Gachiul Korean restaurant brunch with Mom, kimchi on nurungji: Gim

What kind of place is Gim Myeongju Tteuranchae Bapsang Bucheon Main Branch?

This is a Gachiul favorite, a Bucheon Korean restaurant great for eating with your parents: 📍Address 59 Giljuro 560beon-gil, Wonmi-gu, Bucheon-si, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea / ⏰Hours daily 10:30–21:00, last order 20:00 / 🚘 Parking available.

Today was a day off, and this is my review of a weekday lunch brunch I had with my mom at this Gachiul favorite in Bucheon, Gim Myeongju Tteuranchae Bapsang.

I was genuinely shocked by the scale of the place. It's a huge restaurant sitting right at the foot of a big mountain.

There's nothing else around — it's a Korean restaurant surrounded by mountains. You know how the restaurants tucked at the foot of a mountain are always the real deal, right? There are even waiting chairs set up under the trees.

You go up the stairs (no elevator), and you can join the waitlist through Catch Table.

Already busy at 11am on a weekday

This is the inside of the restaurant. It was just as spacious inside as it looked from outside. And what really surprised me was that we visited at 11am on a weekday, yet even this huge restaurant already had customers😳

Tteuranchae Bapsang prices and how ordering works

This is the menu. The basic Tteuranchae Bapsang set costs ₩13,000 per person. So my mom and I ordered the basic set for two plus the à la carte charcoal-grilled pork. For groups of 4, at least one à la carte dish must be ordered — the basic set alone isn't sold.

Our order — Basic Tteuranchae Bapsang set, ₩13,000 x 2, charcoal-grilled pork ₩18,000.

Refilling banchan and rice at the self-serve corner

This is the self-serve corner. You can refill banchan, and the rice in the pot can be refilled too. Gochujang (red chili paste) and sesame oil are set out, so you can make your own bibimbap.

The same banchan that come with Tteuranchae Bapsang are all here at the self-serve corner too.

The 12 banchan and cheonggukjang spread

Here's the full spread. The 12 banchan come out neatly arranged. The cheonggukjang served in an earthenware pot was savory, loaded generously with tofu and vegetables.

The charcoal-grilled pork we added for 18,000 won

I liked that the à la carte charcoal-grilled pork wasn't in a red spicy marinade. The pork sitting on onions on the hot plate had a nice sweet-savory taste.

Stone-pot rice and nurungji (scorched rice in water)

Here's the stone-pot rice.

The reason I love stone-pot rice — even if it makes me sound like an old lady — is that you get to make nurungji (scorched rice tea) with it. Pouring water into the stone pot and topping the resulting nurungji with just one piece of kimchi is such a good taste, I don't know if you'd get it~~

A closer look at each banchan

Spinach, japchae (stir-fried glass noodles), and lettuce wraps. The spinach was sweet and fragrant. The vegetables were fresh.

Fried eggplant, kimchi, lotus root. Fried food is always good, right?! The kimchi was a bit spicy for me, but it was fermented just right and so delicious that I put a piece on my nurungji.

Pickled chili peppers, pickled perilla leaves, and yeolmu (young radish) namul. The namul was soft and easy to eat, and I liked that it wasn't overly seasoned.

Pickled garlic stems, braised potatoes, and doraji (bellflower root) namul. Every single one was delicious. Thumbs up👍👍👍

The dessert corner and final thoughts

There's a dessert corner with a selection of mix coffee and Americano, plus old-fashioned Korean snacks for sale.

I ate so much because it was all so good that I was completely stuffed, so I grabbed a mix coffee. This is a great Korean set-meal restaurant to bring your parents to.