Busanjin bar, mixed chicken & cheese: Yuumangju Seomyeon Branch

A newly opened Seomyeon bar with a waitlist even late at night

It is on the second floor at 31 Dongcheon-ro 85beon-gil, Busanjin-gu, Busan, about 149 m from Seomyeon Station Exit 6, in the same building as Thursday Party's second branch. It had been open for less than a month, yet there was a waitlist even late at night.

I had spotted it while searching around Seomyeon and wanted to visit, and it turned out Yuumangju was right in front of the place we had gone to that day haha.

Youth is clumsy, and life naturally calls for a drink.

That line immediately caught my eye, and the timing was just right, so we naturally came in for a second round of drinks. As it turned out, it was a new Seomyeon bar that had not even been around for a full month. 🤔

No wonder there were not many reviews when I looked it up beforehand, but when we arrived, the place was so packed with customers that it hardly mattered! We visited around the time when the first-round crowd would normally have cleared out, but people were still waiting outside. It had only just opened and already had a waitlist, so I was even more curious before going in haha 🧐 At first I wondered why they had named the bar “Yuumangju,” meaning a promising prospect, but that became clear as I passed the entrance and climbed the stairs.

Stairs that carry the meaning behind the name

There was a line that read, “Something more exciting because it is not yet complete; something whose future is more intriguing than its present.” Once I knew it was a newly opened bar just getting started, the name Yuumangju felt especially fitting. The several mirrors placed midway up the stairs also caught my eye.

Maybe because I had just read that Yuumangju means something more exciting because it is not yet complete, I wondered whether everyone reflected in those mirrors became the day’s “promising prospect.” It was a fun space that made me feel like the main character for no reason. Of course, that is just my own interpretation haha. I enjoyed finding these little connections even in a space that could easily have been passed by.

An atmosphere completed by the sound of people talking

When I entered, the interior was larger than expected and so full of customers that it was hard to find an empty table. People kept coming and going after we arrived; rather than a quiet place for two people to sit over a drink, it felt more like a bar whose atmosphere is completed by the buzz of conversation. It seemed well suited to gathering with several friends for drinks, too. The kitchen was open along one side, so you could naturally watch the food being made.

I kept glancing over while we waited after ordering, and it was here that I began to get the impression that, even though it is a bar, they put real effort into the food.

What kind of bar snack was Da Moatdak?

Opening the menu, I found more choices than expected, from soups and savory pancakes to pasta, fried rice, and even bingsu (shaved ice dessert). We chose Yuumangju-e Da Moatdak, a platter gathering chicken neck meat, thigh meat, tenderloin, and cheese together.

There was a notice on the table saying they offered a “cool service” for writing a review, and it seemed they really meant a cooool fruit ice cream haha. We did not try it ourselves, but it is an event offered after making a Naver reservation or writing a visitor review at your table, so keep that in mind!

While we waited, warm toasted baguette came out first as the complimentary bar snack. Bar snacks usually make me think of crackers or dried snacks, so the baguette was a little unexpected. It was lightly crisp outside and soft inside, making it easy to pick up piece by piece.

Da Moatdak arrived shortly after, topped with red sauce and red chili peppers in the middle, so I expected it to be quite spicy. But the first flavor was spicy-sweet, with the cheese gently rounding it out afterward; despite how it looked, it was not intensely spicy, so even someone who cannot handle heat could enjoy it comfortably haha. Personally, when I eat cheese, I am the type to stretch it all the way to see how far it goes before eating it—and this one stretched so much that I felt like I needed to stand up.

How high is this cheese going to go? ↗ haha

Above all, it was not made with just one chicken cut. Some bites had tender meat, while the chicken neck meat had a chewier texture, so even with the same sauce, each piece felt a little different depending on what I picked up. It was fun choosing pieces one by one and wondering what I had grabbed this time. When I thoroughly coated the chicken in sauce and wrapped it with cheese, a nutty richness followed the spice. The textured chicken neck meat was especially good with cheese: chewiness and softness came together in one bite.

I ate it with just the sauce, then with cheese, then chose another cut, so there were constantly different ways to eat a single platter. It did not get tiring easily, and even though I was already full from coming for a second round, it was so tasty that I kept eating haha.

Next time, Odaebal and nurungji chicken gomtang

Da Moatdak was delicious too, but the thing that stayed on my mind until the end of reading the menu was Odaebal, the signature dish. The name alone made me curious because it combines squid, daechang (beef large intestine), and chicken feet, and I also wanted to try it with nurungji chicken gomtang, chicken soup with scorched rice. But since we had already come for a second round and were full, I was a little sad that we could not order more. Next time, I want to properly try the signature Odaebal along with the nurungji chicken gomtang haha.

At first, we came in because the place I had wanted to visit happened to be right in front of us. But discovering that it was a newly opened bar just starting out made the name Yuumangju fit in a strangely perfect way. I saw the waitlist continue even after first-round drinking hours had passed, before many reviews had accumulated, and I left with more menu items to try next time—so “a place whose future is more intriguing” felt very fitting. I visited Seomyeon’s newly starting Yuumangju feeling like I had discovered it a little early.