Aewol black pork BBQ with 24-hour aged kimchi jjigae: Nopo Dwaeji

Hi, this is Chaon. I recently went on a trip to Jeju with my kids. After running around all day on the first day, I really felt like we needed meat for dinner, haha. So the place we went to for our first night's dinner was Nopo Dwaeji, near Gwakji Beach in Aewol!

Traveling with kids, taste matters, but so does whether we could eat comfortably with them. Bottom line: the meat was delicious, and it was easy to take care of the kids' meal too, so it was a pretty satisfying first dinner in Jeju. If you're looking for a black pork place to eat with your kids in Aewol, Jeju, give Nopo Dwaeji a try :)

First dinner of the Jeju trip at Nopo Dwaeji Aewol, near Gwakji Beach

Nopo Dwaeji Aewol is a black pork restaurant near Gwakji Beach, so it's a great spot for families traveling around western Jeju to stop for dinner after a day's itinerary. We arrived in Jeju, got through our first day's plans, and headed to Nopo Dwaeji in the evening.

Eating out while taking care of kids usually makes even picking a menu stressful, but this time I just thought, let's really eat some meat! Haha.

We stopped by for dinner on our way back to our accommodation after passing through Gwakji that day.

Where to park at Nopo Dwaeji Aewol: the lot behind the building

Nopo Dwaeji Aewol has a parking lot behind the building, so we didn't have to worry about parking. Maybe because it was a weekday evening, parking was very easy and we headed straight up to the restaurant.

Is Nopo Dwaeji Aewol good with kids?

Nopo Dwaeji Aewol has a baby chair and kids' tableware ready. We visited with our two kids, our first and second, and there's something we always quietly check for when eating with kids: a baby chair and kids' tableware!

Since Nopo Dwaeji had the baby chair and kids' tableware ready, it was so much easier to take care of the kids' meal. Since our kids are still young, whether a restaurant has a baby chair and kids' tableware turns out to matter more than you'd think.

When you go out to eat with two kids, good food matters, but honestly what matters even more is whether you can feed the kids and still manage to eat yourselves, haha. In that sense, I already felt a bit more at ease before the food even arrived, haha.

Nopo Dwaeji Aewol menu and what we ordered

What we ordered at Nopo Dwaeji Aewol that day was black pork geun-gogi (thick-cut pork) + 24-hour aged kimchi jjigae + rice + cider. The menu board is a no-frills lineup that clearly shows the meat dishes, which actually made it easier to choose.

The first thing that caught my eye when we walked in was the huge 'Nopo Dwaeji' sign. My first impression, in a word, was 'no-nonsense,' haha. Rather than dressing things up, putting the name front and center in big letters gave off a kind of confidence about the meat. Maybe because of that first impression, the menu board had a similar vibe.

Banchan and the self-serve bar at Nopo Dwaeji Aewol

The side dishes at Nopo Dwaeji Aewol were neatly laid out, from lettuce and perilla leaves for wraps to pickles and seasoned vegetables that go well with meat. While waiting for the meat, we checked out the banchan (side dishes) first.

Among them, the thinly sliced radish salad and the breadcrumb salt were especially good. The radish salad paired well with a bite of meat, crunchy and tangy, and the breadcrumb salt added a subtly nutty flavor when we dipped the meat in it — I kept reaching for it without realizing, haha.

There was also a separate self-serve bar, so we could easily grab more banchan or lettuce for wraps whenever we ran low. Since we like adding lots of sides to our meat, being able to freely go get whatever we wanted more of was great.

Thick black pork geun-gogi, grilled at the table by staff

The black pork geun-gogi (thick-cut pork) at Nopo Dwaeji Aewol comes pre-seared, and staff grill it for you right at the table. The meat arrived not long after we ordered, and even before it hit the grill, the thickness of the cut caught my eye.

Even looking back at the photos, the meat looks so thick that I love it just from the visual, haha.

And best of all, staff grilled the meat for us! They put the pre-seared meat on the grill and cooked it to just the right doneness, and since the cut was so thick, just watching it cook already had me looking forward to it.

Once it was cooked just right, the meat had great juiciness and was really delicious. Honestly, grilling meat yourself while flipping it and making sure it doesn't burn, all while managing two kids... just thinking about it is exhausting, haha.

But since the staff grilled the meat for us, we could focus on taking care of the kids while eating. When you go to a barbecue place with kids, this kind of service ends up mattering way more than you'd expect, haha.

The 24-hour aged kimchi jjigae we added on the side

Along with the black pork geun-gogi, we also ordered the 24-hour aged kimchi jjigae (kimchi stew) at Nopo Dwaeji Aewol as a side dish. I usually go for naengmyeon (cold noodles) after meat, but that day I somehow craved a spicy stew more than noodles, haha. Once I saw '24-hour aged kimchi jjigae,' I thought, oh, this is definitely going to be good — and it really suited my taste.

The kimchi jjigae came out bubbling hot, perfect for taking a spoonful of broth between bites of meat. Black pork tends to feel rich on its own, so the spicy broth of the kimchi jjigae cut through the richness nicely and paired well with rice too. Mixing it into rice and eating it was genuinely delicious!

A bite of meat, a spoonful of kimchi jjigae, a spoonful of rice — before I knew it, we'd polished off the side dish of kimchi jjigae too, haha. Finishing the meat off with the stew made for a really filling first night's dinner in Jeju.

Looking for black pork to eat with kids in Aewol, Jeju?

Nopo Dwaeji, which we visited this time, is located near Gwakji Beach, and with a baby chair and kids' tableware ready, it was easy to visit with our kids. Best of all, staff grilled the thick black pork for us, so we could eat comfortably while taking care of the kids.

On our first night in Jeju, after a hearty meal of good black pork with the kids, it really felt like, ah, we're in Jeju! :) If you're looking for a black pork place to eat with your kids in Aewol, consider Nopo Dwaeji near Gwakji Beach :)