Western-style pork omakase holiday dinner in Magok, Seoul: Don Tamguso

I heard a new pork omakase (donmakase) place called Don Tamguso (돈탐구소) had opened between Magok Station and Magongnaru Station, so I went over this holiday! 🐷✨ A pork omakase dinner for around ₩50,000 per person sounded reasonable right away. The menu is also a bit different from a typical pork omakase, leaning more Western-style, which made it feel fresh. 🩷

Don Tamguso location, hours and how to book

Don Tamguso is at 11 Magokjungang 6-ro, Unit 128, Gangseo-gu, Seoul, South Korea. The entrance is outside the building, so keep that in mind. You can book through Naver Reservation or Catch Table, and parking is available.

• Lunch: seating 1 11:30-12:30 / seating 2 13:00-14:00 (60-minute meal)
• Dinner: 17:30-19:10 / 18:00-19:40 / 18:30-20:10 / 19:00-20:40 / 19:30-21:10 (100-minute meal)
• Weekends and holidays: 15:00-16:40 / 17:00-18:40 / 19:00-20:40 (100-minute meal)

Inside Don Tamguso: good for a date?

The whole interior is L-shaped counter seating, so you can watch the chefs cook up close, and it suits an omakase well. The look is wood tones with deep green, the lighting is soft and the space is cozy, so it works for a date or a light dinner with a drink! When I visited, everyone there was on a date (anniversaries, birthdays and so on) 👩🏻‍❤️‍👨🏻

Don Tamguso menu prices and dinner course

The menu is split into lunch and dinner prices. One unusual thing: there is a lunch half course!

• Lunch omakase ₩26,000 per person
• Lunch half course (3 items) ₩15,000 per person
• Dinner omakase ₩58,000 per person

Today's dinner course was seven courses: Soup - Lasagna - Meat 1 - Meat 2 - Signature Burger - Abalone Risotto - Dessert.

The dinner I had that day followed the order of the photos below. With pork as the star and a variety of dishes served as a course, it was a different kind of fun from a regular meat course that only lets you try one cut!

Soup: chestnut, button mushroom, walnut

The first dish of the dinner course was chestnut soup. It was smooth, with the nutty, gentle sweetness chestnuts have. It was sweeter than I expected, a cozy, dessert-like way to start. 🩷🌰

Lasagna: shiitake, white ragù, mozzarella, smoky sauce

The second dish was shiitake lasagna. Instead of lasagna sheets, white ragù, tomato and mozzarella were layered between shiitake mushrooms, served with a smoky sauce. The shiitake were moist and chewy, which made it a fun twist. Personally, I really loved this one 🧀

Pairing with red wine

Other tables were having lots of wine and highballs, so we ordered two glasses of red wine too 🍷🍷 I was curious which wine it was, but it seemed busy that day, and they set it down at our table without any explanation. Still, even I, who don't really like wine, found it easy to drink, and it went well with the meat.

Meat 1: shio koji tenderloin, button mushroom, sun-dried tomato

This was pork tenderloin marinated in shio koji (salted rice malt), grilled with button mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes. The tenderloin was impressively soft and juicy, with no gamey pork smell, just a clean, mild savoriness. The inside was cooked to a faint pink.

Personally, this felt the most like a real "donmakase" of everything I ate that day 🐷🩷 It's what I'd pictured, too: pork grilled right then and there! It also came with homemade pickles. The tangy, crunchy pickles kept the meat from feeling heavy, and I loved them 🫜

Meat 2: homemade bacon, minari, fennel, Sichuan pepper

Next was homemade bacon with minari (water dropwort), fennel and Sichuan pepper. The salty, savory bacon was joined by the fresh fragrance of minari and the gentle spice of fennel and Sichuan pepper, which made it a nice change 🐷

Chili pasta: carne con chili, nachos, rigatoni

The chili pasta was full of Mexican-style flavor. You put the rigatoni on top of the nachos served alongside, and eating crunchy nachos with pasta was different and fun! 🍝 Just note it's spicier than you might expect 🌶️

Signature burger: homemade jambon, arugula, carrot râpée, aioli

And the best thing I ate that day was Don Tamguso's signature burger! Salty jambon (ham) with the freshness of carrot râpée, and above all the nutty, slightly sharp aioli sauce was the real kick! 🍔

The bun was toasted golden in butter, adding a rich flavor and a light crispness. All the ingredients worked together so well that I finished it in no time!

Abalone risotto: Wando abalone, Grana Padano

The Wando abalone risotto, the last savory dish, was delicious too. It used barley instead of rice, with a pleasant popping texture, and the rich, nutty Grana Padano cheese made it stick to the taste buds~ Chewy abalone on top bumped up the satisfaction! 😋

Dessert: blueberry compote panna cotta

The dessert seems to change a little from day to day. That day it was panna cotta topped with blueberry compote 🫐 It was a bit looser and softer than usual panna cotta, and the sweet blueberry compote made it a fresh way to finish!

Don Tamguso dinner: should you expect a pork omakase?

For ₩58,000 per person, the Don Tamguso dinner let me try a variety of dishes made with pork as a course. Some were memorable, like the shio koji tenderloin, the signature burger and the abalone risotto.

However, if you go expecting a "donmakase," it may feel a little different. Pork is used across many dishes, but the course is closer to Western-style cooking with pork than to an omakase centered on the meat itself.

So it's a good fit if you want to try new styles of pork dishes or are looking for a date that's a bit out of the ordinary. Because you can watch the cooking up close from the counter seats, I'd recommend it for a date or anniversary when you want an atmospheric dinner.

Recommended for

• People who want pork dishes different from a typical Korean barbecue place
• People who want to enjoy a variety of dishes as a leisurely course
• People looking for a nice date restaurant in Magok
• People who want a special evening with wine or a highball