Daegu donburi restaurant by Suseong Lake: salmon obanzai at Ongijeong

Ongijeong Suseong Lake Branch: a Japanese lunch spot within walking distance of Suseong Lake

Ongijeong Suseong Lake Branch is a tendon and donburi-focused Japanese restaurant on the 1st floor of 9 Suseongmot 6-gil, Suseong-gu, Daegu. I was looking for somewhere clean and simple to eat near Suseong Lake and ended up here, and what I ordered was the special salmon obanzai :)

Best of all, it's close to Suseong Lake so you can take a walk around after eating, and there was staff managing parking right outside the store which made things a bit easier. Parking is always a low-key source of stress when going out to eat, so that was a nice touch. The exterior overall had a clean vibe too. I went right at the 11am opening time and there were already quite a few people there — very fitting for a Suseong Lake favorite!

How do you order at Ongijeong Suseong Lake Branch?

At Ongijeong Suseong Lake Branch you order using the tablet on the table! The menu is really varied, isn't it?! A lineup solid enough for dates or group meals!!!

• Mentaiko avocado rice bowl
• Pork jowl rice bowl
• Fried eel tendon
• Shrimp tendon
• Tendon
• Buta-don (pork bowl)
• Steak-don
• Bukkake cold udon
• Spicy sukiyaki udon
• Shrimp tempura udon

And so on...!!!!!! Plus there's a whole side menu on top of that haha

The interior is clean, with a cozy wood atmosphere I really liked~~ There are baby chairs too, so it seems like a good spot to bring a baby along haha

What comes with the special salmon obanzai sake-don set?

I ordered the special salmon obanzai since it lets you enjoy a bunch of different dishes together with sake-don as the main, and everything came out beautifully arranged all at once, looking pretty appetizing too. Such a pretty spread ❤️

The main dish is salmon sake-don. There's a generous amount of salmon piled on top of the rice, and eating it with onion and wasabi went really well with the soft flavor of the salmon. The salmon itself wasn't too strong-tasting, so it was easy to eat without feeling heavy. I liked that it wasn't seasoned very much either! Dip a bit of wasabi into the soy sauce served alongside and it's seasoned just right!!!! People who like to eat things less salty are going to love this haha

The tempura lineup: shrimp, enoki mushroom, seaweed, lotus root and perilla leaf

The tempura that came with it was great too. It included shrimp, enoki mushroom, seaweed, lotus root, and perilla leaf, so with all that variety it was fun picking through them one by one. The shrimp tempura especially had a crisp batter around a plump, springy shrimp, and eating it back and forth with the sake-don made a great combination. There were also vegetable tempura pieces like lotus root and perilla leaf that helped cut through the richness a bit. The enoki mushroom tempura was low-key charming haha crispy yet chewy mushroom texture!!! It was so good!!! ❤️🧡🩵

Rolled egg, salad and soup: is the portion filling enough?

As sides, rolled egg, salad, and soup all came together too. The rolled egg was soft and mild, nice to eat in between bites, and the salad added some fresh vegetables, so overall the menu composition felt fairly balanced. The dressing was tangy and really perked up the appetite~~~ Having soup alongside was great too, being able to have a warm spoonful here and there.

At first I thought, with so many dishes coming in small portions, it might not be that filling, but between the salmon rice bowl and the tempura, it ended up being more filling than expected. This seems like a great match for people who'd rather eat a little of many different dishes than just one menu item the whole time.

A walk around Suseong Lake after lunch

After eating at Ongijeong Suseong Lake Branch, it's also nice for a walk around Suseong Lake afterward, so this could work well as a lunch or dinner date course too! The special salmon obanzai let me eat salmon, tempura, rolled egg, salad, and soup all in one sitting. It's the kind of menu that'll come to mind when I want a neatly plated Japanese home-style meal :)