Last-order dinner in Gwanpyeong-dong, Daejeon: Choi Dining

I was trying to figure out what to eat for dinner in Gwanpyeong-dong, Daejeon, and ended up at Choi Dining Daejeon Gwanpyeong.

Choi Dining serves a variety of Japanese dishes, but it's not just Japanese food — they also have katsu and pasta, so it was actually fun deciding what to order! My boyfriend and I went together this time and decided to share a few things, so we ordered salmon futomaki, pork jowl wild garlic oil pasta, and Choi bone-in katsu.

What is Choi Dining Daejeon Gwanpyeong like inside?

The interior of Choi Dining Daejeon Gwanpyeong was clean and comfortable overall. We showed up right before last order, and even then the staff welcomed us really kindly.

It's not a heavy or overly formal-feeling Japanese restaurant, so it seemed like a decent spot for a casual meal and drink with a friend, or even a date.

The menu and how to order from the table tablet

You order at Choi Dining through the tablet at each table, and you pay at the counter after your meal. Daejeon Love Card works here too!

Since there were two of us, ordering a few dishes to share worked well, and because the menu is pretty varied, it would also be easy to come here with someone whose tastes are different from yours. When you're looking for a place to eat in Gwanpyeong-dong, a limited menu can be a bit of a headache — but here the range went from futomaki all the way to katsu and pasta.

What we ordered at Choi Dining

• Salmon futomaki 5P ₩14,900
• Pork jowl wild garlic oil pasta ₩16,900
• Choi bone-in katsu ₩16,500

Salmon futomaki, 5 pieces, ₩14,900

The first thing we ordered was the salmon futomaki 5P, ₩14,900. As always, futomaki (thick sushi roll) catches your eye the moment it arrives!

Instead of bite-sized pieces like regular gimbap, each piece was made big and chunky, so it looked really generous.

The filling had several things going on too — fried shrimp, salmon — so even one piece gave a mix of textures, and overall it was soft and easy to eat.

If you're torn about what to order, I'd recommend starting light with the 5-piece salmon futomaki.

Pork jowl oil pasta with myeongi wild garlic, ₩16,900

Next up was something a bit different — the pork jowl wild garlic oil pasta, ₩16,900. I'd only thought of futomaki and katsu at a Japanese restaurant, so I was surprised there was pasta too, and had to try it.

It has pork jowl in it, so you get meat and pasta together, and with wild garlic (myeong-i) and basil pesto mixed in, it tasted quite different from a typical oil pasta.

The clean, light flavor of oil pasta plus the savory, salty aroma of wild garlic and the fragrant basil worked better together than I expected.

Futomaki and katsu can start to feel a bit heavy, but having the pasta in between balanced things out nicely.

Choi bone-in pork katsu, ₩16,500

And then the one I'd been looking forward to — the Choi bone-in katsu, ₩16,500! The size alone caught my eye the moment it landed on the table. Compared to a regular katsu, the visual impact was pretty overwhelming.

The outside was fried crisp, and while it's not especially thick, since it's made with bone-in pork loin, the whole thing was huge. It looked totally different from a regular loin katsu, which made it feel novel.

We asked for the katsu sauce on the side and dipped as we went, which kept it crispy all the way to the last bite. The sauce was sweet and thin, in that classic gyeongyangsik (old-school Western-style) style, and rice refills are free, for reference. If you're a katsu fan, this bone-in loin katsu is a rare find you don't easily see elsewhere, so it's worth trying at least once.

Three dishes shared by two: was it enough?

Ordering three dishes between two people meant we could split them up and try a range of flavors, and since each dish had its own style, it felt varied. Choi Dining isn't just a Japanese-only spot — with katsu, pasta, and more on the menu, it would be easy to pick something even when the people you're with want different things.

If you're looking for a clean, tidy Japanese restaurant in Gwanpyeong-dong, or a place where you can get both Japanese and Western food together, Choi Dining is worth a visit. For a dinner in Gwanpyeong-dong, Daejeon when you can't decide what to eat, Choi Dining — with everything from futomaki to katsu to pasta — did the trick.