Gangseo Korean restaurant with birthday beef jeon: Mikodam

While looking for a great Korean restaurant to take my parents to after their trip to Tokyo, I found Mikodam Magok-Balsan Branch (미꼬담 마곡발산점), a place lots of people visit for family gatherings and with their parents!!!

Mikodam Magok-Balsan Branch location and parking

It’s on the first floor at 42 Gangseo-ro 54-gil, Gangseo-gu, Seoul, and 261 m from Exit 4 of Balsan Station on Line 5. Hours are 11:00–22:00 daily.

Parking

There’s a parking tower right beside the restaurant, with floors 1 through 4! Thanks to that, parking was easy haha.

Outside and inside the restaurant

When you come down the stairs from the parking building, there’s a sign pointing the way! It’s all the way at the back of the building, so just keep walking straight in haha.

There were tables for four and six. I visited on a weekend evening and it was packed! There are private rooms farther inside too, so it’s seriously ideal for family gatherings!!

I’ve never seen a place with this many high chairs. I can’t even imagine how many families come here ㅠ

What comes in the Hansanggadeuk three-person set

Menu

Mikodam’s main dishes are miyeokguk (seaweed soup), cockles, and yukjeon (pan-fried beef)! They have set menus by group size, so there’s no need to agonize over what to order!

For water, aprons, and so on, just press the staff-call button beneath the kiosk! We ordered the Hansanggadeuk three-person set: one beef miyeokguk, two soy-sauce cockle rice bowls, and one medium yukjeon.

For a Korean set-meal restaurant, the ingredients were really good! Premium Wando seaweed, cockles from Beolgyo and Yeosu, and freshly cooked Sindongjin rice!! It really felt like we’d come to a proper Korean set-meal place haha.

Even the spoons and chopsticks came so thoughtfully wrapped in sleeves!

A table overflowing from the side dishes onward

These were the side dishes that came out first! Stir-fried spicy pork, japchae (stir-fried glass noodles), and mackerel as side dishes... really..!!!

Starting with the seasoned vegetable dishes, the selection was satisfying and seemed like something everyone would enjoy, no matter their age!

Honestly, the side dishes alone were enough to polish off a whole bowl of rice!!

And especially, dipping the mackerel and gim (roasted seaweed) in soy sauce was the ultimate rice thief! A menu item kids would love too!!!

As we ate the side dishes, the main dishes arrived—and it truly was a table completely full of food haha!!

Beef seaweed soup, soy-sauce cockles, and beef jeon

We ordered one beef seaweed soup, and the portion was enormous...!! It was plenty to share among three people, and it had lots of beef too!

Two portions of soy-sauce cockles!! This was a pretty big portion too, with a lovely soy-sauce aroma and seasoning that had soaked right into the cockles! It comes in a large bowl so you can mix it with rice haha.

What is there even to say about yukjeon ㅠㅠ It was beautifully golden and cooked through, and with the seasoned chives, it was an unbeatable combo.

All ready to eat like this lol. Maybe because they’d just returned from traveling abroad, my parents had really wanted Korean food—and seeing how happy they were made me happy too!

I quickly mixed up the cockles first!! Salty and nutty, it kept drawing me back for another bite haha.

The cockles were plump, and it wasn’t overwhelmingly spicy, so I could enjoy it without any burden haha.

And this yukjeon was the perfect side whether eaten with the seaweed soup or with the cockle bibimbap!

With a bowl of white rice, it was filling and even more delicious!

Puffed corn dessert and the birthday beef jeon offer

And right in front of the entrance, there was puffed corn and post-meal tea like this!!

The puffed corn in this rice cooker was seriously delicious. lol It was so warm and sweet that I had it twice haha.

Such a perfect K-dessert combination to have after a meal.

And at Mikodam, a large yukjeon is free when you visit within one week before or after your birthday!!!

A Balsan Station family meal with my parents

I visited Mikodam to have Korean food with my parents! The food arrived generously filling the table, and from the side dishes to the cockle bibimbap, seaweed soup, and yukjeon, we enjoyed everything overall haha. With private rooms and lots of family diners, it felt like a great Balsan Station Korean set-meal restaurant for a family meal or gathering with parents!