Yongin noodle restaurant: seafood kalguksu at Baekcheongu

I visited Baekcheongu Kalguksu Yongin Dongbaek Branch (백청우칼국수 용인동백점), a beloved local noodle spot near Dongbaek E-Mart known for seafood-broth kalguksu (knife-cut noodles), neatly served barley rice, and house-made kimchi.

It has been around in Yongin Dongbaek for quite a long time. My family alone has been coming for more than ten years, I think. So I had no idea there were so many other branches—I thought it was only in Dongbaek.

Baekcheongu Kalguksu Yongin Dongbaek Branch: location and hours

I made one last summer visit to Baekcheongu Kalguksu Yongin Dongbaek Branch for soybean noodles too. Let me start with the basics.

• Address: 19 Pyeongchon 2-ro 1beon-gil, Giheung-gu, Yongin-si, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea
• About a 5–10 minute walk from the main entrance of Dongbaek E-Mart
• Weekdays (Mon–Fri) 11:00–21:00; last order 20:20
• Weekends (Sat–Sun) 11:00–20:40; last order 20:00

Parking and interior

You can park on the main road in front of the restaurant—during lunch and dinner on weekdays, and anytime on weekends! There are spaces behind the building too, but they are difficult to get at peak times. Parking in front of the restaurant is definitely easiest.

There are quite a lot of seats. It is not floor seating, but you do take off your shoes before going in. There are slippers that make me think it may once have been floor seating, but you can just go in barefoot. Nice and clean.

Signature dishes and what we ordered

• Seafood kalguksu ₩12,000: clam broth and seafood
• Seafood & dumpling hot pot ₩16,000: choose kimchi, meat, or half-and-half dumplings
• Yeongwol black soybean noodles ₩12,000
• Dumplings (meat, kimchi, or half-and-half) ₩11,000 each
• Complimentary barley rice

We usually add dumplings to the seafood kalguksu, but the dumpling hot pot is generous too, so that works well. The included barley rice seems to be ₩1,500 if you add more. But since it is a side, I have never added any, and I have never felt it was not enough. Bibim-guksu (spicy mixed noodles) is also a summer item along with the soybean noodles, and if I remember right from having it before, that was tasty too.

Today, we ordered three servings of seafood kalguksu and the limited Yeongwol black soybean noodles. There were three of us, but we ordered the soybean noodles as more of a side. We would normally have ordered dumplings, but it was the tail end of summer, so I thought this might be our last chance for soybean noodles and I would regret skipping them.

Starting with young-radish kimchi barley rice

The side dishes and complimentary barley rice arrive first. Fresh house-made cabbage geotjeori (fresh kimchi), crisp yeolmu kimchi (young-radish kimchi), and seasoned bean sprouts come as standard. It is disappointing when a kalguksu place does not give you barley rice, you know. I especially love Baekcheongu Kalguksu because its yeolmu kimchi is so good.

Mix it up with gochujang (red chili paste) and sesame oil for a little extra treat. The tangy yeolmu barley-rice bibimbap is seriously delicious.

Seafood kalguksu cooked with an hourglass

While you are eating the yeolmu barley-rice bibimbap, the seafood kalguksu gets ready. The broth with clams and fresh seafood is already simmering, and then out come the seafood and house-made kalguksu noodles.

Once the pot of clam broth comes to a boil, they add all at once the fresh seafood, shrimp, squid, shellfish, webfoot octopus, sea squirts, and more, plus the house-made kalguksu noodles.

Using an hourglass to time it is such an analog little touch. They told us to eat it after about 3 to 5 minutes of cooking.

There is a good amount of seafood, so the broth tastes refreshing and clean.

I scooped out the noodles before they got soft. They felt chewier that way. We turned the heat down low before the noodles softened and started eating. Each serving came as one bundle, and the portion was definitely not small.

It is truly delicious with some spicy, crunchy geotjeori kimchi on top. The mussels must have been especially fresh today—they were delicious without a hint of fishiness.

Yeongwol black soybean noodles, limited to 30 bowls a day

The Gangwon-do Yeongwol black soybean noodles came out too, and we ate them alongside everything else. They sell only 30 bowls a day. Made by finely grinding black soybeans from Yeongwol, Gangwon-do, it is dark and thick in style. I had soybean noodles here before, but I do not think they used black soybeans then. Still rich and delicious, though.

There is no artificial sweetness. It has that thick, nutty flavor unique to beans. The house-made noodles are chewy and feel a little different from the kalguksu noodles? They are about the same thickness, but maybe because the broth is different, they feel a bit thinner. The soybean broth clung well to them, which was delicious.

We had such a satisfying weekend lunch with the clear, deep seafood-broth kalguksu that really warms you through. I also highly, highly recommend the nutty black soybean noodles as a summer specialty before summer is gone.