Cheonan seafood restaurant for group dinners: Donghae Bada Hoetjip

Easy-to-find Dujeong-dong seafood restaurant with spacious parking

There were parking lots in both the front and back of the building, so it looked easy to come without worrying about parking. The exterior was neatly kept, and it felt like a place that had been established here for quite a long time, somewhere you could walk into with confidence. It is a little way from Dujeong-dong’s dining street, but it is instead on a main road lined with restaurants suited to company dinners, making it easy to find and seemingly great for a second stop, too.

A spacious interior for group gatherings, too

As soon as I entered, there was a clean fish tank full of seafood, while desserts such as candy and coffee, plus a machine for instant-mix coffee, were set up on the other side. You do not often see a place with an ice maker ready as well, and it made me feel that the owner is truly serious about service.

I guess the owner likes football, haha. A signed ball from the Cheonan City FC was on display, so I took a photo.

Once inside, it was much bigger than it had looked from outside! There were plenty of seats in the main dining hall, plus group rooms large enough for parties and separate private rooms for smaller gatherings. It looked as though there were more than five group rooms.

Aprons to protect your precious clothes from food were ready, too!

I thought the side-dish refrigerator for the hall was a self-serve bar, but the staff actually bring everything to you. This is a place where you can just sit back and enjoy delicious food!

Multi-person menus and table ordering

Menu boards were posted all around the dining-hall walls, making them easy to scan at a glance. There was table ordering as well, so choosing with menu photos was easy.

There were plenty of course meals and menus for a specified number of people, so it was easy to order in different combinations for a group. That day, we ordered the ₩110,000 set of assorted sashimi plus a choice of seafood stew or braised seafood.

From the table setting to assorted sashimi

The tender, moist boiled pork had absolutely no gamy smell. Its chew was nicely complemented by the dried shredded radish provided with it, so it was already excellent for something called a basic side dish.

I really ate that herring right down to the tail! I had worried because herring has lots of tiny bones, but surprisingly I could eat it without a single bone being bothersome. Are herring bones usually this easy to chew? You know the life of a Korean pancake is its crispy edges, right? The edges were fried beautifully crisp, and because it was not a huge pancake, there was even more edge to enjoy all the way through.

This was the basic table setting: Korean pancake, boiled pork, grilled herring, vegetable salad, seaweed soup, and silkworm-pupa soup. That pupa soup was so delicious that I got refills and kept eating it, haha. The grilled herring was mild and tasty too, with bones that were unexpectedly easy to chew; for an extra ₩10,000, you could order another whole fish.

Ta-da! This is the assorted sashimi: tuna, croaker, and flounder. Wow, the tuna belly truly melted in my mouth. I was happy feeling the tuna fat melt away with every bite. The sashimi was sliced satisfyingly thick, with a wonderful chew, and a light dip in the wasabi and soy sauce that came with it brought the savory flavor out even more.

A generous seafood stew prepared by the staff

The seafood stew arrived right away! You can choose seafood stew or braised seafood, and that day I ordered the stew because I wanted broth. It was generously filled with milt, roe, shrimp, squid, pen shells, abalone, blue crab, clams, and more.

We cannot leave out the sight of it cooking, can we? Another thing I liked about Donghae Bada Hoetjip was that the staff prepared every piece of seafood in the stew so it would be easy to eat. We did not have to do any work! I really loved that all we had to do was eat what they prepared. Please enjoy watching the staff member prepare it for a moment, haha.

Then I ladled out a plate of the prepared seafood stew. Ah, that refreshing taste of the sea drawn from every kind of seafood! The spicy broth was perfectly seasoned without being salty, so my son practically ate that huge seafood stew all by himself. Especially the scallops! They were seriously incredible! The pen-shell scallops were chewy, with a blissful texture that separated along their grain with every bite. The clean, spicy broth had a deep flavor that made me think a shot of soju would be perfect, but it was a date with my son, and we had driven there, so I held myself back with all my might ㅠ. For anyone coming for a company dinner, the seafood stew alone would make an excellent drinking snack.

Ah, we ate really well.

A full table suited to company dinners and family gatherings

Among Dujeong-dong’s many seafood restaurants, Donghae Bada Hoetjip seemed especially set up for company dinners and gatherings, with its own well-composed signature set menus. The table was built around seafood delivered directly from the source and was satisfying enough for a full meal; with its neatly organized space and reasonable prices, it is a Dujeong-dong seafood restaurant I would recommend for family gatherings, too.