Dongtan kalguksu restaurant with octopus perilla wraps: Yubok Haemul

Yubok Haemul Kalguksu Dongtan Direct Branch: the kalguksu spot featured on all three TV networks

Today I visited Yubok Haemul Kalguksu, a Dongtan kalguksu (knife-cut noodle soup) restaurant that has actually appeared on all three major Korean broadcast networks. What makes it different from ordinary kalguksu?

It's been featured on Tasty Guys (맛있는 녀석들), MBC's Live Tonight, and MBN's Fresh Info Market. Alongside its kalguksu, this Korean restaurant near Dongtan Central Park is also popular for its octopus dishes.

A Dongtan Central Park restaurant with unusually good broth — just how good is Yubok Haemul Kalguksu?

Where is Yubok Haemul Kalguksu, and where do you park?

Yubok Haemul Kalguksu, a Dongtan kalguksu restaurant, sits in a residential block right across from Central Park.

A few spots are available right in front of the restaurant, but you can also easily get there using the Central Park public parking lot.

Inside Yubok Haemul Kalguksu: seating and the self-bar

This Bansong-dong restaurant in Dongtan draws you in with a wall of green visible through its floor-to-ceiling windows — a real Dongtan Central Park spot.

The interior is clean and very bright, with 6-person and 4-person tables set up throughout.

There's also a group section, making this a solid Dongtan restaurant choice for gatherings or work dinners.

You order through the tablet at your table, and you're free to help yourself to whatever's at the self-bar.

The house-made kimchi geotjeori (fresh cabbage kimchi) and radish salad really wake up your appetite.

And proof this is the real deal — there's an actual wait to get in, haha.

Menu at Yubok Haemul Kalguksu: kalguksu, sets and octopus dishes

Here's what Yubok Haemul Kalguksu has on the menu.

• Yubok Haemul Kalguksu (seafood kalguksu)
• Yubok Shabu-Shabu Kalguksu
• Grilled webfoot octopus stir-fry
• Octopus seafood chive pancake
• Perilla leaf pancake
• King meat dumplings
• Pufferfish broth

There are also good-value set options — seafood kalguksu for 2 with perilla pancake, seafood kalguksu for 2 with octopus stir-fry, seafood kalguksu for 3 with octopus chive pancake, and more, so you can order according to your group size. Beyond the kalguksu and sets, there are also plenty of à la carte dishes like octopus and octopus-pork belly hot plate.

At Yubok Haemul Kalguksu,

the broth is made in-house and the noodles are hand-made, giving this Dongtan Central Park Korean restaurant real peace of mind about what you're eating.

Seafood kalguksu in pufferfish broth: live clams, sea squirt and 3 minutes

For the seafood kalguksu, they add live short-neck clams and mudskipper straight into the broth, flip an hourglass, and let it simmer for exactly 3 minutes. At first I thought, wait, what is this? The broth just had noodles in it...

but then the live, same-day shipped clams and mudskipper went in, and suddenly the broth was full of ocean flavor. I get why this Dongtan kalguksu restaurant, Yubok, is so good — haha. Nothing beats the freshness of raw ingredients like this.

This is one serving. Just flip the hourglass and simmer for exactly 3 minutes.

Because it's seafood-based, the pufferfish broth is even more refreshing and deep in flavor. Tasting it, I got why people love it — that refreshing quality just keeps coming. (It'd make a great hangover cure.)

In fact, this Dongtan restaurant, Yubok Haemul Kalguksu, sells the pufferfish broth separately. It's such an all-purpose broth that I thought it'd be handy to keep at home.

Why you should add flying fish roe and perilla wraps to the grilled octopus

And then our grilled octopus arrived.

Spicy octopus loaded with onion and garlic. There's even a tip printed there that mixing the boiled kalguksu noodles into the leftover octopus sauce is delicious.

We ordered flying fish roe and perilla leaves on top to eat alongside the octopus.

If you order the grilled octopus, I really recommend adding the perilla-and-flying-fish-roe combo. Wrapped up like this, it's incredibly delicious.

Mixing the barley rice, and how far two servings go

Barley rice also comes out with the meal, and we topped it with radish salad and mixed it into the octopus sauce.

The barley rice this way is a nice little treat too. If you run out, you can pay to get more.

The portions are pretty generous — the two of us ordered one serving each of kalguksu and octopus and still left completely full.

Since it's a menu that kids and adults can enjoy together, this is a great spot for a Dongtan Central Park meal with the whole family.