Hanok-style gamjatang restaurant in Yangjae, Seoul: Chomu Gamjatang

I walked along the Yangjaecheon stream today. It had been a while since I came, and the trees looked taller and much more lush. Maybe it's just me, but even though midday was still hot, there was a breeze under the tree shade and it was great for walking. Since I'd exercised, I wanted a hearty meal, so I ate at Chomu Gamjatang, a place near the stream known for good gamjatang (pork bone soup). I'd heard the gamjatang here was good, and once I actually visited, the restaurant was cleaner than I expected — and above all, the gamjatang was so delicious that I really loved it.

Where Chomu Gamjatang is and when it opens

Chomu Gamjatang is located at 59 Nonhyeon-ro, 1st floor, Seocho-gu, Seoul, South Korea, 933m from Exit 2 of Yangjae Citizen's Forest Station on the Sinbundang Line. It's open Mon–Sun 11:00–22:00, last order at 21:30, and parking is available. (Note: the original post lists the address as '5 Nonhyeon-ro, 1st floor.')

It wasn't the old-school gamjatang restaurant look you might expect. The hanok-style exterior gave it more of a clean, traditional Korean restaurant feel.

Can you park at Chomu Gamjatang in Yangjae?

Chomu Gamjatang has parking right in front of the restaurant. That said, the space isn't very generous, so it can be hard to find parking at busy mealtimes. These days, parking is the thing I worry about most when going to a restaurant — especially in this neighborhood. If you're driving, timing matters a lot,, we visited today at 2pm, and parking was fine at that hour.

Inside Chomu Gamjatang: hanok exterior, simple dining room

Once we opened the door, the interior was clean too. It didn't have the noisy, bustling atmosphere typical of gamjatang restaurants — everything was tidy overall, making it a comfortable place to eat. The tables were also spaced out fairly generously, so it seemed good for two people as well as larger groups. Above all, when you think of a gamjatang restaurant, you might picture a somewhat rough atmosphere, but Chomu was so neatly arranged that I liked it from the first impression. It was fine since we came late today, but apparently there's enough of a crowd at lunch and dinner that there's a wait.

Chomu Gamjatang's menu and what we ordered

Chomu Gamjatang's menu includes gamjatang and ppyeojjim (braised pork bone), plus pork bone hangover soup and pork cutlet — and apparently the Jeju handmade pork cutlet is just as popular as the gamjatang. But there was no debate for us today — it's gamjatang. The two of us ordered a small gamjatang (₩35,000), added dumpling soup (₩3,000), and two bowls of rice (₩1,000 each).

Side dishes and the self-serve bar

The kimchi and diced radish kimchi came as basic side dishes. Maybe because it's homemade, the flavor wasn't overpowering — clean and delicious. It was especially nice to eat a bite of diced radish kimchi between spoonfuls of the gamjatang broth to cleanse the palate.

There was also a self-serve bar, so it was nice being able to easily grab more of any side dish we ran low on.

Is the small gamjatang enough for two people?

The gamjatang we ordered arrived. Even as the small size, the big pot was packed with meat, napa cabbage, and vegetables, topped generously with perilla leaves. It looked like so much that we double-checked whether it really was the small size lol.

It started bubbling away on the table, and yeah — this is the fun of eating gamjatang!! I've mostly had it as takeout for a while, so it had been a long time since I cooked it at the table.

How the broth and the pork tasted

I let it simmer a bit longer so the broth would develop fully, then tried the broth first. Hot, spicy, and savory — that distinctive gamjatang taste. It wasn't aggressively spicy; the deep flavor from the meat and the broth's sharpness blended well. The broth wasn't too thick or heavy — just clean!!! Totally my style haha.

And then the most important part of gamjatang — the meat. Picking the meat off the bone, it was surprisingly substantial. A bite of meat with chopsticks, then a spoonful of broth — ahh, this is it 😆😁

Piling napa cabbage and perilla leaf on top of the meat and eating it together with the broth, the meat had soaked up a bit of broth flavor and tasted way better than eating the meat plain 👏👏👏

Is the 3,000-won sujebi add-on worth it?

Once the gamjatang broth had simmered a while, we added the dumpling soup (sujebi). As the dumplings cooked in the hot broth, they got chewier and chewier — such a treat. The chewy dumplings soaked up the rich broth perfectly and were so good. I always found the dumpling soup portion a bit lacking when eating gamjatang, but ordering extra on-site meant we could eat as much as we wanted. Adding more dumpling soup also made the broth even tastier.

The last bone had even more thick meat on it. Putting a piece of meat on rice with a bit of broth on top — honestly, no words needed. The gamjatang broth was clean enough to go well with rice. Finishing with dumpling soup and rice made for a truly filling meal. I was so full I couldn't manage the fried rice again today lol.

Final verdict: Chomu Gamjatang after a Yangjaecheon walk

Chomu Gamjatang is a great place to visit when you're craving hot broth loaded with meat. The clean interior was comfortable, the parking was a nice bonus, and above all, the food was generous and delicious enough that I definitely want to come back. It also works well as a stop after exercising along the Yangjaecheon stream, like today. Next time I'd like to try the pork bone hangover soup and the pork cutlet too — the look of it makes me think I'd finish a whole bowl of rice with it 😍😄