Pohang Korean BBQ with outdoor patio seating near Yeongildae

Today, after wrapping up the absolute final round of moving prep, my wife and I came all the way to Yeongildae in Pohang for some good pork! There are a lot of great pork spots these days, but it's rare to find one where both the meal menu and the grilled pork belly are equally good — that's what brought us back here. This is my Nth revisit review — I think I've been here more than three times now — of Neolpanji Pohang Yeongildae Branch, a Pohang BBQ spot by Yeongildae.

Neolpanji Pohang Yeongildae Branch: hours and where to park

Neolpanji Pohang Yeongildae Branch, a Pohang restaurant known for makchang (grilled beef intestines) and samgyeopsal, is open Sunday to Friday 17:00–24:00, and Saturday 17:00 until 01:00 the next day! There's no dedicated parking lot, but you can use the Yeongildae Beach public parking lot or the street public parking nearby. We parked at the Yeongildae Beach public lot :)

What the outdoor patio seats and indoor room are like, and is there a wait?

We always do an opening run so we never wait, but this place does get quite a wait — the Catch Table waitlist tends to run pretty long too. You can really tell the owner of Neolpanji Pohang Yeongildae Branch puts a lot of effort not just into the taste, but into the space itself. When the weather's nice, you can eat while getting some fresh air outside; in the hot summer they shut the doors tight and blast the AC. I've visited across different seasons and never had a single uncomfortable moment :) My wife said she wanted to try the outdoor yajang style once, so we decided to eat in the spot directly connected to the street, as in the first photo.

Outside it looks super retro, but inside is really clean. It's a kids-zone restaurant, and every seat has a chair for stashing your belongings and outerwear, so it's a nice place to eat without clutter :) It was also fun catching the owners' humor here and there.

First off, the sign listing the head chef as 'Made in Arab' is dizzying, and the owner — who by any measure looks Korean — is labeled 'Made in China,' which is baffling too. The place looks playful, but they're not playing around with how they manage ingredients. The reason we can't forget the pork belly here is that it's both wet-aged and dry-aged, giving it incredible juiciness and aroma. And the texture of the pork skin is also super chewy... I always end up singing this place's praises every time I come.

What we ordered and what it cost: 5 servings of ogyeopsal, pork skin, beef tartare noodles

So my wife and I dove straight in with five servings of ogyeopsal (130g, ₩10,900), one serving of pork skin (100g, ₩6,900), and beef tartare bibim noodles (₩8,000). Here, if you want wasabi or hot pepper, you have to ask for it directly. And oddly enough, I usually eat wasabi wherever I go, but here I barely touched it — because the restaurant's own special sauce combo was just better :)

There's also a review event offering mukbap (acorn jelly soup) or sulbap (rice with makgeolli lees), but since we'd already ordered a ton of food, we decided to skip it this time.

Side dishes at Neolpanji: soy sauce dip with bean flour, radish kimchi and green onion salad

The soy sauce and roasted bean flour combo here goes really well with the pork. The radish kimchi and green onion salad aren't heavily seasoned — instead you really taste the slight bite of the radish and green onion themselves. At first glance it might seem underprepped, but the light sweet-and-salty touch with a pleasant tang matches the freshness of the vegetables so well that it doesn't feel lacking at all. Usually places make radish kimchi too sweet or the green onion salad too sour and salty, but not here, so I ended up eating a lot of vegetables, which I liked.

How thick is the cross-aged ogyeopsal at 130g for 10,900 won?

Every time the meat arrives, my wife and I just stare at it going 'whoa'... You might think there aren't many pieces, but each one is quite thick. Since it's cross-aged meat, the cut itself starts out considerably thicker than the samgyeopsal you'd find elsewhere. And if you look at the fat-to-lean ratio, you can tell — this is genuinely well-selected skin-off pork belly... 130g for ₩10,900, and considering Yeongildae real estate prices, getting cross-aged pork belly at this price feels like a real deal.

The owner laid all the meat on the grill himself, then told us the vegetables could burn so we should flip them often and eat them together with the meat. This place doesn't grill over charcoal. They use a well-heated stone plate that keeps the meat from touching the flame directly. That method does produce fewer carcinogens. But thanks to the incredibly strong heat, you don't miss charcoal at all — the meat cooks fast.

The weather today was really cool. My wife and I both thought the AC was on and kept saying how refreshing it was — turns out it wasn't haha. Grilling pork belly in weather like this at a place like this really does feel like paradise :) My sweet wife let me have the good seat so I could really soak in the beauty of yajang dining!

In return, I grilled diligently and let her eat first, then tried a piece myself.

Both my wife and I instantly made that face of pure truth... The moment you bite in, the juices just burst out. The aging on this meat is seriously perfect. And dipping it into the sweet soy-based BBQ sauce with bean flour is out of this world — even wrapped in lettuce, the bursting juices keep you smiling. I'd done so much moving prep leading up to tomorrow's big move, and this flavor just wiped away all the exhaustion... bb

Sweet sauce and bean flour instead of salted anchovy dip

The salted anchovy sauce combo is genuinely delicious too. But the secret sweet sauce plus bean flour combo is so ridiculously good that I'd recommend trying that method first before trying it any other way.

The extra honeycomb pork skin order: the best pork skin of a lifetime

Then came the pork skin we ordered as an extra... Wow, I had no idea I'd meet the pork skin of a lifetime here today.

Eating it with my wife, I couldn't help but laugh in disbelief. Wow, this is genuinely delicious... The bottom part has this super chewy texture as a baseline, and the top part has a texture that melts apart, paired with a killer sweet-and-salty seasoning that's just art. Pork skin of a lifetime... this is insane. You really have to try the pork skin here. Even the makchang here once won over my skeptical self who doesn't usually like makchang, and now even the pork skin is pure art. My wife, who said she'd only have one piece, ended up eating four pieces in a row — just like she couldn't resist four walnut cakes earlier today. It's the kind of flavor that could win over even picky eaters. I'd absolutely buy this again. You really need to try this one.

Beef tartare bibim noodles at 8,000 won: how was it as a closing dish?

Next up: beef tartare bibim noodles. It comes with a broth too, which tastes a bit like the broth used for mukbap, slushed down. After the insane flavors of the pork belly and pork skin, this dish had a lot to live up to. I dug in wondering how it would measure up.

This tastes different from the usual gochujang-based beef tartare — more like a hoe-muchim (spicy raw fish salad) flavor. Compared to the sharp vinegared-gochujang taste in bibim noodles, this has less vinegar tang and leans more heavily on gochujang. But it's not heavy or dull — there's plenty of sweetness, and the sauce is genuinely addictive. I'd buy this again too! The gochujang stew and bibimbap here are both fantastic, but this beef tartare bibim noodles gives them real competition as a choice.

Is Neolpanji Pohang Yeongildae Branch worth returning to?

Honestly, I strongly recommend this place bb The owner is super friendly, the meat is delicious, the meal menu is delicious, and even the location and value for money are great...! My wife, who grew up eating Mungyeong mineral-fed pork and has high standards for pork, raved that the meat here is chewy and plump (not the instant noodle kind haha) and that the pork skin is genuinely delicious, and said she wants to come again :) There was nothing to complain about here, so I highly, highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't been, and especially to anyone visiting Yeongildae :)

This post reflects my personal, subjective review, so your taste may differ, but I hope it's a helpful reference for your own choice!