Friday date-night pork omakase near Magok Station: Don Tamguso

I'd heard Magok has a lot of nice-atmosphere date spots lately, so on Friday evening my boyfriend and I went to Don Tamguso for a Magok Station dinner date.

It's reservation-only, so you can enjoy the course quietly — feels like it'd suit anniversaries or first dates too. For dinner, the dishes use about 600g of meat per person.

Where is Don Tamguso, and where do you park?

Don Tamguso is at 128, Botanic Park Tower 3, 11 Magokjungang 6-ro, Gangseo-gu, Seoul, South Korea, and you can park in the Botanic Park Tower 3 underground lot.

• ⏰ Hours: weekdays 11:30–21:10 (break 14:00–17:30) / weekends 15:00–21:10, no break
• 📍 Location: 128, Botanic Park Tower 3, 11 Magokjungang 6-ro, Gangseo-gu, Seoul, South Korea
• 🚗 Parking: Botanic Park Tower 3 underground lot

It's close to Magok Station, so accessibility was really great for a Magok Station dinner date.

Inside Don Tamguso: all counter seating

True to the name Don Tamguso, the sharp grid-pattern interior was the first thing that caught my eye.

The inside is entirely bar-style dachi seating.

You sit side by side instead of facing each other, which naturally made for a nice date atmosphere.

You can watch the chef cooking while you eat, too.

What comes in the Don Tamguso dinner course?

Don Tamguso specializes in pork omakase.

The course goes soup - salad - lasagna - main 1 - main 2 - select course - dessert. Let me walk through it with photos.

Soup - chestnut, cremini mushroom and cream

First up was a soup with chestnut, cremini mushrooms, and cream.

They said the mushrooms and bacon are strained through a sieve multiple times to get that smooth texture.

Just like they explained, the texture was really smooth, and it was a great opener.

There were glazed walnuts on top, and they were so nutty and sweet — delicious. Eating nuts too felt like I was getting my nutrition in, haha!

Salad - prosciutto with fruit

Second came a salad with dried persimmon, orange, apple, basil, and prosciutto.

It looked nothing like a salad — the visuals were unbelievable!

The dressing was tangier than a typical salad dressing.

The fruit was tangerine, persimmon, melon, and pear — all bright and refreshing. But the flower-petal garnish tasted a bit bitter! Heads up if you don't like bitter flavors.

Lasagna - shiitake mushroom lasagna

This lasagna has shiitake mushroom, white ragu, mozzarella, and a smoky sauce.

They showed us they were grating real truffle over it, haha. The pride in their voice when they said they make the sauce fresh from scratch every day really came through.

I normally never touch shiitake mushrooms, but why do mushrooms taste so good at a 'meat place'? The homemade sauce reminded me of Salisbury steak sauce, and it went so well with the lasagna — the truffle aroma hit as soon as the plate arrived, which made this dish totally my style.

Main 1 - shio koji pork tenderloin

The first main was a grilled pork tenderloin made using 'shio koji,' a fermented Japanese seasoning.

The tenderloin is aged with koji salt, which apparently gives it a well-seasoned flavor without turning too salty.

This dish also got a truffle oil finish, so the truffle aroma really came through.

Wow... honestly, if you ate it without hearing the explanation you might not even know it was pork — it was so incredibly tender. Not too salty, seasoned just right... I wanted more.

Main 2 - Peking-duck-inspired gabisal (pork skirt)

The second main is a dish made with gabisal (pork skirt meat), inspired by Peking duck.

The sauce is fairly bold, and eating it with a minari (water dropwort) salad gives it a flavor close to Mexican or Brazilian food. They explained that mixing Korean ingredients with a Chinese cooking style ended up creating something Mexican-ish.

The edges of the meat were very chewy, and the sauce + onion + minari combo felt fresh. But... for a minari-hating human like me, this dish did have a bit of an entry barrier.

Select course - signature burger or barley risotto

This is the course where you pick either a handmade burger or a risotto. I usually love risotto and my boyfriend loves burgers, so we each picked what we wanted.

On top of the barley risotto were Wando abalone and fried banpungnamul (glehnia root herb), sprinkled with a cheese called grana padano — first time I'd heard of that cheese.

It had a slight abalone-porridge feel but with a noticeable, satisfying barley texture, and the abalone and fried herb worked really well together. 👍🏻

The abalone especially was so chewy.

The burger had a house-made jambon lightly seared in Isigny butter, plus carrot rapé and fennel. It's more of a brunch-style burger — the jambon's buttery aroma came through nicely and the carrot rapé had good texture too.

Dessert - panna cotta

Today's dessert was panna cotta, the Italian treat. It's sweetened cream set with gelatin, so it had a pudding-like texture. 🍮

The chef recommended eating it as-is without stirring.

It was nice how the milky ice-cream flavor of the panna cotta cleanly wrapped up all the meat dishes we'd eaten before it. Such a mood-lifting, sweet finish.

Honest review of Don Tamguso: pros and cons

Pros: I think Don Tamguso's biggest strength is that it's not just grilled meat — the dishes come from a wide range of ingredients and cooking methods.

Cons: The chef used some fairly advanced vocabulary while explaining things, so there were a few parts I didn't quite catch, haha.

Recommended for: anyone looking for a great Magok date restaurant, planning a special-occasion dinner out, or wanting to try a new take on a pork tasting course.