Sokcho Korean restaurant for hearty gamjatang lunch: Gwandongjip

A hot bowl of gamjatang I craved during a seafood trip

When you travel to Sokcho, with the coast right there, you naturally end up eating lots of seafood such as sashimi and king crab. But after seafood meal after seafood meal, I started craving a spicy, steaming bowl of soup~ Here is my genuinely satisfying story from Gwandongjip (관동집), a gamjatang specialist beloved by Sokcho locals that I visited during the trip.

Gwandongjip in Sokcho is said to be a local favorite that many residents visit. The meat is substantial, so there is plenty to eat, and it comes deliciously with all kinds of extras—potatoes, sujebi (hand-torn dough flakes), glass noodles, bean sprouts, and ugeoji (outer cabbage leaves)! Seafood is wonderful too, but if you love soup dishes like I do or are craving a pleasantly spicy broth, I recommend Gwandongjip in Sokcho.

Gwandongjip’s menu and spacious interior

✨ We visited Gwandongjip right after it opened. It was comfortable to eat before it got busy :)

Located in Joyang-dong, Sokcho, Gwandongjip is close to Cheongcho Lake, so it is also mentioned as a good place to eat near the lake.

Along with the gamjatang my family shared, there are aged kimchi pork bone stew, spicy chicken stew, pork bone hangover soup, budae-jjigae (army base stew), and tofu hot pot! Personally, I debated between the braised pork bones and gamjatang~~ but first of all, I was very happy with the gamjatang^^ 🫰🫰

The interior was spacious and clean, and the tables were well spaced, so it felt like a place where you would have a little less to worry about when visiting with a child. Several people can sit at the long tables too, so it looked perfectly fine for a large family visit.

Side dishes as delicious as the gamjatang

The gamjatang at Gwandongjip in Sokcho was truly delicious, but the accompanying banchan (Korean side dishes) were also so good. Honestly, even at places like gamjatang restaurants that serve a few side dishes, I usually leave reasonably happy if just the main dish is good. But here, the side dishes were really flavorful.

Because gamjatang is already well seasoned, side dishes that are too salty would not work with it. But the seasoned cucumber, bean sprouts, and stir-fried fish cake were flavorful without being overly seasoned! They were so well prepared that I felt I could easily finish a bowl of rice with the side dishes alone.

Medium gamjatang loaded with meat and vegetables

We ordered the medium gamjatang, and I think it came with more than six chunks of meat, plus lots of broth, potatoes, bean sprouts, and sujebi. The portions were seriously generous~!

It looked amazing, of course, but the spicy gamjatang was sooo delicious~~~ I think my parents and I ate it with runny noses, haha^^ For reference, I am sensitive to spicy food, but it was not too hot and felt just right!! ^^ The kind of spiciness anyone can enjoy!

This Sokcho gamjatang had lots of vegetables I love, which made it much more delicious than simply eating meat alone. Truly like a Sokcho local favorite, it had wonderful savory depth. After eating those hefty chunks of meat and spooning up the broth~ I had such a hearty lunch that I felt like taking a sleepy little nap afterward~~ Gwandongjip is somewhere I wholeheartedly want to recommend.

Fried rice is my mission for the next visit

After finishing the gamjatang at Gwandongjip, a Sokcho local favorite known for gamjatang, I had planned to make fried rice. But after eating all those generous ingredients, fried rice was just too muchㅠ_ㅠ I had to save my regret at missing it for the next visit~ Oh, and I do not know whether they were the owner or a staff member, but they were so kind.

Such a lovely memory from a Sokcho restaurant that I want to visit again!