Saturday lunch wait for shabu-kalguksu in Yongin: Yun Ujae

My first visit to Gogidong, Yongin in a while! In summer, parking there is genuinely brutal so I don't even try, but now that the water-play season has mostly passed, I worked up the courage to go~! And apparently there's a shabu-shabu spot in Suji everyone raves about~! So what do you do?! You visit~! Haha.

Yun Ujae Gogiri Shabu Kalguksu opening hours

Yun Ujae Gogiri Shabu Kalguksu is open Sat/Sun/holidays (no break time) from 11:10am to 8:50pm, and on weekdays for lunch from 11:10am to 4pm (last order at 3pm for lunch), with break time from 3pm to 4:30pm, then dinner from 4:30pm to 8:50pm (last order at 8pm) — good to know in advance~!

Waiting on CatchTable, but the lounge is inside

You register on the CatchTable kiosk at the entrance and wait, but I didn't know there was a customer waiting room inside the restaurant, so I waited outside~! There's a waiting lounge inside where you can also fill out your order sheet ahead of time for faster ordering, so don't stand outside in the heat like I did!

Saturday 1pm, 4 teams ahead, then a whirlwind order

At 1pm on a Saturday, we could only get in after 4 teams ahead of us were seated~! With all that waiting, our hunger was through the roof, so we went all-in on ordering. We ordered two servings of the red broth in regular spice, plus a minari-mushroom set and extra meat~! Note: one order per person is required, and the shabu-shabu price already includes fried rice.

Extra minari and mushrooms for a forced veggie boost

Our shabu-shabu finally arrived~! It came piled high with minari and mushrooms~! These days my husband and I have been forcing ourselves to eat more vegetables due to some health issues haha, so extra minari and mushrooms were a must!!!

Another thing I loved — the utensils come served sitting in warm water~! The joy of using spoons and chopsticks sterilized in hot water.... I might start doing this at home too!

The quality of the shabu meat

The base meat plus our extra order arrived together on one plate. The meat's condition was so good, honestly~! I've personally been studying up on meat lately for work reasons, and this shabu meat had just the right amount of fat — not too lean, not too fatty~!

While boiling the broth, there was guidance on how many pieces of meat to add — a genius move~! You all should definitely add it and let it simmer well~~

The full Yun Ujae Gogiri Shabu Kalguksu menu lineup, with flat noodles and kalguksu chosen~! Fried rice just comes included as standard... could the owner secretly be a food genius??? Haha.

We'll meet the fried rice a bit later — first, full-scale shabu-shabu assembly begins~!

Since we'd already ordered extra meat, we dumped in a huge amount right from the start! And as the vegetables cooked while simmering, we ate those first~! Making the vinegar soy sauce and dipping everything into it — such a good bite.

This is it~! Once the meat cooked, we dipped that too, and kept adding more meat~! Just as expected, the meat was so tender and good ㅠㅠ Gamey smell? What's that? So soft and delicious.

Hand-pounded flat noodles and kalguksu — which order?

We also tried the flat noodles, made with the hand-pounded noodle method~! They were longer than I expected, so keeping them from sticking together while boiling was a bit tricky, but since they're made thin and chewy, they were really fun to bite into~!

Once the noodles go into the bubbling shabu-shabu broth, the broth's depth gets even richer~! Noodles are a must, everyone~~

Finishing with broth fried rice

As unique as the flat noodles were, kalguksu is still the default for shabu-shabu~! Add the kalguksu and boil for 5 minutes~! A thick, spicy kalguksu is complete~! I worried the kalguksu portion looked small and thought I'd need to order more... but oh, it turned out to be just the right amount~!

We finished by pouring off the broth separately, adding just one ladleful back in, and frying up rice with it! Barely any kimchi or seaweed went in, but since the shabu-shabu broth itself was so rich, it turned into an incredibly tasty fried rice.. At first I thought it'd taste similar to the shabu-shabu itself!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But no, it really wasn't. There's a reason they call this a Suji must-visit restaurant~! How about touring the Gogiri cafés and finishing off with Gogiri kalguksu?! We'll definitely be back~!!!