Sinsa Chinese restaurant: ₩20,000 tangsuyuk with 2 dim sum, Samsin

Heard there was a new fusion Chinese restaurant in Sinsa-dong where a chef with Michelin two-star experience and a chef from hotel dining team up to combine Korean, Chinese and Japanese cooking — so off to Sinsa-dong I went.

Where is Samsin Garosu-gil, and what does parking cost? Valet, ₩5,000 for 2 hours

The location is great — just one block in from the main Garosu-gil street. You can get there in under 10 minutes on foot from Sinsa Station, and there's no shortage of dessert spots nearby for after your meal. Parking is always a headache around Garosu-gil and Sinsa-dong, but here valet parking is ₩5,000 for 2 hours, so even if you drive, you can visit without any parking stress.

Inside Samsin Garosu-gil: interior mood and table setting

The interior mood is quite upscale. Since I'd made a reservation, my table was already set when I arrived, with tableware in gold and jade tones that gleamed with a premium feel. Makes sense that chefs with hotel backgrounds would go for a premium atmosphere.

What's in the ₩25,000 Samsin lunch course?

Given how upscale the atmosphere is, the prices are... surprisingly kind. It honestly felt cheap even by Sinsa Station standards. At first glance you might think it's not exactly cheap, but for a place with this kind of premium atmosphere right in the middle of Sinsa-dong, the pricing is very generous. The Samsin lunch course in particular is just ₩25,000, and it comes with dim sum, tangsuyuk, and a main dish — an insane lineup. These days even a neighborhood Chinese place charges ₩25,000 for tangsuyuk alone, so two people eating there easily hits ₩50,000 anyway... but here, ₩50,000 gets you a full course with dim sum included? That's a ridiculous price in a good way.

A restaurant serving dim sum at all is a statement of confidence in its cooking, so I figured the food would be reliably good and ordered accordingly. The lunch course lineup is solid, but rather than two main dishes I wanted more dim sum, so I ordered just one main dish plus two dim sum, the tangsuyuk, and a jjamppong.

Tokyo tangsuyuk, ₩20,000: butter in a stone pot, sauce poured at the table

The tangsuyuk arrived first, and unusually it's served in something like a stone pot, with the sauce poured over it right in front of you. I was told there's butter underneath the pork, so as it melts the dish gets even richer.

And to think this is only ₩20,000 — wow, the value here is impressive all over again. The sauce wasn't too sour and not too sweet either, a well-balanced classic tangsuyuk sauce, and the frying was superb. Crispy on the outside, but crispy enough that the crunch even reached the roof of your mouth. The pork pieces were thick and genuinely delicious. My one small regret: since it's the poured-sauce style, it gets a bit soggy over time, so you end up longing for that first crispy-sweet bite forever. Meanwhile, as the butter underneath melts, the sauce takes on a curiously rich texture — a nice kick at first, but it got a little heavy toward the end, so I'd love to try it again dipped-sauce style next time. The combination of salty butter, sweet sauce and crispy texture was distinctive, and the frying itself was done so well that I'd call this a must-order if you visit Samsin.

Two dim sum at Samsin: shrimp har gow and truffle shao mai

And now, the dim sum! It's been a while since I had dim sum, so I had high hopes — and unlike the rest of the menu, this had no fusion twist, just classic, proper dim sum. Plump shrimp meat is always a safe bet.

This one's shao mai with truffle, shrimp and meat inside. Called shao mai, but it actually looks like a little drawstring pouch. This too was a solid, classic flavor.

Basic jjamppong to finish the meal

Then, to cleanse the palate, I ordered a jjamppong. Samsin has quite a variety of jjamppong on the menu — tebanaka meat jjamppong, white jjamppong, emperor three-seafood jjamppong, and more — but since I just wanted it for the broth, I went with the most basic version. Even the basic jjamppong doesn't skimp on seafood. The flavor is clean, too — nothing artificial-tasting, and barely any spice, which makes it a nice light finish at the end of a course. It clearly felt designed with course dining in mind. If you're ordering jjamppong à la carte on its own, though, I think the emperor three-seafood jjamppong would be the better choice.

Samsin Garosu-gil: is the à la carte order worth it?

Between the sleek oriental interior and the original Korean-Chinese-Japanese fusion cooking from a Michelin two-star-trained chef's hands, this was a meal that delighted both the eyes and the palate — a genuinely complete experience. It's great for a light lunch of jjamppong or dim sum near Sinsa Station, and just as good for an evening in a private room over drinks with the course menu or signature dishes. That's my honest review of Samsin Garosu-gil. If you go, make sure to order the Tokyo tangsuyuk!