kimchi stew with squid ink bread

And finally, the main event arrived — pork belly fondue kimchi stew 🔥. Wait, boss... is this really a fondue? The meat just kept coming out like a bottomless well 🍖

It's steamed thoroughly in a pressure pot in the kitchen, and the staff pulled it out and cut it up for us right there 👀

They served squid ink bread to eat alongside the kimchi stew, and it had a sweet mayonnaise-or-condensed-milk-like sauce spread inside. At first I was like 'bread... with kimchi stew?' But putting sweet bread on top of the spicy, tangy kimchi stew turned into an amazing sweet-and-salty combo 🍞

Maybe thanks to the pressure pot power, the kimchi was cooked so soft you could chew it without teeth — total rice thief. And the meat chunks were big yet melted away in your mouth 🍚

There were even chewy glass noodles hiding at the bottom, so carb lovers can just lie down and call it a day here ✨. We both walked out ridiculously full ㅠㅠ

If you ever find yourself in Siheung, just go, no questions asked!!!!! Everything here, from the side dishes to the pork belly to the kimchi stew, is soju food ㅠㅠ. I'm convinced drinkers could bowl soju bottles down at this table haha.