Namyangju Korean BBQ: stone-pot fried rice, 2002 Witch's Arpeggio

Outdoor-dining season is back, so I’m here to introduce a great Namyangju restaurant I visited!

Namyangju outdoor dining at 2002 Witch's Arpeggio

Open daily from 11:00 to 22:00, with a break from 15:30 to 17:00 and last orders at 20:00. Parking is available!

I visited 2002 Witch's Arpeggio (2002 마녀의 아르페지오), a Namyangju spot famous for outdoor dining.

2002 Witch's Arpeggio is also famous as an Instagram food spot in Namyangju. I deliberately came a little late, so I could sit down right away without waiting.

You can eat indoors too, but this is an outdoor-dining restaurant nestled beside mountains and a valley, so on a lovely day like these, outdoors is an absolute must!!

How to eat tomato-marinated pork belly

Once you sit down, there’s a guide explaining how to enjoy the tomato-marinated pork belly, and the staff also come by and walk you through it.

The tomato-marinated pork belly was sweet, tangy, and deeply savory! They say it was developed over 25 years and aged for 48 hours, so of course it had to be delicious. The tomatoes were such a pretty color too.

Here’s the menu for pork belly and all the tasty things to go with it. Hope it helps when you visit!

Cheese tomato pork belly and the self-serve bar

We ordered one serving each of Beauty's Jar aged tomato-marinated pork belly and Beauty's Jar aged cheese tomato-marinated pork belly, for two servings total. Fried rice is a must!

They give you so, so much cheese that one serving of the cheese tomato pork belly should be plenty.

This is the self-serve bar! Everything served as the basic side dishes is stocked here.

The owner kept coming over to grill the meat and make sure we were looked after, so we had such a comfortable meal.

As the cheese slowly melted and stretched, it blended beautifully with the sweet, tangy, savory tomato marinade, making the flavor even richer.

A potato pancake crisp like a chip

I ordered the potato pancake (gamjajeon) to have alongside the meat!! Wait, you were the star of the meal!

The outside was unbelievably crisp, so I just kept eating it. It was like a chip. The perfect crisp-outside, tender-inside texture.

Instead of dipping it in the usual potato-pancake sauce, try the gamjajeon with kewonnaise first. It’s a real treat—kind of like eating delicious French fries.

Finish with pollock-roe stone-pot fried rice

After the tomato-marinated pork belly, you absolutely have to order the pollock-roe stone-pot fried rice (myeongnanjeot gadeuk nurungji gamasot bokkeumbap) to finish!! They clear away the meat grill, then bring it already fried in a stone pot with a five-minute sand timer.

Open the lid after five minutes—careful, it’s hot! The scorched rice crisps up beautifully on the bottom, so the texture is spot-on too. Naturally, it was so good that we scraped the pot completely clean. 2002 Witch's Arpeggio is a great place to drive to in Namyangju; I left happy with both the atmosphere and the food!