Gongdeok Korean restaurant lunch with yakgwa dessert: Usu Lunch C

For my mom's birthday, I took her to Usu's Gongdeok location. When picking a place to eat with your parents, there's a lot to consider besides just the food!

Is it too loud, is parking easy, can you talk comfortably while eating — you end up checking all of it. Usu's Gongdeok branch lets you enjoy a hanwoo (Korean beef) course in a private room, so it suited not just family meals but also anyone looking for a meeting-the-parents restaurant in Seoul.

What we had was the Lunch C course, ₩79,000 per person!

From grilled hanwoo to pot rice to dessert, it was a course that took familiar Korean ingredients and reworked them in a slightly more modern way, which made it great for a slow, conversation-filled meal ♥️

As you can see from the photos, these weren't everyday dishes — we had to guess what each one was and then hear the explanation, which made it all the more mysterious and delicious. Here's my Usu Gongdeok review, starting now!

Usu Gongdeok: location, hours and parking

Usu Gongdeok is at 467 Gongdeok-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul, B2 of Lotte Castle President, one minute from Gongdeok Station Exit 2. It's open daily from 11 AM to 9 PM, and parking is free for 3 hours.

• 📍 Location: B2, Lotte Castle President, 467 Gongdeok-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul [1 min from Gongdeok Station Exit 2]
• ⏰ Hours: Daily 11:00 AM – 9:00 PM
• 🚗 Parking: Available (3 hours free)
• 📅 Reservations via Naver Reservation / Catch Table

It's really close to Gongdeok Station — just one minute — and since it's inside the Lotte Castle President building, it was easy to find by public transit too.

I drove, and free parking was such a relief! Course meals need plenty of time, and if the parking window is short you end up rushing through the meal watching the clock, right? Here, three hours free meant we could have a coffee after and still leave with time to spare — perfect for bringing my parents along!

Why Usu's private rooms suit a meeting-the-parents lunch

The seating at Usu Gongdeok is separated into individual, room-like sections, so there's real distance from neighboring tables. As soon as you walk in, you get an overall calm, warm brown atmosphere.

Thanks to that, we could talk freely without worrying much about our surroundings and eat at a relaxed pace. There's also spacious group seating for larger parties — it looked like it would work well for family visits, group gatherings, or work dinners too.

Inside the private room: quiet enough for real conversation

Once you go in and give your reservation name, you're led to a private room. It's decorated calmly and cleanly overall, and the lighting inside is soft, so it's great for photos .・゜. ゜・☾．

Especially for a first meeting like meeting-the-parents, the surrounding atmosphere matters as much as the food. If the next table is too close or it's noisy, it's hard to focus on conversation — but at Usu, eating in an independent room made this easy.

There's also a hanger and coat rack inside, so you can hang up coats or outerwear you don't want wrinkled. It felt less like a traditional Korean set-meal restaurant and more clean and refined — a good fit for formal occasions like parents' meals, family gatherings, or business meetings!

Usu Lunch C, 79,000 won: the course opens with an ingredient presentation

Before the course began, they showed us the ingredients being used that day. Being able to see the ingredients firsthand really built up my anticipation before the meal even started!

Instead of water, barley tea was set out, and my mom loved it haha. As you go through a course meal, various flavors can linger in your mouth — sipping barley tea in between cleared the palate each time. A small detail, but it felt like they'd thought through the whole flow of the meal, and I really liked that!

Two free birthday and anniversary services at Usu

🎁 If you're visiting for a birthday or anniversary, don't miss the free celebration service! 🎁 I added a birthday event request in the memo when booking through Naver Reservation or Catch Table,

• Sparkling wine or grape juice
• A Polaroid photo event (taken after the meal)

The staff let us choose between sparkling wine and grape juice. Since it was a special day, we wanted a bit more of a festive feel, so we picked the sparkling wine. You can have a light drink before the meal starts, so if you're visiting for an anniversary, don't forget to ask for the event service!

