Daegu Korean restaurant for dining with three kids: Cafe Dongi

Another busy week has flown by, and it’s already the weekend!!! When the weekend comes around, it is honestly chaos being with three kids all day long 🥹 Of course, cooking at home is nice too, but sometimes just having an easy meal nearby before heading home feels like such a huge break for Mom and Dad 💪 But when you look for a restaurant with children, there really are not that many options 😂 You end up checking everything: whether there is food the kids can eat, high chairs, and something extra to feed them if they do not eat much rice 💦

This time, we went to Cafe Dongi Daemyeong Station Branch (카페동이 대명역점), which was quite satisfying in all those respects. If you are looking for a Korean restaurant around Daegu’s Apsan that is good to visit with children, this is the one!! Cafe Dongi Daemyeong Station Branch was easy for a family meal; my mother, my husband and I, and our three children visited together, making six of us in total.

Cafe Dongi Daemyeong Station Branch: Basics

• Location: Behind Anjirang Post Office; a 5-minute walk from Exit 4 of Daemyeong Station on Daegu Subway Line 1
• Hours: Daily 11:00–21:00
• Break time: 15:00–16:30
• Last order: 14:30 and 20:30
• Parking: Space for 2 cars in front of the restaurant

An indoor and outdoor space that made family dining easy

The restaurant was bright and clean overall, so it did not feel intimidating as a place for a family meal. It was roomier than I expected too, with a comfortable atmosphere!

There was a place to wash your hands, plus thoughtful touches like hairpins and toothpicks. It really put me in a good mood!

One thing I absolutely love about Cafe Dongi is that it always has a self-service bar like this! You can get extra fried eggs and rice, so even if the children do not eat much of what they ordered, giving them rice topped with a fried egg will fill them right up~~

After the meal, you can also help yourself to bori gangjeong (crispy sweet barley snacks), and the children happily ate one each like a snack. Those of you who have dined out with kids know that these little things matter so much—so touching~!

Little Explorer Meal Sets for ages 3–7

One of the most important things I look for when going out to eat with children is whether there is a menu they can eat. Cafe Dongi Daemyeong Station Branch has a separate Little Explorer Meal Set for children aged 3 to 7. That made me think it would be a good option for anyone looking for a Korean restaurant around Daegu’s Apsan where they can dine comfortably with children. Little Explorer Meal Sets for children

For the children, we ordered two options: the Little Explorer Sweet-and-Sour Pork Meal Set and the Little Explorer Bulgogi Meal Set.

True to a children’s menu, the food was not strongly seasoned and was easy for the kids to eat. The bulgogi, especially, had a lightly sweet soy-based sauce that worked well with rice. Sweet-and-sour pork is also something children tend to like, so we shared that too. The Little Explorer Meal Set comes with Yomi Yomi juice, and we had ordered only two children’s meals. But when the staff member saw that we had three children, they brought us one extra Yomi Yomi.

Lots of restaurants and kids’ cafés sell Yomi Yomi at high prices, so that consideration really touched me! When looking for a restaurant to visit with children, staff service matters just as much as the food, and this left a great impression. Also, my kids eat quite a lot, so the Little Explorer Meal Set did not have a huge amount of rice, haha. But you can freely refill the side dishes, miyeokguk (seaweed soup), and rice, so I was very satisfied with the value too!

A hearty Korean meal for the adults

For the adults, we ordered the [individual brazier] charcoal-grilled spicy pork set meal, Dongi charcoal-grilled pork bulgogi set meal, and beef brisket soybean paste stew set meal.

First, I loved that the individual-brazier charcoal-grilled spicy pork set meal came on a brazier, keeping it warm until the very end. The pork had a smoky char-grilled flavor and a nicely balanced sweet-spicy seasoning, making it great with rice. With the side dishes and stew too, it felt like a proper, hearty Korean meal.

The Dongi charcoal-grilled pork bulgogi had a lightly sweet and savory seasoning, enhanced by the characteristic smoky flavor of charcoal grilling. It was also a good dish to share in small portions with the kids.

But that day, spicy pork came out by mistake instead of the pork bulgogi we had ordered. When we mentioned it, they checked right away and brought out an entire new plate of freshly made bulgogi. Thanks to that, we unexpectedly got to enjoy generous portions of both spicy pork and bulgogi. What matters more than the mistake itself is how it is handled afterward, and they resolved it quickly, so we could eat without any inconvenience.

The beef brisket soybean paste stew set meal had a rich, savory doenjangguk (soybean paste stew) with beef brisket in it, so it was definitely heartier than regular soybean paste stew. They say it is made by blending several kinds of traditional soybean paste, and its deep savory flavor made it a great dish with a bowl of rice. If you visit with several people as we did, I would also recommend ordering the spicy pork, bulgogi, and soybean paste stew separately and sharing them all.

A place I would be happy to revisit with three children

When dining out with children, the food matters, but it is also incredibly important how comfortably the parents can eat, right? Cafe Dongi Daemyeong Station Branch was truly convenient to visit with children, with high chairs, children’s meals, a self-service bar for rice and fried eggs, dessert, and more! There was also a good variety of familiar, filling Korean dishes for adults, so it was not hard for the whole family to choose what to eat. If you are looking for a good restaurant around Daegu’s Apsan on the weekend, or a family-friendly restaurant you can visit with children without any pressure, I think Cafe Dongi Daemyeong Station Branch is worth adding to your list.