Icheon Korean restaurant lunch special until 2:30pm: Neul Gogi Jip

Whenever I'm in Icheon I tend to gravitate toward rice or Korean food, and this time I went for ssambap (wrap rice) at lunch. These days, even for a single meal, I find myself drawn to places where I can eat a bit of everything rather than just a couple of side dishes and one main. I especially love eating meat with wrap greens, so while looking up good ssambap spots in Icheon I ended up at Neul Gogi Jip.

Neul Gogi Jip carries the title of a master chef of Korean cuisine, so I had some expectations going in — and it really did feel like a place to have a solid, filling Korean meal.

How late can you order the lunch special at Neul Gogi Jip?

The Neul Ssambap Jeongsik lunch set at Neul Gogi Jip Icheon Main Branch can be ordered until 2:30pm. If you're visiting around lunchtime it's a menu worth keeping in mind — especially since there's a set cutoff time, so it's good to know that in advance.

We arrived right at lunchtime and ordered the ssambap set right away. After a short wait, a table full of food arrived, and from the first look the spread was more generous than I expected.

What comes with the Neul Ssambap Jeongsik lunch special

The Neul Ssambap Jeongsik lunch set is made up of the following:

• Beef tendon doenjang jjigae (soybean paste stew)
• Jeyuk bokkeum (spicy stir-fried pork)
• A variety of side dishes
• Hwangmi pot rice
• Wrap greens

Just going by the name, you might think it's a simple ssambap set, but once the table was actually laid out — rice, stew, jeyuk bokkeum, sides, all together — it turned out to be quite substantial.

Wrap greens: as many as you like from the salad bar

What I especially liked was the salad bar in the middle of Neul Gogi Jip. The wrap greens are set up there so you can go grab as much as you want yourself.

When eating ssambap, the wrap greens have a way of running out faster than you'd expect, but here you can just go get more whenever you need without feeling awkward about it.

Jeyuk bokkeum and beef tendon doenjang jjigae

Jeyuk bokkeum is a must in a ssambap set. It's fine on its own with rice, but I still think it's best piled onto a wrap green.

And the beef tendon doenjang jjigae that came with it was really good! With beef tendon added instead of a regular doenjang jjigae, it was easy to eat both the broth and the chunks together. When you're eating ssambap you tend to keep going for just rice and meat, but a spoonful of the stew in between goes really well with it. A hot spoonful of stew with a bit of rice was also great.

The 7 side dishes and the hwangmi pot rice

Seven side dishes came out too, making the whole table pretty varied. I love it when a Korean restaurant serves a lot of different side dishes — it keeps the meal from feeling monotonous, rather than just eating the main dish. Wrap some jeyuk bokkeum, try a side dish, have some rice with the doenjang jjigae, try another side dish. Eating this way, it might not look like much food at first, but once you actually start eating, you fill up quite a bit.

And of course, when you're eating in Icheon, the rice can't be skipped. This ssambap set came with hwangmi pot rice.

Being pot rice, it had a different feel from regular steamed rice, and eating the warm rice with jeyuk bokkeum or doenjang jjigae worked really well. I'm not usually someone who eats more rice than meat, but that day, going back and forth between the sides, jeyuk bokkeum and wraps, I ended up eating quite a bit of rice.

Ssambap as a concept means you get vegetables along with meat and rice, so as a single meal it's definitely filling. What I personally liked most was being able to grab as many wrap greens as I wanted from the salad bar. For people who love ssambap, sometimes the greens run out before the meat does, but here you can add more whenever you want, so we could keep wrapping generously right to the end.

Good for two, and for a family meal in Icheon

I thought a lunch set would mean a simple spread, but once the food actually arrived — beef tendon doenjang jjigae, jeyuk bokkeum, 6 kinds of wrap greens, 7 side dishes, hwangmi pot rice — it turned out to be quite generous. It's plenty to share between two people, and I think it would work well for a family who enjoys Korean food too.

When you're not sure what to eat for lunch in Icheon — meat alone feels too heavy, but a simple meal feels underwhelming — this kind of ssambap set hits right in the middle. You get meat, rice and plenty of vegetables all at once. We walked out completely full that day.

At first I figured one ssambap set would be plenty, but by the time we'd kept wrapping jeyuk bokkeum with greens and finished off the doenjang jjigae with the pot rice, we were quite full by the end of the meal. If you're looking for a Korean lunch spot in Icheon, the ssambap set at Neul Gogi Jip is worth considering.

The lunch set can be ordered until 2:30pm, so it's handy to remember if you tend to eat lunch a bit later. With meat, rice, stew, side dishes and wrap greens all in one meal, it left me feeling like I'd had a proper full meal. If you like wrapping your food in greens like I do, having as much as you want from the salad bar in the middle should be pretty satisfying too.

If you're looking for a hearty Korean lunch in Icheon, I'd recommend trying the Neul Ssambap Jeongsik lunch set at Neul Gogi Jip — you get a generous spread without having to order several dishes separately!! :)