Korean restaurant in Chowol, Gwangju: hot-pot rice set at Bomseol

During Pilates, whenever I got hungry and looked across the river, I'd see a place called Gangminju's Deulbap. The name alone — deulbap, field rice — conjured up barley rice mixed and tossed together, and it made me even hungrier, wishing I could teleport straight across the river to it.

Then, after moving house for a while, I came back to find the place had changed its name to the friendly-sounding Bomseol. I figured that even with a new name, it would still be a good Gwangju, Gyeonggi restaurant serving Korean set meals, and headed over believing that. On a whim I scrolled down the Superchart app, and there it was on the list — what a nice surprise.

Applying first and coordinating schedules to book a reservation is more of a hassle than you'd think. Syncing two people's schedules instead of just going solo makes it even more tedious, so when a place I want to visit is on the Superchart list and — even better — needs no reservation, it feels like a total win.

Where Bomseol is and when it opens

Bomseol

• 51 Hyeonsan-ro385beon-gil, Chowol-eup, Gwangju-si, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea
• Daily 11:00–20:30 (break time 16:00–17:00, last order 19:45)
• Takeout, WiFi, separate men's/women's restrooms, high chair, waiting area, parking

Bomseol sits on the riverside of Chowol, right where you turn right the moment you cross the bridge. If I hadn't already visited when it was Gangminju's Deulbap, I might never have imagined that near-U-turn drift of a right turn. In Chowol, the route toward the neighborhoods called Jiwol and Seolwol passes where two river currents meet, and Bomseol is found by following the water flowing down from the right, then drifting into that sharp right turn right after the bridge.

It felt like entering some kind of remote outskirts — the charm of the unpaved road, the green riverside brush drawing closer, the air humid from continuous rain but still clear overhead. Seeing a religious building off to the side made me think of Aomame from 1Q84, at this Gwangju, Gyeonggi restaurant, Bomseol. A generous deck sits atop a retaining wall, with a parking lot underneath, casting precious shade at the tail end of summer — no worries about a stuffy car on the way back later.

Inside Bomseol: the hall and the self-serve banchan bar

The inside of Bomseol is far more spacious than it looks from outside, and just past the entrance you first see the cheonggukjang pot and the self-serve banchan (side dish) bar. It's just past 5pm when break time ends, so we're the first ones in. The interior has a comfortable, well-worn feel and is roomier than it appeared from outside. We passed what seemed to be prep for tomorrow's ingredients near the entrance, then the huge pot keeping the cheonggukjang warm, then the self-serve side dish bar with the lotus root and perilla seed salad I love, and were shown to a window seat. I mentioned upfront that we'd be using the Superchart discount.

What comes with the ₩15,000 Bomseol Set

The Bomseol Set comes to ₩15,000 per person and includes braised kodari (dried pollack), cheonggukjang, hot-pot rice, and master-chef side dishes, plus all-you-can-eat barley rice if you want it. Facing the handsome framed certificate of the barley gulbi master gave me a little pause, but today I went with the spicy, clean savoriness of the braised kodari that comes standard with the Bomseol Set.

The master-chef side dish lineup at Bomseol

While waiting about 15 minutes for the hot-pot rice, I nibbled on the side dishes already set out, savoring the master-chef lineup: warm japchae (glass noodle stir-fry), a light and nutty lotus root and perilla seed salad (I went back for seconds twice), mushroom sweet-and-sour and eggplant tempura sweet-and-sour, spicy braised radish (a bit salty), spicy pickled chili, dried radish green kimchi and napa cabbage kimchi... even without the braised kodari, this alone with the cheonggukjang would be a full table.

The braised kodari, a modest portion, was on the salty side — making me look forward to the hot-pot rice even more.

Hot-pot rice and the scorched-rice tea that follows

I scooped the steaming hot-pot rice into a fluffy bowl, poured water in for scorched rice soup, then topped it with a piece of the salty, spicy braised kodari and started eating. Imagine cooking this kind of spread yourself in the hot, humid summer — what a heroic undertaking that would be. Getting a table like this for ₩15,000 already felt like a gift, and with the Superchart discount on top, the Bomseol Set felt like a bonus kind of joy.

Does a remote riverside restaurant like Bomseol draw diners?

My worry about whether such an out-of-the-way location would be okay turned out to be needless. Even though it's a place you can't reach without a car, as it got close to 6pm, tables around this wide hall kept filling in one after another. Some tables mixed orders of the ₩27,000 Master Barley Gulbi Set and the ₩25,000 Master Soy Crab Set for a hearty family gathering, while others, like ours, were couples having a simple, light dinner — a mix of scenes.

Unlimited barley rice at Bomseol: could we finish it?

Bomseol's barley rice is unlimited, but just one bowl of hot-pot rice plus the scorched rice soup already left me full. If I were a little younger and my stomach still had its old stamina, I might have thrown open that barley rice pot out of sheer curiosity, scooped out a bowl, and mixed it up with dried radish green kimchi, cheonggukjang, gochujang (red chili paste) and a swirl of sesame oil. But after all these years of digesting countless meals, my stomach no longer allows that kind of bravado — between the generous hot-pot rice and the scorched rice soup, I was already at full capacity. Such a shame.

With the river, sky and mountains in view on the Chowol riverside, Bomseol, a Gwangju, Gyeonggi restaurant, cooks the rice and prepares the side dishes for us every day from 11:00 to 20:30. All we had to do was show up, eat comfortably and leave full. At ₩15,000 per person, it's a place I'd happily pay for out of my own pocket — and getting the Superchart discount on top of that made it all the more satisfying, no secret about that.