Gwangju Chinese restaurant with hand-torn sujebi jjamppong: Mayway

When a hangover hits... you need a spicy, piping-hot broth right away, don't you? Personally I go for rice noodle soup or jjamppong (spicy seafood noodle soup) to cure one, and Mayway's hand-torn sujebi (dough flake) jjamppong had caught my eye as a great lunch spot in Cheomdan! You tear off chewy aged dough yourself, and with unlimited rice you get jjamppong-bap too. Two birds, one stone >_<

Where is Mayway Gwangju Cheomdan, and where do you park?

Mayway (메이웨이) Gwangju Cheomdan is right across from Cheomdan Lotte Mart and Mustard Seed Church, and you park in the nearby alleys. Cue the parking game! We managed to grab the one last spot nearby!

Inside Mayway Cheomdan

Mayway Cheomdan is very spacious, with neatly arranged tables and even a serving robot inside. It's a Chinese restaurant, but it feels like a Korean one? Every table also has a burner, so you get a well-finished Chinese meal. I ordered the sujebi jjamppong, and the stone-plate jjajangmyeon (black bean noodles) ordered next to us arrived on a hot plate and caught my eye too!

Each table has vinegar, soy sauce, chili powder and tableware. Just left of the entrance is a self-serve bar where you can grab extra side dishes yourself. It has green onion kimchi, the cheat code for jjajangmyeon, plus steamed rice, so slurping noodles and shoveling rice are both OK!

Mayway menu and promotions

You check the Mayway Cheomdan menu by the QR code on each table. The first page was the single-person set meals, with three options including jjamjja mandu and jjamjja tang (jjamppong and jjajang combos), neatly covering the basics of Chinese food, so it looks great for eating alone?!

On top of that, order 2 draft beers and tangsuyuk is ₩1,000. The owner has lost it >_<

There are also endless jjamppong variations such as brisket jjamppong and rosé, plus fried rice, seafood rice bowl, yusanseul rice (mixed seafood and vegetable stir-fry over rice) and gochujapchae (pepper stir-fry), a full bloom of Chinese dishes.

Do you need extra add-ons for the sujebi jjamppong?

The sujebi jjamppong was our main >_< Add-ons include meat, bean sprouts, noodles and dumplings, but the base portion is so generous that it looked like more than enough even for two, so we ordered it plain.

After ordering, I brought side dishes from the self-serve bar: onions, macaroni salad, green onion kimchi and pickled radish! If we'd had jjajangmyeon, I'd have been a total green onion kimchi thief >_<

How is the free candied sweet potato?

After ordering, Mayway gave us one candied sweet potato (mattang) each as a free service. Since I don't like mattang, I almost skipped it, but this place's mattang is a winner ♥ The temperature and crispiness of the frying and the sweetness all came together, and I really enjoyed it. A free extra with real depth of flavor!

Sujebi jjamppong price and what comes in it

The sujebi jjamppong is ₩26,900 for 2–3 people, and the half grapefruit cream shrimp fry we ordered with it is ₩22,900. The jjamppong arrives piled high with vegetables and fish cake, and you boil it on the tabletop burner.

It also comes loaded with thinly sliced brisket and aged sujebi dough. It's not store-bought but made by hand, so it's the real original sujebi! Once it starts boiling, put on gloves and tear the dough in.

How was the grapefruit cream shrimp fry?

While the jjamppong boiled, we tried the grapefruit cream shrimp fry first. The aura of the frying I felt in the mattang came through here too: crispy shrimp with a sweet-sour sauce blending beautifully, plus crunchy cabbage, a feast for every sense!

How to cook the sujebi jjamppong well

Once the sujebi jjamppong starts boiling, scrape the brisket in on top >_<

Once it starts cooking, it's half vegetables and half broth, so even just picking out the vegetables is delicious, right?

Tear the dough in quickly, keeping in mind how long sujebi takes to cook! If the broth reduces as it boils, you can ask for extra broth, so just say so if you run short.

I scooped up the quickly cooked brisket along with bean sprouts and tasted it: spicy, with the brisket's own rich nuttiness blending in, and the hangover just slid right down...

Jjamppong-bap with self-serve rice

The sujebi takes a while to cook, so I fetched a spoonful of rice from the self-serve bar and mixed it in... jjamppong-bap is so good too, isn't it? Personally I prefer jjamppong with rice over noodles, so I'm so happy I got to enjoy both ♥

The well-cooked, chewy sujebi went great with the jjamppong too. Tearing it into long, stretched pieces rather than tearing it off in chunks gives a much chewier, better texture, so I was thoroughly satisfied with both the rice and the sujebi!

If you're looking for a lunch spot in Cheomdan, I recommend Mayway, which gives you great value and plenty of promotions.