Sukiyaki restaurant in Gongdeok with butter beef and udon: Okjoban

Why we chose Okjoban Gongdeok Station Branch for an evening gathering

Okjoban Gongdeok Station Branch is a Japanese restaurant near Gongdeok Station that focuses on shabu-shabu and sukiyaki, and for this evening gathering we went with sukiyaki. You get meat and vegetables in one go, and it's an easy dish to share around a table, so it worked well for a group.

I'd been looking for a spot for an evening gathering in Gongdeok. The area around the station has lots of offices and lots of get-togethers, so deciding where to go at dinnertime is a bit of a headache, and Okjoban Gongdeok Station Branch turned out to be exactly the right answer.

Where is Okjoban Gongdeok Station Branch, and what's the atmosphere like?

The restaurant is on the first floor of Hyosung Harrington Square Building B. You can use the building's parking lot, and parking is validated when you eat. Groups and reservations are fine, and high chairs and wheelchair access are available.

The interior is neat overall, and the seating is arranged so you can eat privately. It's less of a rowdy barbecue place and more somewhere to sit around the table and eat slowly ♡ It felt right for group meals in Gongdeok, family outings, or office dinners with several people.

What comes with Okjoban's sukiyaki: vegetables and beef

The sukiyaki at Okjoban Gongdeok Station Branch comes with a generous plate of napa cabbage, bok choy and bean sprouts, plus several kinds of mushrooms, tofu and konjac (a chewy yam jelly). The vegetables were the first thing that caught my eye when the sukiyaki arrived.

With so many kinds of vegetables, it was fun to pick and choose between bites instead of just eating meat the whole time.

The thinly sliced beef came rolled up and filling the whole plate, with nice marbling and a pretty generous amount. Butter was served on top too, so we were fully ready to start on the sukiyaki, haha.

You put the meat and vegetables into the pan one by one as you go. At first I ate things while they still had their natural texture, and as time passed and the sauce soaked in, the flavor changed again.

How long should you cook the sukiyaki beef?

The beef is thin, so it cooked quickly without much waiting. Rather than cooking it too long, I liked eating it when it was just done, together with the vegetables.

Especially when I put bean sprouts or mushrooms on a piece of beef, the texture was great and each bite felt really satisfying.

How is sukiyaki different from shabu-shabu?

If shabu-shabu is about cooking food by dipping it in broth, sukiyaki's charm is a salty-sweet sauce that soaks in and gets a little richer the more you eat. At Okjoban Gongdeok Station Branch we started with the beef, then cooked mushrooms, bean sprouts, bok choy and tofu together, and since the sauce soaked into each ingredient differently, it was fun to pick through it all.

I also liked the variety of mushrooms. Eating only meat could get a bit monotonous, but with mushrooms and vegetables alongside, I could comfortably keep going to the end. The combination of beef and bean sprouts in one bite was good too.

Finishing the sukiyaki with udon and egg

After eating a fair amount of the meat and vegetables, we put udon (thick wheat noodles) into the leftover sauce to finish. Honestly, it would be a shame to skip this.

We added the thick udon noodles, let them simmer until the sauce soaked in, then cracked an egg on top. The flavor built up from the meat and vegetables was still in the pan, so it felt different from boiling udon on its own from the start. Even though I was already fairly full, I kept reaching for more.

If you prefer finishing sukiyaki with noodles rather than fried rice, it's worth continuing on to the udon.

What occasions suit Okjoban Gongdeok Station Branch?

I think Okjoban Gongdeok Station Branch suits group gatherings in Gongdeok, family meals and dinners with coworkers more than dates, since it's a dish you cook together at one table.

The menu isn't complicated, yet it felt like a properly full meal. It's not just beef: you get several kinds of mushrooms and vegetables, and it ends with udon, so the flow of the meal was good.

It's a good place to remember when you want sukiyaki or shabu-shabu in a clean space, with a balance of meat and vegetables and noodles at the end to fill you up. We had sukiyaki this time, so next visit I'd like to try the shabu-shabu :)