Sangam DMC izakaya with open windows and fish kushikatsu: Hanamato

The evenings have been so nice lately, right? Still a bit hot during the day, but once the sun goes down there's a cool breeze that just makes you want to sit outside and have a drink 🍺 There's a spot that's perfect for exactly this weather — Hanamato, a Japanese-style bar in Sangam DMC. The windows are wide open so it almost feels like drinking at an outdoor table, and best of all, the side dishes were great value, so it was easy to order a bunch of different things!

Where is Hanamato Sangam DMC, and what are the hours?

Hanamato is a 6-minute walk from Digital Media City Station in Sangam. The DMC area is packed with office workers on weekdays but noticeably quieter on weekends. Even so, when I visited in the evening there were quite a lot of customers inside! I guess it's because the value is good so it's easy to order a bit of everything, and those wide-open windows... definitely doing some heavy lifting for the vibe ✨️ In this kind of weather, that open-window drinking feeling is just the best haha

• 📌Hours: Closed every Sunday / Mon-Sat 16:30-03:00, last order 02:00
• 🅿️Free parking available at Mapo World Cup No. 1 hourly public parking lot (often full)

Open-window seats with an outdoor-drinking feel

With the windows wide open, there was a cool breeze blowing through, exactly the outdoor-drinking mood you want in this weather. If you're looking for an izakaya in Sangam DMC, atmosphere matters as much as the food, right? With the windows open, it felt like eating outdoors even though we were indoors, and I loved that.

As I mentioned, DMC tends to be quieter than weekdays on weekends, but even though I visited in the evening it was bustling +_+ Maybe because the prices are good for a second round, the place got even busier around 7pm. It's a two-story building, and seats filled up starting from the first floor, with the second floor also nearly full.

🧾What we ordered at Hanamato and what it cost

That day I ordered seafood cream pasta, salmon sashimi, and kushikatsu (breaded, deep-fried skewers). Since the value is good, it was easy to order a variety of dishes!

• ▪️Seafood cream pasta ₩14,000
• ▪️Salmon sashimi ₩15,000
• ▪️Kushikatsu ₩10,000

They gave us shrimp chips as a complimentary starter.

🖍Honest review of the dishes at Hanamato

Seafood cream pasta, 14,000 won

Let me introduce the seafood cream pasta first. The cream sauce was thick and the seafood flavor was really strong, which I loved — and I'll be honest haha, at a bar you usually order cream pasta without expecting much, just because you're craving that creamy taste (?), but

this one won over both my husband's and my taste buds!! If there's one drawback, the noodles were a bit overcooked, but personally I don't like undercooked pasta, so this was actually a plus for me.

There was plenty of seafood relative to the amount of noodles, so of course the seafood flavor came through strong 😋

Salmon sashimi, 15,000 won

I liked that the salmon sashimi came with onions and sauce. Salmon is something I love but can get sick of because it's rich, and eating it with the onions and sauce made it much cleaner and lighter.

Given how prices are these days, ₩15,000 for sashimi was surprising too. The portion was bigger than I expected, and I had beer that day — the nutty salmon sashimi paired perfectly with it...

Kushikatsu, 10,000 won — hairtail, cod and pollock fish skewers

And this was personally the tastiest thing I had — kushikatsu! There were so many kinds that it was fun picking through them all haha

We got six kinds: hairtail, snap peas, squid, cod, pollock, and potato. Usually when I eat kushikatsu I see mostly pork or shrimp, so having several kinds of fish like hairtail, cod, and pollock was a fun change 😋

✏️Is Hanamato Sangam DMC worth a visit?

Great atmosphere and great value — that's Hanamato, the izakaya in Sangam DMC! Overall the side dish portions aren't huge, but I actually saw that as a plus: order a variety if it's your first stop, or keep it budget-friendly if it's your second or third round.

Above all, in weather like this, not having a drink in that open-window outdoor mood should be a crime..! If you're in Sangam and want a light, casual drink with a variety of side dishes, I recommend Hanamato +_+