1. Ugyejinjuk porridge

The first dish out was ugyejinjuk, a porridge made with a broth simmered from hanwoo bone and chicken — from the first spoonful you get a rich broth flavor. Not aggressively seasoned, but savory and deep, it felt like a gentle warm-up for the stomach before the course really began!

On top of the porridge were nurungji (crispy scorched rice), a scallion crust, shiitake mushroom, asparagus, and white wood ear mushroom. Biting into crispy or chewy bits within the soft porridge made for a much richer texture than a single-texture dish.

2. Three bite-sized dishes

Next came three bite-sized dishes. Even before the food arrived, the plating itself was striking — personally, this was the most memorable plating of the whole Gongdeok Usu meal!

Green moss and volcanic rock, topped with tiny branches and a yellow flower, looked like a miniature garden. It was so prettily arranged that I naturally reached for my camera first. All three came in bite sizes, perfect for a light taste.

Bulgogi sandwich

First was the bulgogi sandwich — my mom's top pick haha. Hanwoo bulgogi and a mushroom duxelles sat atop a small brioche. The brioche was slightly crisp outside and soft, moist inside, and with the hanwoo bulgogi's juiciness and truffle cream cheese added in, the flavor was rich. Small in size, but it had layered flavor in one bite! My mom went crazy over how good it was lol 😋

Scallop and clam

Second was scallop and clam. A thin brick pastry was rolled up and made crispy on the outside, filled with grilled scallop and aburaga (fried tofu), clam cream sauce, apple, and onion. Gamtae (seaweed) powder was sprinkled on top, adding a pretty green accent.

At first you get the crispness of the pastry, then the subtle sweetness of the scallop and the savory, salty clam cream sauce ⊹ ˚ . ˖ ᭝ 𐚁 ˚ In the middle, the apple added a crisp, slightly tangy note, and the faint aroma of gamtae kept the cream sauce from feeling too heavy.

Sweet shrimp with gim bugak (fried seaweed crisp)

Last was sweet shrimp gim bugak (fried seaweed chip). Roasted seaweed spread with pollack roe topped with fried abalone-innard rice, sweet shrimp, and yuzu sauce. The seaweed itself was crispy and salty, the abalone-innard rice crisp outside and sticky inside. With the sweet shrimp on top, it brought that shrimp's distinctive sweet, springy texture.

The yuzu sauce especially was the highlight — after the rich savoriness of the abalone-innard rice, its refreshing aroma left the palate feeling much cleaner.

3. Shiitake with shrimp and zucchini

Next was a dish of shiitake mushroom stuffed with springy shrimp meat. The shiitake's deep aroma paired well with the shrimp's umami, and personally, the accompanying peanut-tofu sauce was my favorite!

The peanut's distinct nuttiness combined with the tofu's plainness made a soft, rich sauce that still wasn't heavy. Alongside was zucchini, cooked just enough to keep a slight crunch. Inside the zucchini were tofu and golden enoki mushroom, with mukeunji (aged kimchi) mixed in here and there, adding a salty, tangy note among the milder ingredients.

On top of the sauce was even chamnamul (aster) oil, adding a subtle fragrance. [I'd never had chamnamul oil before, so that was really interesting haha.] No single ingredient stood alone — eaten together, the flavors flowed naturally into each other.

4. Five-color gardenia noodles with abalone

Before the main meat course, five-color gardenia noodles with abalone arrived. Thinly sliced abalone sat on top of yellow gardenia-dyed noodles, garnished with black sesame julienned radish, bracken fern, shiitake mushroom, seasoned chamnamul, and perilla leaf. The colorful plate looked vibrant.

This was my personal favorite, honestly! So savory and delicious. The gamtae dressing and mustard-garlic sauce blended into the noodles for an overall clean, refreshing flavor. After all the varied dishes before it, this felt like a palate reset!

5. 1++ sirloin and hanwoo seaweed soup set

And then, finally, the main course arrived!

1++ sirloin came out along with hanwoo seaweed soup and side dishes, all served together. From gat kimchi and jangajji (soy-pickled pepper) to salted seafood and salt, everything you could pair with the meat was neatly set out — I couldn't not take a photo lol.

