Korean BBQ lunch near Oido with hallabong juice: Hamdon, Siheung

I was traveling to Oido and wanted to grab lunch in Jeongwang-dong before heading out, but there weren't many places for a really hearty meal... Since I wanted to eat properly even if it was just one meal, I went looking and found a place with a lunch meat set on offer. This is Hamdon Jeongwang Main Branch, located in Jeongwang-dong, Siheung.

Where is Hamdon Jeongwang Main Branch, and what are its hours?

Hamdon Jeongwang Main Branch is at 31-1 Jungsimsanggga 3-gil, Units 101-102, Siheung-si, Gyeonggi-do, open daily from 11:30 to 23:00. Naver reservations are also available.

This Jeongwang-dong favorite sits right at the end of the Rodeo street, and the big sign on the first floor made it easy to find. I went for an early lunch and it was pretty quiet, but from the reviews it's apparently packed with waits even on weekday evenings!! Maybe because of the Jeju pork belly concept, there's a dol hareubang (stone grandfather statue) at the entrance haha... so cute.

What can you choose in the lunch meat set?

The lunch meat set, only available at lunchtime, lets you choose between pork belly and special pork neck, and between kimchi jjigae and doenjang jjigae. I'm a pork neck person, so I ordered special pork neck + kimchi jjigae for two! The interior had plenty of tables, enough to seat groups comfortably.

If meat feels like too much for lunch, there's the kimchi jjigae set for just ₩10,000, which comes with kimchi jjigae + egg rolls! We ordered a half order of egg rolls too haha. Besides meat and stew, there's also lunch naengmyeon, so keep that in mind.

Haha, maybe because of the Jeju concept, they had Jeju hallabong juice on the menu! I used to see it every time I visited a market in Jeju, so all those memories came flooding back and I ordered one.

These are the basic side dishes that come standard. They arrived clean and neat, which put me in a good mood. Malton salt also came out, and dipping the pork neck in it was so tasty.

Tank-aged special pork neck, grilled first by the staff

At Hamdon Jeongwang Main Branch, staff do the pre-grilling themselves, so you just sit and wait haha. Anyone looking for a spot for a team dinner!! This is it... you don't even have to grill the meat here.

What's special about this Siheung favorite is that they age domestic premium pork neck directly in a tank. Because it's aged meat, you get juicy pork neck that's hard to find anywhere else. It looked so delicious just to see it, ㅠ.ㅠ.

It had a slight pink tint, so I thought it was undercooked and was grilling it to a crisp... but the staff kindly told me it was already fully cooked haha. I set it on the stone plate and enjoyed it to the fullest. Thanks to that stone plate, I could eat warm meat all the way to the end. Adding a bit of fresh wasabi and dipping it in malton salt was so good. Maybe because it's aged directly in the tank, the juiciness was on another level. The meat was tender too, and completely clean with no gamey smell.

Minari wraps instead of lettuce

This Oido-area favorite gives you minari (water dropwort) wraps instead of perilla leaves or lettuce. Rolling fresh minari around a piece of meat with a little gochujang made for a fragrant, delicious bite.

I really love minari, so I like it in shabu shabu and in gimbap (seaweed rice roll) too. Wrapping the juicy pork neck in fragrant minari doubled the deliciousness. Feels like I ate more vegetables than meat, so that counts as healthy, right? Haha.

How were the kimchi jjigae and egg roll?

Next came the kimchi jjigae (kimchi stew). You're supposed to let it simmer for about 7 more minutes. I couldn't wait and peeked in early, and there was a huge chunk of tofu inside! Bubbling away... we let it finish cooking.

If you order meat with kimchi jjigae, you can't skip the egg rolls, right? Since it was lunch, I worried it'd be too heavy, so I ordered just a half portion... I'd already eaten a lot, but the fluffy, moist egg roll with a spoonful of rice was truly Korean home cooking... honestly, I kind of regretted ordering just the half, should've just gotten a full one.

Being a barbecue restaurant's kimchi jjigae, it was packed with pork. Rather than a sweet kimchi jjigae, it leaned tangy and clean, which actually paired perfectly with rice. While we ate, a lot of solo diners came in, and most of them ordered the kimchi jjigae set! It already seemed like a well-known lunch spot in the neighborhood, haha.

Mul naengmyeon and Jeju hallabong juice

ㅠㅠ... I told myself I'd eat light since it was lunch, but I overate again. The meat was so good that I even added an order of mul naengmyeon (cold noodle soup). The broth had icy slush floating in it and was so refreshing, and rather than the sweet-and-tangy style, it was the plain, savory barbecue-restaurant style naengmyeon that suited my taste perfectly. It was a naengmyeon that stuck to the basics, and it paired really well with the meat.

The hallabong juice is 100% freshly squeezed with no additives, so instead of artificial sweetness it had a tangy, deep flavor. It was really good for cleansing the palate after the meat. I felt like I was back in Jeju.........

Since it's a lunch special, the price was affordable too, but with high-quality aged meat plus kimchi jjigae! I walked out patting my full belly, very satisfied haha. Highly recommend this Siheung Jeongwang-dong favorite, Hamdon Jeongwang Main Branch!