Yeoksam-dong sundaeguk restaurant with potato pancake: Sinju Okmi

I was looking around for Gangnam Station restaurants when I heard about a newly opened sundaeguk (blood sausage soup) place in Yeoksam-dong, so I rushed right over. It was so good that it kept popping back into my head afterward — this is Sinju Okmi Gangnam Branch.

Where is Sinju Okmi Gangnam Branch, and is there parking?

Sinju Okmi Gangnam Branch is a 24-hour sundaeguk restaurant at 21 Teheran-ro 10-gil, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, just 477 meters from Exit 3 of Gangnam Station. Being 5 minutes from the exit makes it a very accessible Gangnam Station sundaeguk restaurant if you're coming by transit.

Parking is free, and valet is only ₩3,000, which is a relief in Gangnam where parking is always a headache.

I made a point of visiting outside lunch hours, but there were still plenty of people having a late lunch. The place is huge, so it would work great as a group dinner spot, and I also saw a lot of solo diners — the space is roomy enough that the atmosphere never feels noisy.

Sinju Okmi menu: which sundaeguk should you order?

You sit down and order via tablet. I learned that the owner of Sinju Okmi — now running the business as a second generation — has actually been designated a Korean Food Master, which is a pretty big deal.

The most popular option is the sundaeguk made with pork boiled four times a day plus handmade sundae (Korean blood sausage), and the spicy myeongin sundaeguk with a special sauce is apparently a steady favorite loved by everyone regardless of age. There's also a regular sundaeguk with intestines, but for people like me who only like the sundae, or people who only want the meat, there are menu options for that too.

Side dishes and the self-serve bar at Sinju Okmi

Radish salad, diced radish kimchi, and mild cucumber peppers with ssamjang (thick dipping sauce) came out first. At a sundaeguk restaurant, the diced radish kimchi absolutely has to be good.

Chili paste, salted shrimp, and perilla powder are provided so you can season to taste. I was cooling my throat with hutgae tea and getting hungrier and hungrier haha. Today I was planning to try both the sundaeguk set and the potato pancake.

Nice touch — they hand out aprons so the broth doesn't splash on your clothes!

I also loved that there's a self-serve bar where you can grab side dishes anytime. I especially like the crunchy texture of the diced radish kimchi and radish salad, so I tend to refill often, which usually makes me feel a little self-conscious — but here there's also thin noodles to add to the broth, plus chives, cheongyang chili, and onion, so I ended up going back and forth several times without a second thought.

The sundae-only set, piled high with assorted sundae

What I ordered was the sundae-only set. It came loaded with pi-sundae (blood-filled sausage) and chapssal-sundae (sticky rice sausage), and since adding just ₩3,000 upgrades it to assorted sundae, I went with the sundae set.

They use domestic pork slaughtered that same day and boil it four times daily, and you can tell — there's no gamey smell at all, just a fresh taste. The broth is really clean and savory too. If you're after something more restorative, I'd recommend the bracken fern sundaeguk. Bracken, sometimes called 'mountain beef,' is boiled and stir-fried in-house before going into the soup, and apparently that makes it quite the delicacy.

Doesn't the broth just look incredibly rich? It tastes like the sundaeguk grandmothers used to serve at the market when I was a kid, fresh off a just-boiled pig's head. I usually only eat the sundae and leave the broth, but today I actually wanted to drink the whole bowl.

The surprise favourite: potato pancake made with julienned potatoes

Now for the potato pancake I'd been looking forward to. Most places grate the potato and mix in potato starch, then fry it up pretty carelessly, but Sinju Okmi Gangnam Branch juliennes the potato and fries it Swiss-style, so the crisp texture holds all the way through — a snack kids would probably love too.

The portion was huge, but it was so good I demolished it in no time. It felt more labor-intensive, and therefore more special, than kimchi jeon or zucchini jeon. If you love potato pancake, you don't need to look anywhere else — Sinju Okmi Gangnam Branch is the move.

Assorted suyuk set with fresh radish salad

For just ₩3,000 more, you can get the set with assorted suyuk (boiled meats) on the side — liver, lung, pork thymus, head meat and more, a great little sampler side dish. It's the kind of thing that makes you crave a shot of soju. This restaurant's radish salad is so good that I kept eating it alongside the meat, and honestly I liked it even more than dipping in ssamjang.

Is Sinju Okmi Gangnam Branch worth a visit?

Just so you know, leaving a Naver receipt review gets you purple sweet potato rice puffs. Sinju Okmi Gangnam Branch, a 24-hour sundaeguk restaurant in Gangnam, is great for a light solo meal, works well as a company dinner spot, and is also a solid Yeoksam Station restaurant for a drink or a hangover-curing meal afterward.