DMC Korean restaurant: suyuk hotpot, squid jeon & bingsu, Ongdoenjang

What is Ongdoenjang Sangam like?

Ongdoenjang Sangam (옥된장 상암점) is a Korean restaurant in Sangam-dong near Digital Media City Station, serving hotpots and jeon (savory pancakes) made with house-fermented traditional doenjang. I went to this Sangam restaurant! My husband and I headed to Sangam MBC for a weekend date after a long while, and guess what, we ran into the girl group ITZY! Haha. We hung around watching, got hungry, and wandered in. It turned out to be a great spot for a DMC lunch!

Ongdoenjang Sangam location, hours and parking

Ongdoenjang Sangam is at 63 Woldeukeopbuk-ro 44-gil, 2nd floor, Mapo-gu, Seoul (lot address: Sangam-dong 36-14). It is open 11:00–23:00, with a break from 14:30 to 16:30, last order at 22:00, and closed every Sunday. For parking, you can use the Hyoin Building lot for one hour.

Interior and private rooms at Ongdoenjang Sangam

The inside is clean and nicely decorated, good for lunch or dinner, and quite a few people were there for daytime drinks too.

There are private rooms inside too, which seem great for company dinners, family gatherings and wedding-invitation get-togethers.

Can you taste traditional liquor at Ongdoenjang Sangam?

Unusually, this branch has traditional liquor tasting, which I hadn't seen at other branches! If you can't decide which of the traditional liquors on sale to try, small one-glass tastings sound like a good idea haha.

Ongdoenjang Sangam menu

The menu runs from set meals (Surasang, Anjusang, Jinjisang) to doenjang hotpot, soft tofu hotpot, jeon and many other Korean dishes that go well with drinks. Whether for lunch, dinner or drinking food, it was full of healthy options, which I liked.

At Ongdoenjang near Digital Media City Station you can try hearty restorative dishes simmered with house-fermented doenjang. At a glance, it was full of healthy stamina food you don't see at other DMC drinking spots.

Side dishes and sauces

Side dishes were stir-fried kimchi and green onion kimchi, with salted shrimp, a sweet soy sauce and a mustard sauce to go with the dishes.

Mixed suyuk hotpot (small) ₩25,000: how is it for two?

The small mixed suyuk (boiled beef) hotpot at Ongdoenjang Sangam is ₩25,000 and comes with three cuts: arongsatae (shank), seuji (beef tendon) and buchaesal (flank). Since it was just my husband and me, we ordered the small, and it was nice to try all three cuts in a good portion.

It was piled with fragrant minari (water dropwort), and as the broth boiled, eating it with the beef was wonderfully healthy-tasting. Above all, the clear broth that cools you from the inside was amazing, haha. I could see why the mixed suyuk hotpot is the signature dish at Ongdoenjang Sangam.

The flank was bigger than I expected, tender and not very fatty, so it was nutty and rich! Personally, I loaded it with minari and dunked it in the sweet soy sauce, and it was delicious :)

The bouncy tendon dipped in mustard sauce was clean with a nice sharp kick, and there was a little glass noodle underneath too, so the whole lineup was better than I expected.

Minari porridge to finish the hotpot

After you finish the mixed suyuk hotpot at Ongdoenjang Sangam, they bring ingredients so you can make minari porridge. It was mildly salty, with the minari flavor coming through, so it was light and refreshing!

Squid minari jeon ₩20,000: how crispy is it?

The squid minari jeon at Ongdoenjang Sangam is ₩20,000, and wow... I think it's among the best jeon I've ever had! There's hardly any flour so it was thin, and it seems they coated it with just a little frying mix before pan-frying, because the crispness was record-breaking.

It's packed with minari and big pieces of squid, and you can tell the crunch is something else just by looking, right? Haha. The moment I took a bite, I immediately thought of traditional liquors like makgeolli, yakju, cheongju and fruit wines 😂

Old-style patbingsu (red bean shaved ice) for dessert, ₩5,000

Ongdoenjang Sangam also has old-style patbingsu for ₩5,000. It was a hot day and I wanted a cold dessert, and what do you know, the restaurant near Sangam MBC had old-style patbingsu on the menu! Haha. So I ordered it.

They shaved so much ice into it, wow! Eating it with the not-too-sweet red beans made it a really generous lunch, I'd say!

Who is Ongdoenjang Sangam for?

Honestly, Ongdoenjang Sangam is a place where everyone from small children to elders can eat a healthy, tasty meal. Corkage is free too, so if you're looking for a DMC drinking spot or a good restaurant, why not stop by? Haha. It was a healthy, tasty, filling meal :)