Gyeongju brunch café with summer-only basil cold pasta: Yard

Yard in Bomun-danji, Gyeongju: how the yellow cosmos looked

I visited Yard, a café in Gyeongju's Bomun-danji that's been getting really popular lately. Right now the yellow cosmos near Yard are in full bloom! (I visited last weekend.)

You can see the cosmos in full bloom right across from the café. It seemed like a lot of people were coming just to see the flowers! I visited last weekend and the weather was great, so the photos turned out really pretty too.

Parking at Yard and first impressions

Yard has a parking lot right next to the building, but it's shared with a restaurant, so it can fill up completely — better to leave some extra time before heading over.

This was actually my second visit to Yard. Last time I came around spring, and I only found out this time that this place is famous for its yellow cosmos!

Weekend lunch seating and how to order at Yard

Maybe because it was around weekend lunchtime, the café was almost completely full. There are outdoor tables plus indoor seating on the 1st and 2nd floors, but since it's still pretty hot during the day, I ended up sitting indoors. There are booth-style seats, regular tables, and plenty of seating on the 2nd floor too. You order through a kiosk. Since it's a brunch café, there's a wide variety of baked goods and cakes too!

At Yard, almost everything is self-service. When your buzzer goes off, you pick up your drink, and tableware, forks, knives, and pickles are all at the self-serve bar! You can just grab as many as you need for your group, which was actually nice.

There's also a lot of delicious-looking baked goods. Everything from croissants to cinnamon rolls to all kinds of cake, and there was even bingsu (shaved ice) as a seasonal menu item!

What is the second floor of Yard like?

This is the entrance to the 2nd floor. The 2nd floor feels more spacious than the 1st. There's way more seating up there, plus outdoor seats — if the umbrellas are folded up, you can just open them yourself.

The 2nd floor has more tables than the 1st, and there are also these bean bag sofas where you can literally lie down and relax. If I'd just come for coffee, I think I would have used those seats. The view through the floor-to-ceiling windows was so pretty.

The English Plate and summer basil cold pasta

What I ordered was the English Plate, the summer-only basil cold pasta, and two iced Americanos. Whenever I come with my mom, we always order a brunch dish.

The English Plate is exclusive to Yard — sausage, bacon, various salad vegetables, English muffins, and scrambled eggs, it's basically Yard's signature brunch dish.

I had this the last time I visited too, and it tasted good then as well. There's ketchup and whole grain mustard sauce to dip things in, and even yogurt for dessert! It's a generous portion for two people, and the value for the price seems solid.

And this time I tried the summer-only basil cold pasta for the first time. Unlike regular pasta noodles, they're almost as thin as noodles for guksu (Korean wheat noodles). The texture is noodle-like but it's still pasta, packed with basil, shrimp, and tomato. The thin noodles might not be for everyone, but I actually thought it worked well since the sauce soaked in nicely.

Besides the plate and the cold pasta, there are plenty of other brunch menu items too! The English Plate seems to satisfy me every single time, so next time I'll have to try something different. Above all, it was great that it's filling enough as a brunch dish.

How long can you see the cosmos at Yard?

And since the yellow cosmos are in full bloom right across from the café, you don't need to go anywhere else to see flowers. I heard the yellow cosmos stay in full bloom through late October, so I'd recommend visiting on a holiday or weekend! That's Yard, the café in Bomun-danji, Gyeongju :)