Nonhyeon frozen pork belly restaurant, 1.5mm vs 3mm: Daepae Market

The place I found for Korean BBQ in Nonhyeon is Daepae Market Gangnam Nonhyeon Branch. It's on the 1st floor of 49 Hakdong-ro 2-gil, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, open 24 hours every day, and it hand-slices its frozen pork belly fresh to order. Some days you just crave a light, easy Korean BBQ meal, you know? So I came to Daepae Market, famous for its hand-sliced (daepae) pork belly.

How far is Daepae Market from Nonhyeon Station?

Daepae Market Gangnam Nonhyeon Branch is right near Nonhyeon Station, so it's easy to get to and great for eating and hanging out afterward. Eat pork belly, walk around Gangnam, digest a bit — a whole day sorted!

The restaurant is spacious, so it's a great size for group dinners in Nonhyeon. The frozen pork belly menu is also good value, perfect for a company dinner.

The slicing room: pork cut to order

Daepae Market has what it calls an on-the-spot slicing station — true to being a hand-sliced pork belly restaurant, they slice the meat right there. You can watch the slicing machine cut the meat the moment you order.

What's in the 2,000-won self-serve bar?

The self-serve bar at Daepae Market costs 2,000 won per person and I highly recommend it. From lettuce wraps to mushrooms, seasoned vegetables, bracken fern — there isn't an ingredient missing.

There's also a huge variety of sauces, so you can pick whatever suits your taste. The red special sauce in particular is spicy and pairs really well with the pork belly.

There's also perilla leaves and radish wraps for wrapping the meat, plus onion salad and green onion kimchi. There are so many side dishes to pair with the pork belly that using the self-bar is basically a win.

These days a lot of pork belly restaurants charge extra for mushrooms. At Daepae Market you can take as much king oyster mushroom and enoki mushroom as you want.

The thing I scraped clean the most was the corn mayo. It was so good I went back for thirds. If you're looking for a great pork belly restaurant in Nonhyeon, I recommend Daepae Market.

1.5mm vs 3mm pork belly: what's the difference?

When you order the hand-sliced pork belly at Daepae Market, they slice it fresh on the spot. You can also choose between two thicknesses: 1.5mm or 3mm.

You can tell just by looking that the frozen pork belly is fresh, with a light pink color. Maybe because it's quick-frozen, the color looked good and there was no smell at all.

There's minari (water dropwort) at the self-bar too, so you can eat pork belly with minari. The value for money is so good that it made me want to come back.

The grill was huge, so it was easy to spread the meat out and cook it crispy. Good value and tasty meat — this seems like it would also be great for a group dinner in Nonhyeon.

The sizzling smell of meat grilling was so good I almost ate it before it was fully cooked. It had been a while since I'd been to a pork belly place, and finding a good one made me happy.

Hand-sliced pork belly tastes best when grilled crispy enough to curl up, right? The thin meat gets crispy and has this chip-like texture that's genuinely delicious.

Ordering a bowl of rice and wrapping the hand-sliced pork belly in it was so good. Because it's hand-sliced, it cooks fast, which makes it the perfect menu for a big eater like me.

The pork belly above was the 1.5mm cut, so this time I tried the 3mm. You could visibly tell the thickness was different just by looking at it.

Since it was noticeably thicker, once it cooked it was also easy to spread out and grill. If the 1.5mm was for the crispy taste, the 3mm was good for enjoying a softer texture.

Grilling the bracken fern and minari from the self-bar together with the meat is delicious. If you like these extra ingredients, you'll get your money's worth at Daepae Market.

Three servings, then fried rice and doenjang jjigae

I set aside the cooked meat in advance and also saved some to add to the fried rice. Ordering 3 servings and then eating fried rice on top at Daepae Market left me completely full.

Throwing in a bunch of ingredients and wrapping it all up in a lettuce wrap is amazing. Daepae Market is the place that comes to mind whenever I think of pork belly restaurants — it was an absolute favorite for me.

The kimchi was perfectly ripened, so I knew I had to have the fried rice. Even without ordering it separately, making it yourself with the self-bar ingredients was delicious too.

The doenjang jjigae rounded things off cleanly. Inside the stew there was a generous amount of sweet pumpkin, onion, and tofu.

Eating it alongside the fried rice balanced the seasoning and cut through the greasiness completely. If you're looking for a great pork belly restaurant in Nonhyeon, or a 24-hour restaurant in Gangnam, go for Daepae Market Gangnam Nonhyeon Branch!