Dongtan gomtang restaurant for two, dumplings and chili broth: Baekok

When you're eating lunch at a department store, it's oddly hard to decide what to have, right? Something too heavy feels like a lot, but going too light leaves you unsatisfied. Lately on days like that I keep craving something with warm broth and rice to fill me up properly. So this time, along with some shopping, I stopped by Baekok Dongtan on the basement floor of Lotte Department Store Dongtan :)

Baekok Dongtan is a Korean restaurant centered on gomtang (bone broth soup) :) It's on the basement floor of Lotte Department Store Dongtan, so it's a convenient spot to grab a meal while shopping. We visited as a pair this time and ordered the pork gomtang set and the yeolgomtang.

What is on the menu at Baekok Dongtan, and what comes in the pork gomtang set?

Baekok Dongtan's menu is headlined by pork gomtang, along with cabbage dumplings, bulkkorangji, yak-gomtang, and yeolgomtang! We each picked one — the pork gomtang set and the yeolgomtang.

The pork gomtang set we ordered came with ✅ pork gomtang ✅ 2 cabbage dumplings ✅ 1 soda, which made for a clean, complete meal.

If just gomtang alone feels a little lacking, or you want a side dish too, this set seems like a good pick.

Pork gomtang: a clean, mild broth

Baekok Dongtan's pork gomtang is made with domestic pork shoulder and a bone broth simmered for a long time, they say. Since it's a gomtang with pork in it, I thought the broth might be a bit heavy, but it was cleaner and milder than expected!

Eating the warm broth with rice made for a lunch that felt filling but not heavy?! I think this would especially suit people who prefer mild broth-based dishes over strong-flavored food. The pork went well with the broth too, so after finishing a bowl I felt properly full haha.

The 2 cabbage dumplings that come with the set

I also tried the cabbage dumplings included in the pork gomtang set — dumplings filled with meat and kimchi, and thanks to the cabbage they felt a bit milder than typical dumplings!

A spoonful of gomtang followed by a bite of dumpling made a pretty good combo. If you feel like gomtang alone isn't quite enough, ordering the set seems worth it. And best of all, there were exactly 2 dumplings, which was great for splitting between two people :)

Want it spicy? Order the yeolgomtang with cheongyang chili

And the one I was curious about — the yeolgomtang! Baekok Dongtan's yeolgomtang is a pork gomtang built on the regular gomtang base, seasoned spicy and sharp with cheongyang chili peppers, they say.

While the pork gomtang was mild and clean-tasting, the yeolgomtang definitely delivered a spicy, sharp broth flavor. I usually like a bit of a spicy kick in my soup dishes, so the yeolgomtang went really well with rice too haha. I think you can just pick based on your mood~

• Craving a mild broth day → pork gomtang
• Craving a sharp, spicy broth day → yeolgomtang

Thinking about it this way makes picking a menu easy!

Verdict: for two, order the pork gomtang set plus a yeolgomtang

Overall, the dishes I tried at Baekok Dongtan that day felt like they highlighted the clean, natural flavor of gomtang rather than strong seasoning~

So it was a good place to visit when you want a filling lunch while shopping, or when you're craving warm-broth Korean food! Especially if you're going as a pair, I'd recommend ordering like we did — pork gomtang set + yeolgomtang — so you can try both the mild and the spicy versions :)