Garosu-gil Chinese restaurant sisters date: ₩8,000 Tsingtao at Samsin

A few days ago my sister and I had a long-overdue, happy date — we caught up on all the gossip we'd been saving up over a great meal at Samsin, a new fusion Chinese restaurant in Sinsa-dong's Garosu-gil.

Where is Samsin Garosu-gil and how do you find the entrance?

Walk a little way down the Garosu-gil alley and a building topped with two layers of tiled roof catches your eye right away. Under the sign it reads 'KOREAN·CHINESE·JAPANESE' side by side — true to its name, this is a fusion Chinese restaurant aiming to put the flavors of all three countries on one table.

If you're looking for a Chinese restaurant near Sinsa Station, this is worth a visit at least once.

The first floor is a different accessory shop, so it can be a little confusing at first — but once you round the corner and see the stone statue at the top of the stairs beside the building, that's the entrance.

In front of the entrance stands a four-sided standing sign. The first line reads 'The flavors of Korea, China and Japan become one' — the concept is clear from the very first phrase.

There's a separate valet parking booth too, so it's convenient if you're driving.

Three countries in one room: the second-floor dining hall

The entrance corridor is lined with ink-wash panels of pine trees and cranes, and beneath the lit-up paintings there's even a small stone garden — genuinely lovely.

Stepping into the hall, the first thing you see is a golden dragon chandelier on the ceiling. Behind it is an open kitchen marked with the characters '點心' (dim sum), and stacks of bamboo steamers hint that the dumplings are made by hand right there.

Upstairs on the 2nd floor, the seating pairs mint-colored leather sofas with green marble tables. The window-side hall has lantern-shaped lights and arched screens, and looks especially pretty when the sunlight comes in.

It's such a photogenic spot that I imagine plenty of people choose it as a date spot among Chinese restaurants near Sinsa Station 😊

What are the private rooms at Samsin Garosu-gil like?

On either side of the 2nd floor at Samsin Garosu-gil there are private rooms, each with a name plaque — like 'Giraffe' — hung at the entrance, and doors designed like hanok lattice windows.

Inside, it's decorated calmly with bird-and-flower patterned wallpaper, framed Asian landscape paintings, and soft indirect lighting.

The layout suits occasions where conversation matters, like a family meeting or a gathering, and it looks like two rooms can be connected if there are more people.

Table setting and the welcome card

Every dish on the table is gold. At first it felt a little too flashy for me, honestly 😅 — the textured gold plates, gold spoons and chopstick rests, and even mint satin napkins. You could tell every small detail had been thought through.

I didn't notice at first, but there was even a welcome card sitting on top of the menu. It said the restaurant took 3 years to prepare, and that a team made up of a Korean-food chef who trained at a Michelin restaurant, a Chinese-food chef with 30 years of experience, and an izakaya master all run the kitchen together.

The line "we kept the dignity of taste and space, but cut the price bubble" felt spot on, looking back 😊

Tsingtao beer and the starter side dishes

We started with a bottle of Tsingtao beer. Coming here excited for a rare date just the two of us, and it still being hot out, I was pretty thirsty. Tsingtao bottle beer (640ml), ₩8,000.

The basic side dishes were kimchi, shredded ginger steeped in soy sauce, and pickled radish. The peanuts seemed to be there as a beer snack — they weren't even that salty, but I kept reaching for them.

First dish: Tokyo tangsuyuk (sweet and sour pork) with butter sauce

The first dish was Samsin Garosu-gil's signature Tokyo tangsuyuk (sweet and sour pork). It arrives in a cast-iron pan, and as soon as it hit the table the staff poured the sauce over it — with a note that it contains butter 😊 — so there was no need to agonize over dipping versus pouring.

Best of all, there was plenty of pineapple, wood ear mushroom, carrot and onion tucked between the fried pieces. As explained, it's finished with a 'honeycombo' sauce, and the sweet-salty glaze had a real shine — I suspect the butter had something to do with that. The pineapple's tartness kept resetting the palate throughout, so it never felt heavy, and we kept picking away at it while talking.

🦐 Second dish: Hokkaido milk cream shrimp

The second dish was Hokkaido milk cream shrimp. Fried shrimp tossed generously in cream sauce sits over lettuce and radicchio, topped once more with fresh cream.

The fresh cream topping was something I hadn't seen before, so it caught my eye. The shrimp meat was so springy, and the vegetables in between cut through the richness of the cream a little. Tasted on its own out of curiosity, the Hokkaido milk cream had an odd flavor — bland yet not quite bland — but combined with the cream shrimp, it was even more delicious.

The shrimp were huge and incredibly springy.

Menu line-up and price range at Samsin Garosu-gil

Samsin has so many options — from meals like jjajangmyeon and jjamppong to 12 kinds of daily hand-made dim sum, plus premium dishes and courses — that I agonized over what to order at first.

I wanted to try more dim sum or the braised short rib jjajangmyeon, but since I'm used to eating light in the evening, I was already too full — such a shame. A Chinese restaurant really is better enjoyed with more people.

Courses require a minimum of 2 people and are offered for both lunch and dinner. Lunch courses start at ₩25,000, dinner courses run ₩50,000 to ₩125,000. If you're after a Chinese course meal in Garosu-gil, this would also work well for a family meeting or an anniversary dinner.

✔️ Hours, parking and reservations

• Hours: Daily 11:00 – 23:00
• Address: 46 Gangnam-daero 156-gil, 2nd & 3rd floors, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, South Korea
• Valet parking: ₩5,000 for 2 hours
• Reservations: Naver Reservation, Catch Table

Wooa's one-line verdict on Samsin Garosu-gil

Samsin Garosu-gil takes familiar Chinese dishes and gives them a slightly different spin, and since the à la carte prices aren't intimidating, it works both as a casual stop among Chinese restaurants near Sinsa Station and as a place to enjoy a course in a private room. If you've been considering a Chinese restaurant near Sinsa Station, Samsin Garosu-gil is worth putting on the shortlist. I'm already planning to go back to try the dim sum and the braised short rib jjajangmyeon next time.