Anjung noodle hot pot with weekend veggie add-ons: Songdam Kalguksu

I went to Songdam Kalguksu, a great spot in Anjung, Pyeongtaek for shabu-shabu kalguksu! Last time I visited on a weekend at noon there were way too many customers, so this time I went around 1:30 haha. Going after the lunch peak, it was much more relaxed.

The interior was spacious and there were baby chairs too, so it looked like a good place to come for a family meal.

Where is Songdam Kalguksu, and is there parking?

Songdam Kalguksu is at 129 Gangbyeon-ro, Anjung-eup, Pyeongtaek-si, Gyeonggi-do, and you'll need a car to get there!! We drove too. The parking lot is huge, so you don't need to worry about parking!

By the time we finished eating and left it was past 2:30, and the parking lot was still super spacious!! Parking was really convenient. It's right in front of the building, so you can just park and walk straight inside.

Weekend order: jeongol kalguksu plus extra vegetables

Songdam Kalguksu's shabu-shabu kalguksu menus are weekdays only, so I ordered the jeongol kalguksu (hot pot kalguksu) with vegetables added separately! If you add vegetables like we did, you can eat it shabu-shabu style, so if you want vegetables in there too, try adding them on.

We also ordered a half meat, half kimchi mandu (dumpling) plate!

Since I enjoyed the rice puffs last time, and the corn bread that comes as a default side was my kind of thing, I ordered one of each — rice puffs and corn bread haha.

Inside Songdam Kalguksu and what's on the self-serve bar

The interior is spacious! The tables have plenty of space between them so you can eat comfortably! We sat at one table.

There's also a restroom inside, and it was kept clean! The men's and women's restrooms are separate.

At the self-serve bar you can grab yeolmu kimchi (young radish kimchi), napa cabbage kimchi, minced garlic, and cheongyang chili peppers — we grabbed quite a few cheongyang chilies.

The table setting and house-made chive kalguksu noodles

After a short wait, the broth, our extra-ordered vegetables and beef, corn, and side dishes came out!! Barley rice and the porridge ingredients we'd added also arrived.

The noodles that came out were house-made chive kalguksu noodles, made in-house at Songdam Kalguksu, this Anjung, Pyeongtaek favorite. Looking closely you can see finely chopped chives inside the noodles.

These are the vegetables we ordered extra! They include bok choy, napa cabbage, and bean sprouts.

The beef came out too, and since there were two of us, we ordered two portions.

This is the corn bread, good for dessert. It comes out according to the number of people!

The yeolmu kimchi was really refreshing and delicious.

So I piled the barley rice with plenty of yeolmu kimchi and gochujang (red chili paste) and mixed it all together, and it was so good. Maybe because it was a hot summer day, eating this cool, refreshing yeolmu kimchi bibimbap was pure bliss.

Half meat, half kimchi mandu: hand-rolled guljim-mandu

Our half meat mandu, half kimchi mandu order arrived. They're guljim-mandu (skinless rolled dumplings), so there was no dumpling wrapper!

They're delicious added into the kalguksu, and also delicious just dipped in soy sauce like this. Eat them warm right away!

The kimchi mandu was already seasoned spicy on its own, so it was tasty even eaten plain.

How to cook the hot pot shabu-shabu style, step by step

We put all the vegetables into the kalguksu, added the beef, and let it simmer thoroughly. I like eating shabu-shabu once the beef has released all its broth and fat into the pot, so I put in all the ingredients from the start haha.

The broth itself was well-seasoned so it was easy to eat. We dipped things in wasabi soy sauce, and eating it that way was delicious too. Even just eating the ingredients plain from the pot, they're seasoned enough, so if you prefer a milder taste you can just eat them as is.

Since I wanted to get to the kalguksu quickly, I fished out all the ingredients, added a little more broth, then put in the noodles to cook. If you look closely at the noodles you can see chives running through them, which is unique to Songdam Kalguksu's house-made noodles. Even without boiling the noodles until they go soft, they don't taste floury at all — chewy and springy with really great texture. If you throw in some cheongyang chili while cooking the noodles, you get a clean, sharp spiciness that makes it even more delicious.

The finishing porridge is egg porridge, not vegetable porridge

I like porridge even more than kalguksu, so I always make sure to get it, and Songdam Kalguksu uniquely gives you two eggs. Looking at it, the porridge ingredients were just gim (dried seaweed), rice, egg, and sesame oil — that's it. It's egg porridge, not vegetable porridge, so keep that in mind.

Since there are no other vegetables like carrot or onion in it, if you did the vegetable shabu-shabu too, I'd recommend not eating all the vegetables — save a little to add into the porridge as well.

With two whole eggs in it, the texture was wonderfully fluffy and soft. The nutty flavor really comes through too, so if you like egg porridge you'll really enjoy this one.

Free coffee after the meal

You can finish with hot mix coffee or an Americano for dessert — pour yourself a coffee and eat it with the corn bread for an even better finish. This time I got to try the shabu-shabu kalguksu Korean menu at Songdam Kalguksu, a favorite in Anjung, Pyeongtaek, and it was such good value and so tasty that I'd want to come back again.