Baby-friendly shabu kalguksu lunch in Eojin-dong, Sejong: Italy Shabu

Where is Italy Shabu Kalguksu Sejong Eojin Branch, and where do you park?

Italy Shabu Kalguksu Sejong Eojin Branch is on the 3rd floor of the Taehan Press Center at 172 Jeoljae-ro, Sejong, and the building has basement parking so you can head in without any parking worries. Hours are 10:30–21:00, with a break time of 15:00–17:00, though there's no break time on weekends.

• Hours 10:30 ~ 21:00
• Break time 15:00 ~ 17:00
• No break time on weekends
• Basement parking available
• Baby chair available

This time I went for a Korean restaurant lunch in Sejong with my baby, and since the building has a basement parking lot, I parked with zero stress and headed up to the restaurant. I really dislike restaurants without parking, so I tend to only pick places that have it, haha.

Italy Shabu Kalguksu is right in front of the elevator as soon as you step out, so it was easy to find.

Can you come as a group? Inside the dining hall and private room

The inside isn't cramped at all — it's on the spacious side, so it seemed like a good fit for group visits too. Since Sejong Government Complex is nearby, a lot of office workers come for lunch, and I heard there's sometimes a wait.

There's a room in the back too, and if a group requests the room when booking through Naver in advance, the owner seems happy to arrange the tables accordingly. The room is pretty spacious as well, so it seems fine for group gatherings! I'd recommend it for a New Year's gathering or a farewell dinner.

What's on the self-serve bar at Italy Shabu Kalguksu

The self-serve bar at Italy Shabu Kalguksu has basic side dishes, kalguksu (noodle soup) noodles, and ramen noodles. Beyond the initial setting, refills are self-serve — just grab as much as you'd like — though kimchi gets refilled twice by staff. The menu even noted that the tasty geotjeori (fresh kimchi) is made fresh every morning?!

Is it okay with a baby? Baby chair and baby dishware

There's a baby chair too — as soon as we walked in, the owner brought one out and even helped set it up, and the staff were all so kind. I'm just grateful for every restaurant that has baby chairs, honestly.

They also brought a small bowl of rice and dishware for the baby! The seaweed flakes on top of the rice are the baby seaweed flakes I carry around myself. They offered to give rice with seaweed, but since we haven't tried the salted, savory seaweed yet, we just fed her the rice.

How to order and what's on the table to start

You can order conveniently using the tablet on the table with table order, and payment is completed all in one go too.

There's a secret soy sauce dipping sauce on the table for the kalguksu, and dipping the meat, vegetables, and noodles lightly in it hit just the right seasoning 🤤👍. Usually other kalguksu places have you mix your own wasabi into plain soy sauce, but here just the one secret sauce is enough to enjoy the noodles.

Italy 6-Ingredient Shabu Kalguksu, spicy, for two: what you get

The Italy 6-Ingredient Shabu Kalguksu at Italy Shabu Kalguksu Sejong Eojin Branch is a menu that comes with beef neck meat, dumplings, ongsimi (rice dumplings), assorted vegetables and mushrooms, kalguksu noodles, and egg porridge — all included. You can choose from three broths — clear, spicy, or perilla seed — depending on your preference.

We ordered the Italy 6-Ingredient Shabu Kalguksu spicy for two, and got a fish cake skewer as a review event item. Adding the fish cake into the spicy kalguksu made it wonderfully spicy and it went really well together, haha 👍

I really, highly recommend making sure to try the review-event fish cake ▪︎▪︎▪︎.

We finished it off nicely with the egg porridge too, and ate really well.

Dessert: self-serve ppeongseukeurim

Make sure to try the ppeong-seukeurim (puffed rice snack with ice cream) dessert before you leave!

Verdict: who should eat at Italy Shabu Kalguksu Sejong Eojin Branch

If you're looking for a good Korean restaurant in Sejong, I'd recommend giving Italy Shabu Kalguksu a try :) Parking is convenient and there's a baby chair, so it's a great restaurant to visit with a baby. It also seems like a fine spot for a group lunch gathering.