Half Peking duck for ₩39,000 at Panda Dim Sum, a Hongdae restaurant

While looking for a good Chinese restaurant in Yeonnam-dong, Hongdae, I ended up at Panda Dim Sum this time. Honestly, Peking duck always felt like a pricier dish to me, so I hadn't gotten around to trying it much.

At Panda Dim Sum you can order Peking duck starting from a half size in the ₩30,000s, so it felt much less of a splurge than I expected.

Beyond Peking duck, there's a good range of dim sum, rice bowls, and noodles too, so it seemed like a solid pick for a special meal or a Hongdae/Yeonnam-dong date course paired with a walk along Gyeongui Line Forest Park. Here's my honest review. 🐼

Where is Panda Dim Sum and what are its hours?

Panda Dim Sum is on the 2nd floor of 22 Dongyo-ro 38an-gil, Mapo-gu, Seoul, open daily 12:00–21:00 with a break time from 16:00–17:00 and last order at 20:10. It's about an 8-minute walk from Hongik University Station, and you can follow Gyeongui Line Forest Park on the way, which makes it easy to build a stroll into your meal.

Walking through Yeonnam-dong's distinctive atmosphere, even the walk to the restaurant felt like part of a date.

What is the restaurant like inside?

Heading up to the 2nd floor of Panda Dim Sum, a cute panda greeted me first. 🐼 The space is decorated mostly in black and kept clean, with panda items scattered around, so it really felt like a place that lives up to its name.

One side has a full glass window, so even though the space isn't huge, it never felt cramped.

The other side is a half-open kitchen, so you catch glimpses of the chef cooking. Seeing the food being made naturally built up my anticipation.

Kung Fu Panda was playing on the wall too, so I wasn't bored while waiting for the food.

Each table also had a basket for bags, which felt like a thoughtful little touch.

Panda Dim Sum menu and prices

• Peking duck (half) ₩39,000
• Peking duck (whole) ₩75,000
• Flying fish roe siu mai ₩8,500
• Xiaolongbao ₩8,000
• Black pepper beef rice bowl ₩15,000
• Mala mixed noodles ₩13,000

There's a wide selection covering Peking duck, dim sum, rice bowls, and noodles. I especially liked that you can order Peking duck in a half size. When two people visit and want duck but a whole bird feels like too much or too pricey, having a half option makes it much more approachable.

What we ordered at Panda Dim Sum

We mostly went with the menu's recommended picks.

• Peking duck (half) ₩39,000
• Black pepper beef rice bowl ₩15,000
• Mala mixed noodles ₩13,000

Black pepper beef rice bowl: the potatoes are the surprise

Panda Dim Sum's black pepper beef rice bowl is ₩15,000, and even the look of it carried a strong pepper aroma.

Meat and various vegetables, stir-fried generously, sat piled on top of the rice — it looked delicious just to look at.

Taking a bite of meat and scallion with rice, the pepper aroma rounded out the flavors of the ingredients without being overwhelming. The sauce was salty with a hint of sweetness, exactly the taste you'd expect from Chinese cooking. But here's the surprise kick — potatoes!✨️

The small-cut potatoes seemed to have been fried first, then stir-fried together — crispy outside, fluffy inside, and well coated in sauce. Genuinely delicious. There was plenty of meat too, but I kept picking out the potatoes instead. 😋

Mala mixed noodles topped with thick pork belly

Next up, Panda Dim Sum's mala mixed noodles at ₩13,000. I honestly didn't expect such thick slices of pork belly on top — it looked really good just from the visuals.

The staff first cut the pork belly into bite-size pieces and mixed it well with the mala noodles underneath. The mala sauce was properly coated onto the noodles, and eating it together with the thick pork belly made for a great combination.

I thought, whoever runs this place really knows a good pairing. 😂 Despite the spicy, intense flavor typical of mala, it finished surprisingly clean afterward.

The soft-boiled egg, scallions, and bean sprouts inside also seemed to balance out mala's strong flavor nicely.

Above all, the pork belly was thick and glazed with sauce, which paired really well with the mala noodles. If you like mala, definitely order this.

What comes with the ₩39,000 half Peking duck?

And finally, the dish I'd been looking forward to most that day arrived — Peking duck. Even though we only ordered the half size, it filled the whole table.

It came with wheat pancakes for wrapping, scallion, cucumber, and sauce, plus sugar served separately to go with the crispy roasted duck skin.

The first thing I was curious about was the duck skin! I dipped the crispy skin lightly in sugar. At first I wondered if the combination would even work, but one bite in, the sweetness of the sugar brought out the savoriness of the crispy skin even more. The skin was so crispy that I kept dipping it in sugar again and again.

This is the softest Peking duck I've ever had!🥰

Next I tried the duck meat. I placed a piece of duck on a wheat pancake, added scallion and cucumber, rolled it up, and dipped it in sauce. The duck meat was really tender.

I remembered being a bit disappointed with dry duck meat at another Peking duck spot before, but Panda Dim Sum's duck meat itself was soft and savory, which was satisfying.

The crunch of scallion and cucumber, the savoriness of the duck, and the umami of the sauce all came together really well.

And the wheat pancakes were surprisingly delicious. They had a chewy texture, so wrapped around the duck meat, my hand kept reaching for more. The duck meat was good on its own, good wrapped in the pancake, good with different ratios of scallion and cucumber, good dipped in sauce — there was a lot of fun mixing and matching. My hands were genuinely busy the whole time. 😂

Is the half Peking duck enough for two?👍

Don't assume a half order means a small portion. There was quite a lot of duck meat, so if two people are visiting, ordering the Peking duck half plus one more dim sum or main dish would probably be enough.

Since we ordered several main dishes like we did, we ended up really full. 😂 The duck especially wasn't just skin-heavy — it was packed with meat too, which made it more satisfying. If you're trying Peking duck for the first time, or have hesitated because of the price, the half size is a good place to start👍

Panda Dim Sum: final verdict

Everything I tried at Panda Dim Sum this time was satisfying overall. Above all, the Peking duck, the star of the day, was genuinely delicious. The crispy duck skin was fun to eat with sugar, and the meat was much more tender than any Peking duck I'd had before — memorable.

The combination of chewy wheat pancakes with duck, scallion, and cucumber was also great, and before I knew it we'd nearly cleared the whole plate mixing and matching different combinations. Above all, I liked that the Peking duck half is ₩39,000, making it possible to enjoy a special Chinese dish without too much of a splurge.

If you're looking for something a bit different to eat in Hongdae or Yeonnam-dong, or have been wanting to try Peking duck, this is a place worth a visit. You can walk straight into Gyeongui Line Forest Park afterward too, so it works well as a Hongdae date course. If you're looking for a good Peking duck spot or a nice-atmosphere Chinese restaurant in Hongdae's Yeonnam-dong, I'd recommend Panda Dim Sum. 🐼🥟