Chinese restaurant near Oksu Station: a couple's lunch set at Taetae

It was a rare day off together with my husband🩶 and we wanted tasty food somewhere with a nice atmosphere. Going far felt like too much, and there's a Chinese restaurant in our neighborhood, Taetae, that I'd had my eye on for a while, so I booked it without a second thought!

How do you book a table at Taetae in Oksu-dong?

You can book Taetae on Naver and Catch Table. Just so you know, there's a reservation deposit when you book!

Taetae has a reputation as an Oksu-dong Chinese restaurant, but it only opened about a year ago! The spot felt familiar, and it turned out to be where Jade & Water, a restaurant my husband and I went to before, used to be!

Getting to Taetae from Oksu Station, and where to park

Taetae is about a 5-minute walk from Exit 7 of Oksu Station. Parking is difficult here, so I'd recommend using a public car park🚗

It was pouring on the day we went, so we took the car and parked at the Oksu Riverzen shopping complex, which is an easy walk to the restaurant. We planned to eat at Taetae and then have coffee at Riverzen! If you have coffee at the Twosome Place inside the complex, you get parking support, so that works out 💯

Taetae's interior: more fusion Korean restaurant than Chinese restaurant

I was surprised by how pretty the interior of Taetae is the moment you walk in! It felt less like a Chinese restaurant and more like a fusion Korean restaurant🤭 I especially liked the photo-friendly lighting and the stylish layout of the space.

When to go to avoid the wait at Taetae, and how to order

You order at Taetae by QR code while sitting comfortably at your table. I'd heard there's a wait since it's well known as an Oksu-dong Chinese restaurant, so we deliberately went after the lunch rush, and it wasn't crowded, which was nice😌

The complimentary sides are cold jasmine tea, zha cai (pickled mustard stem) and danmuji (yellow pickled radish).

What to order at Taetae: the signature dishes

Since we'd come to Taetae, I checked the signatures first. I'd read reviews before visiting, and beyond the jjajang (black bean noodles) and jjamppong (spicy seafood noodle soup), the other dishes get good reviews too, from the fish-fragrant eggplant to the black vinegar tangsuyuk (sweet and sour pork) and the squid tempura, so it was hard to decide.. The menu is huge, too!

In the end we went with a reasonably priced set that lets you eat all the bestsellers✅

• Taetae jjajang
• Taetae shrimp jjamppong
• Fish-fragrant eggplant
• Lemonade

It's lunch, so I kept it light with this much?🤭 It also looks like a great place to come in the evening, order lots of different dishes and have a drink.

You order through the QR code and pay when you leave 🆗

Sparkling grapefruit instead of lemonade

The Taetae lemonade in the set had run out of ingredients, so they switched it to sparkling grapefruit for us! And it was even more my taste than lemonade😍 It wasn't sweet at all, a sparkling drink where you could taste the full flavor of the grapefruit🍹

Taetae's bestseller: fish-fragrant eggplant

I tried the Taetae fish-fragrant eggplant as soon as it arrived, and it went crunch!!🎉 You really have to hear it... it was so crispy you could clearly hear the crunch, while the eggplant inside was moist and soft, so you get the perfect crispy-outside, juicy-inside contrast. The sauce is rich, and I liked that it came for dipping as you please rather than being coated all over.

Taetae jjajang: thin noodles with plenty of button mushrooms

The noodles in the Taetae jjajang are thin and soft, with a texture that's perfect for slurping. It was also packed with button mushrooms, so you get soft and chewy textures together.

The jjajang sauce itself was so good that if I hadn't been full, I'd have wanted to mix rice into it too🤤 Even looking at the photo again, I want to eat it.

Taetae shrimp jjamppong: a deep, rich broth

The Taetae shrimp jjamppong has plump, bouncy shrimp, and it isn't only shrimp, there was quite a lot of meat in it too! The highlight here is the deep, rich broth🧡 It tastes clean, so you keep going back for more.

Is the food at Taetae heavily seasoned?

The food at Taetae overall isn't salty and tastes great! After Chinese food my mouth always feels dry and heavy from the saltiness, but after eating at Taetae I had none of that💯💯💯💯💯

Taetae, the Oksu-dong Chinese restaurant, is a nice place for a date, and somewhere I'd like to come back to with my parents! The atmosphere is so good that I'd recommend it as a spot for gatherings too😉