Dongtan hot pot lunch swapping minari for bean sprouts: Deungchon

Hi, I'm Laura, beauty influencer ✨ When the breeze starts turning cool like this, I start craving something spicy and hot in a bowl. This place lets you enjoy shabu beef and vegetables, kalguksu, and finish with fried rice all in one sitting, so I went back to Deungchon Shabu Kalguksu after a while. This time I visited Deungchon Shabu Kalguksu Gran Passage Branch, near Dongtan Lake Park. Cooking vegetables and beef in a spicy broth, then moving on to noodles and fried rice — it makes for a hearty lunch or dinner.

Where Deungchon Shabu Kalguksu Gran Passage Branch is and when it opens

Deungchon Shabu Kalguksu Gran Passage Branch is located on the 2nd floor, Units 2004–2005, Gran Passage Green Zone, 9 Dongtan-daero 5-gil, Hwaseong-si, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea. It's open from 11:00 to 21:00, with last order at 14:00 and 20:00, and a break time from 15:00 to 17:00.

It's close to Dongtan Lake Park, so it's also nice for a walk after eating — this is a place I come back to whenever I want a solid Dongtan shabu-shabu restaurant.

Inside the restaurant: seating and how the table is set

The interior of Deungchon Shabu Kalguksu Gran Passage Branch is bright and clean, and there's fairly generous space between tables! Families, couples, and groups were all dining together — since it's a dish meant for sharing around a pot, it's also a good spot when you're looking for a Dongtan restaurant for a group meal.

The table already had small plates, cups, and sauce neatly set out. Shabu-shabu is delicious eaten straight, but dipping meat and vegetables into the sauce gives you a whole different flavor. It went well with the spicy broth too, so I kept reaching for it throughout the meal.

Three vegetable options: bean sprouts, bean sprouts with minari, or minari

Ordering was done through the screen set up at the table. But there was one thing different from my last visit — vegetables used to come as minari only, but now you can choose from three options: bean sprouts, bean sprouts+minari, or minari. If you like minari's fragrant flavor, go with minari; if you prefer a crunchy texture, go with bean sprouts; and if you want both, choose bean sprouts+minari. This time I ordered bean sprouts.

What comes in the set: beef, kalguksu noodles, dumplings and fried rice

First up, the shabu beef! It's thinly sliced, so it cooks quickly in the boiling broth and stays tender rather than chewy. The spicy broth flavor naturally soaks into the meat — it tasted clean eaten plain, and even more savory dipped in sauce.

The set also comes with rice to fry at the end. The rice comes with egg and finely chopped vegetables, ready to be stir-fried in the leftover broth after finishing the shabu-shabu and noodles. Honestly, at Deungchon, even when you're full, it doesn't feel like a complete meal until you've had the fried rice haha.

Kalguksu noodles and dumplings were also included. Once you've eaten some of the beef and vegetables, you add the noodles to the now-richer broth — the chewy noodles plus dumplings make the set more filling than you'd expect +_+ Rather than adding everything at once, working through it in order from the shabu-shabu on lets the flavor change and develop along the way!

Kimchi came as the default side dish. Spicy and crunchy, it went well as a bite between beef and vegetables, and paired nicely with the noodles too.

How the bean sprout plate arrives at Deungchon

Finally, the pot arrived piled high with my chosen bean sprouts. Mushroom and potato were tucked underneath, so the base already looked quite generous. Where the minari option is known for its fragrant, refreshing flavor, bean sprouts have a milder scent and stay crunchy, which made them easy to eat alongside the beef. I liked that people who don't usually enjoy minari now have a choice that suits their taste.

Once the broth started bubbling, I added the shabu beef. Rather than adding it all at once, cooking just enough for one bite at a time keeps the beef's tender texture. As the bean sprouts, mushroom, and potato released their flavor, the broth grew richer than at the start.

As the spicy broth boiled, the bean sprouts naturally began to soften. Rather than boiling them too long, eating them while they still had a bit of crunch left paired well with the beef's texture — the spicy kick combined with the refreshing vegetable flavor kept the broth from feeling too heavy.

I fished out some well-cooked beef. The thin slices had soaked up the spicy broth flavor, tasting clean yet savory. Dipped in sauce, the salty note added even more, and I kept reaching for more. Eating the shabu beef together with bean sprouts, the softness and crunch complemented each other nicely.

There was also plenty of mushroom. Soaked in broth, the mushroom was moist and chewy, growing more savory with each bite. The longer it cooked, the more its flavor infused the broth, deepening the overall taste. True to a proper Dongtan shabu-shabu spot, I got to enjoy not just meat but vegetables and mushrooms in equal measure.

I also tried the bean sprouts I'd been most curious about this time. They had softened nicely but still kept some crunch, and paired better with the spicy broth than I expected. Those who love minari's distinctive scent will probably still find the original minari option more familiar, but I was very satisfied with the mild bean sprout option that went so well with the beef. Next time, I think I'll try bean sprouts+minari to have both together.

Thick-cut potato was also in the pot. Simmered long enough, the potato cooked through to a fluffy center, soaking up the spicy broth flavor — a treat worth fishing out piece by piece. With mushroom, bean sprouts, and potato all included, the vegetable lineup felt plenty generous!

Adding the noodles and dumplings, then finishing with fried rice

After eating a good amount of beef and vegetables, I added the kalguksu noodles and dumplings. The broth, having simmered with various ingredients, was much richer than at the start, and as the noodles soaked it up, they became almost a completely different dish. The kalguksu noodles kept their chewy texture, and eating them with the spicy broth and kimchi was, as always, a familiar and foolproof combination.

And of course, the finale — fried rice. After finishing the noodles, I ladled out some of the broth and stir-fried the rice with egg and vegetables. You need to keep the broth from being too much so the rice grains stay fluffy — spreading it out across the bottom of the pot brought up a nutty aroma that revived my appetite all over again haha.

The finished fried rice was nutty thanks to the egg, with the shabu-shabu broth's savory depth lightly worked in. I was already full from the beef, bean sprouts, and noodles, but somehow the fried rice still went down easily. Going through the spicy shabu-shabu, the chewy kalguksu noodles and dumplings, and finally the nutty fried rice, in order, felt like a truly complete meal.

Above all, I liked that instead of minari being the only option like before, you can now choose from bean sprouts, bean sprouts+minari, or minari depending on your taste. Anyone who likes crunchy bean sprouts like me, or who found minari's scent a bit much before, should find this place easier to enjoy now. If you're looking for a hearty Dongtan shabu-shabu restaurant near Dongtan Lake Park, Deungchon Shabu Kalguksu Gran Passage Branch is worth a visit!