Daejeon Korean BBQ: 280g set with skirt tartare, Yakiniku Doryong

After a 10K run with Korean Novak, we headed to Yakiniku Doryong in Doryong-dong.

It's a Korean beef yakiniku restaurant where the staff grill each cut one piece at a time at the brazier in front of you, rather than leaving it to guests.

Visit report from September 16, '26

Where is Yakiniku Doryong, and what is the room like?

The restaurant sits inside the ground floor of the House D Lafayette building, across from Smart City. It's not a spot you'll spot straight from the main road, so you'll do a bit of looking around the first time — just head inside the building and find Unit E117.

It's close to Sungsimdang, Shinsegae Department Store, and Expo Park, so it's a handy spot for evening plans in this part of town.

Once you step inside, the interior is done in black tones with a long bar-style counter, and the kitchen in back is fully visible.

Rather than the noisy, everyone-around-a-table grilling scene, here you sit side by side and receive each cut as it's grilled in front of you. One nice thing about this place: conversation never gets interrupted by someone tending the grill.

Hours are posted regularly on the restaurant's Naver Place updates, so if you're planning to go around a holiday, it's worth checking before you head over.

Salt, yuzu sauce and wasabi: how to use each one

Once seated, the side dishes and sauces to go with the meat arrive first. It's not a flashy, many-dish spread, but everything is well matched.

Starting with just salt and switching midway to yuzu sauce or wasabi changes the feel of even the same cut quite a bit. For me, wasabi worked best with the leaner cuts, and yuzu sauce with the fattier ones.

Is the 2-person 280g set enough for two people?

I wondered if 280g would be enough for two people, but since the meat comes out one piece at a time, the pace of eating naturally slows down, and adding one meal dish made the portion just right. You get to enjoy the full flow of the course while keeping the price down.

Chimasal (skirt) beef tartare

The first plate is chimasal (skirt) beef tartare. It's drizzled with yukhoe sauce and truffle oil, then topped with finely grated cheese — the softness of the raw beef layered with truffle aroma and cheesy richness gave it a different character from the usual beef tartare.

Having just run 10km, that cold, soft first bite was especially welcome.

Beef tongue, grilled at the counter

Once the brazier is lit, beef tongue goes on first.

Grilled to a nice golden brown, the beef tongue had a crisp bite that gave way to nuttiness — a little wasabi on top was just right.

Korean beef trio: striploin, top blade and brisket

This is the main event. In the 280g set, the beef assortment comes as three cuts — chaekkeutsal (striploin), bucheotsal (chuck flap), and eopjinsal (brisket) — grilled one piece at a time from leaner to fattier, so the differences between cuts really stood out.

Chaekkeutsal — the beef flavor built up the more I chewed, so I ate it with just a touch of salt. It's a clean-tasting cut that opens the palate at the start of the assortment.

Bucheotsal — fat runs through the grain, giving softness and a satisfying chew together. It paired best with a light dip in the yuzu sauce.

Eopjinsal — the nuttiest, fattiest cut in the assortment, so it comes last. The outside was grilled crisp, letting the fat spread smoothly in the mouth, and following it with a bite of salad to reset the palate worked well.

Choosing teuk-yang (beef tripe) as the last cut

For the 280g set, you choose the final cut between seasoned meat and teuk-yang (beef tripe) — I was curious about the texture, so I picked teuk-yang. Its crunchy chewiness, with a touch of spicy seasoning, woke my appetite back up after all the softer cuts. If you're curious about the seasoned meat, it's marinated in a sweet tare sauce for a different kind of finish.

Finishing with perilla oil buckwheat noodles

We finished the meal with perilla oil buckwheat noodles. After eating meat, cold, light noodles hit the spot more than a hot stew.

The buckwheat noodles were coated in nutty perilla oil, mild and easy to eat, and topping them with a piece of meat we'd deliberately saved was a great combination. Adding the noodles on top of the 280g set made just the right amount for two.

Korean beef set or standard set: which one to order

Yakiniku Doryong's sets break down into two simple types. Sets with 'Korean beef' in the name come with only the beef assortment, no specialty cuts like beef tongue or teuk-yang, while the regular sets run like a course from beef tartare through beef tongue, seasoned meat, and teuk-yang. If you're not into specialty cuts, go for the Korean beef set; if you want to try a bit of everything, the regular set is the one.

Even within the same 2-person format, the 480g set (₩84,000) adds tenderloin to the beef assortment and includes both seasoned meat and teuk-yang. If you want a heartier meal, go for the 480g set, or just add an à la carte order of whichever cut you liked best.

You can order by starting with a set and adding an à la carte order of any cut you liked. Most meal dishes are ₩7,000, and the beef tongue curry, Korean beef soup, and braised oxtail are limited in quantity, so they may run out later in the evening.

• If you're a stew person, go for the kimchi jjigae
• If you want something lighter, try the perilla oil buckwheat noodles or uramen