Early dinner beef shabu-shabu, two extra meat plates: Songdam Kalguksu

Today I'm bringing you a review of Songdam Kalguksu, a spot in Anjung, Pyeongtaek. It's right next to Suksudaega, the Korean fine-dining restaurant I visited last time. After eating there, we said we'd come back for kalguksu (knife-cut noodle soup) next time — and here we are, way sooner than expected!!

This whole thing started because our company cafeteria served the exact same menu for lunch and dinner, and my appetite just died... this called for eating out, so my roommate and I headed over to Anjung for kalguksu.

Parking and when we went

Songdam Kalguksu has a big parking lot right in front, so parking was no hassle. My work ends a bit early, so we came for an early dinner and there weren't many people — nice and quiet! Apparently it's popular enough to have a wait on weekends.

Songdam Kalguksu basic info

• Hours 09:00–21:00 (last order 20:10)
• Closed on Mondays
• Groups, parking, takeout, high chairs available
• 129 Gangbyeon-ro, Anjung-eup, Pyeongtaek-si, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea

What the space felt like

The first thing I noticed walking in was that the place was way bigger than I expected. It's spacious enough that I thought it'd work great for a company dinner or a family gathering too. And the interior has that old countryside-house vibe, so the atmosphere was really nice.

Menu and what we ordered

Songdam Kalguksu's menu includes clam, beef, meatball dumpling, and vegetable hot pot kalguksu, plus a weekday-only shabu-shabu option. Since we came on a weekday evening and we're both meat people, we went straight for two servings of beef shabu-shabu with extra meat, no hesitation! We'd also ordered barley rice, but cancelled it once we found out every menu comes with complimentary barley rice and corn bread.

Songdam Kalguksu prices

• Beef shabu-shabu ₩11,000 per person
• Extra meat ₩7,000
• Drinks ₩2,000

Songdam Kalguksu has that "1959 old-style kalguksu" phrase on its sign. Turns out it's actually a pretty well-known kalguksu spot in Anjung, Pyeongtaek, featured on TV a few times. And of course it's gotta taste better than the office lunch, right..;;

Hot pot kalguksu or shabu-shabu — which to pick

A little tip before ordering. If you love rich broth and noodles, go for the hot pot kalguksu! It lets you mix and match clam, beef, vegetable, and meatball dumpling — you don't have to stick to one option, you can cross-order ingredients to suit your taste, which was great.

If choosing between all the vegetables, mushrooms, and dumplings feels like too much, go with shabu-shabu instead! It also allows mix-and-match ordering.

• Rich broth + noodles → hot pot kalguksu
• Lots of vegetables + mushrooms + dumplings → shabu-shabu

While waiting for the shabu-shabu, we dug into the barley rice! Like a little appetizer, we mixed it with yeolmu kimchi (young radish kimchi) and stirred it all up.

The full beef shabu-shabu spread

It came out loaded — all kinds of vegetables, beef, dumplings, even corn bread. We figured the meat portion might not be enough, so we ordered an extra plate right from the start. Hahahaha.

Starting off with two plates of meat..! Two plates was just the right amount to fill both of us up. We wanted to finish with the egg porridge at the end too, but we were too full, so we had to skip it.

It had been rainy and gloomy all last week, and I'd been craving something spicy-hot, but the warm shabu-shabu really brought my appetite back. Guess you really do need to eat something good sometimes. Especially after work — we finished it off properly by tossing in the kalguksu noodles at the end and slurping it all up.

On the way out, there was even dessert coffee waiting for us.

Final thoughts

Plenty of parking, spacious dining hall. It was great for the two of us to eat here, but I also think it'd be a solid choice for a family gathering or a company dinner. Being able to mix and match ingredients to your taste made choosing easy too. The menu lineup was good and the kalguksu broth had a nice spicy-hot kick. If you're looking for a good kalguksu spot in Anjung, Pyeongtaek, this one's worth a visit!