Chungmuro solo dining: bossam, soba and jang kalguksu, Nagwon-ui Soba

I was hunting for somewhere to eat in Chungmuro and ended up frozen in front of the menu board for a while. Bossam or soba or kalguksu — I had to choose. Normally I'd just pick whatever I was craving that day and be done with it. But this time, I felt like if I gave up on any one of the three, I'd be thinking about the other two all the way home. That's why, on September 22, I ordered bossam so, jang kalguksu, and Jeonju-style soba together at Nagwon-ui Soba Bossam Kalguksu Chungmuro Station Main Branch.

How to walk to Nagwon-ui Soba from Chungmuro Station

It's about 295m from Chungmuro Station Exit 1 to the restaurant. Walking out of the station, you'll arrive at a building on 2 Seoae-ro, and the restaurant is on the 2nd floor. If you only scan the ground floor you might walk right past it, so it's worth looking up once you're in front of the building. At first, since the name has 'soba' in it, I planned to center my meal around a bowl of soba. But once I read on and saw 'bossam kalguksu' in the name too, I had to revise my plan. The restaurant's own name had already started the ordering debate for me.

Inside Nagwon-ui Soba: the room and the seats

Walking in, I felt relieved right away — the place was spacious. When you order several dishes, all the food and dishware arrive at once, and if the table is cramped, your hands get busy before you've even started eating.

Here, I didn't have to worry about that. The owner was also friendly and welcoming. For a first-time visitor, even picking a menu can feel like a small task, but I was able to order comfortably and just start eating. In my head, I quietly crowned myself the 'Chungmuro dining master' of the day.

Ordering three dishes at once, and which to try first

Even after ordering, I set myself a plan of attack. If I ate the soba first, my mouth would feel refreshingly cool; if I started with the jang kalguksu, the broth's impression would linger longer. The bossam looked like it would pair well with either.

Honestly, I didn't need to overthink my eating order this much. But during those few minutes waiting for the food, this question felt surprisingly important. Haven't you ever ordered several dishes and agonized over where your first chopsticks would go?

Bossam so: what shows up when you eat it slowly

I reached for the bossam first. Bossam is a dish where the flow of the whole plate only reveals itself if you eat slowly. Pick up a piece and pop it in your mouth, and at first you feel the grain of the meat; the more you chew, the softer parts and the slightly firmer parts come through in turn.

Before I'd even finished one piece, I was already calculating whether to alternate with the soba next or take a spoonful of the kalguksu broth. Ordering the bossam so meant I could keep the fun of pairing it with the other two dishes in reserve.

Jeonju-style soba: the dish that changes the pace

The Jeonju-style soba changed the pace of the meal. Mid-bossam, the moment I picked up the noodles, even the movement of my hand changed. I lifted the noodles with my chopsticks and took only as much as would fit in one bite. Inside my mouth, the sensation when the noodles first touched my tongue was different from after a few chews.

Going from soba back to bossam naturally gave me a beat to pause. I'd expected putting three dishes on the table to feel chaotic, but instead it created time to choose my next bite.

Jang kalguksu: the surprise of the meal

This is where my prediction went sideways. Given the restaurant's name, I'd assumed the soba would be the dish I remembered most. But after one bite of the jang kalguksu, my chopsticks kept drifting back to that bowl. If that's a failure, so be it — the 'soba-centered meal plan' I'd built in my head collapsed after just a few bites of kalguksu.

The jang kalguksu also came with egg and gim. First I took a spoonful of broth, then picked up the noodles. Then, eating the part touched by the egg, the sensation of each bite changed even within the same bowl. When gim rode along with the noodles too, it added aroma as I chewed. Broth alone, broth with noodles, then with egg and gim added — checking each combination one by one, I somehow ended up scripting my own tasting order, even though nobody had asked me to review anything.

The jang kalguksu in particular was hard to put the spoon down on. I'd eat a chopstick-full of noodles, sip the broth, then move the spoon toward the egg. There was bossam, there was soba, and yet I kept lingering over the kalguksu. If I'd had company, they might have asked, 'Didn't you say you came here for soba?' Yes. That's exactly what I thought too, walking in.

Can one person order all three dishes?

Ordering three dishes together gave me a different kind of enjoyment than eating each one on its own. I'd go from bossam to soba, then back to a sip of jang kalguksu broth — a combination I never would have discovered if I'd finished just one dish start to finish. That's not to say you should always order three. It's just that the approach I chose that day suited me well. If you're visiting with a group, it might work nicely for everyone to order what they each want and share a little of everything.

What to check before visiting Nagwon-ui Soba

Before visiting, it's worth double-checking the hours. There were discrepancies between the hours posted in-store and those in the intro text. The location is 2 Seoae-ro, 2nd floor, Jung-gu, Seoul. It's close to Chungmuro Station, making it easy to reach by public transit, and if you drive, check nearby paid parking lots.

The best choice I made that day was not narrowing my meal down to one dish. I ate the bossam, tasted the Jeonju-style soba, and unexpectedly lingered longest over the jang kalguksu.

Next time I think of this place in Chungmuro, I'll probably think first of the bowl topped with egg and gim.

I walked in for the soba and walked out remembering the jang kalguksu.