Grilled hanwoo with vegetable garnish

The hanwoo came lightly seared on the surface, meant to be grilled further at the table to taste. A small charcoal grill and tongs were set out so you could adjust the doneness to your own preference.

For garnish there were king oyster mushroom, zucchini, and bell pepper, and fresh wasabi was also available on the side.

I grilled mine so the outside browned nicely while the inside stayed moist, not overdone — that was the tastiest point for me.

The meat was so tender it pulled apart with barely any chewing, and the more I chewed the richer the beef flavor came through.

It was clean with no gamey smell, so it was plenty tasty with just a touch of salt, and with wasabi it was enjoyable in a whole different way.

Something I noticed while eating: the hanwoo came pre-seared in bite-sized pieces, so everyone could just grill as much as they wanted without anyone being stuck grilling the whole meal,

and instead of one big shared grill where one person keeps cooking for everyone, each seat had its own individual charcoal grill — a nice touch.

For a meeting-the-parents occasion, where it's the first time meeting, having an environment where conversation flows without awkwardness matters a lot! It felt less awkward this way — definitely worth recommending as a meeting-the-parents restaurant in Seoul!

Sea bream pot rice

Pot rice, good to eat alongside the meat, also came out. They showed us the pot first, then portioned it out to make it easy for everyone to eat.

The sea bream flesh was lightly crisp outside and moist inside, pairing well with the rice. The rice had barley and chamnamul mixed in, so you got the barley's distinctive bite along with a subtle fragrance of chives and chamnamul.

Biting into bits of sea bream added a salty umami here and there too. Eating fish with the rice felt light yet kept me reaching back for more! I enjoyed it a lot, and I think elders who like plain, clean flavors would love it even more!

Hanwoo seaweed soup

Then came the accompanying hanwoo seaweed soup. It was generously loaded with hanwoo, and the broth had that deep flavor of something simmered a long time.

Even though I was already quite full from all the other dishes, I kept reaching for the seaweed soup. In the end I was really, really full but still finished almost all of it.

6. Corn ice cream and sponge cake

After finishing the whole meal, ringing the bell brings out the closing dessert! Yellow corn ice cream, sponge cake, and crumble arrived together — pretty colors and everything about it worked 🐠·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·🐟

The corn ice cream had a clear, distinct corn flavor and was delicious!! Eating it with the crumble underneath added a crispy bite within the ice cream's soft texture, which was fun.

The black sponge cake next to it was fluffy and blended smoothly with the ice cream when eaten together. ㅠㅠㅠ It felt like a sweet, soft finish to the heavier flavors of the meat and food from earlier in the course!

And there were two more cute desserts!

They even lit a candle for us and brought it out with a birthday card.. 𓆝⋆.ೃ*: a cheese-filled persimmon roll and yakgwa (honey cookie) topped with walnut.

Inside the chewy dried persimmon was soft cheese, and the sweetness and nuttiness blended naturally, while the yakgwa was subtly sweet with the walnut's nuttiness added — it seemed like it would go well with tea too.

Usu Gongdeok's effort to keep celebrating my mom's birthday right to the very end left a real impression!

How Usu differs from hanjeongsik: the verdict on Lunch C

Having eaten the whole course, it really hit me that this place presents Korean food in a way that's a bit different from what you'd typically imagine as hanjeongsik (a traditional Korean set meal)! Using familiar Korean ingredients but with unusual plating and combinations, I found myself looking forward to each new dish as it arrived ♥️♥️

Above all, the staff explained each dish thoroughly throughout the course, so instead of just eating, we could enjoy each ingredient and composition with understanding. ε(•ω• з ) The calm atmosphere and refined food made it a great fit for a special date, a family gathering, or any important meal.

This was a meal for my mom's birthday, and enjoying the course slowly in a quiet room, capping it off with a Polaroid photo, made it a memory our family will keep for a long time!

If you're looking for a Korean course that's a bit different from your usual Korean food, I'd recommend trying Usu Gongdeok as a meeting-the-parents restaurant in Seoul!