Bucheon ramen restaurant with free rice refills: Gyeoretsu Ramen

I'm recommending a Bucheon ramen restaurant I visited about 4 times to try all the signature menus✨ I'm kind of addicted to flour-based food, so I eat Japanese ramen pretty often, and I first found Gyeoretsu Ramen while looking for lunch near Bucheon University! It's right by the CGV in front of Bucheon Station, in the university area, so it's great for a cost-effective solo lunch, and with mazesoba, iekei ramen, tonkotsu ramen, and aburasoba all on the menu, every visit has been satisfying!

Today I finally had the karai mazesoba I'd been wanting, and happily mixed in unlimited free rice at the end..! 🍚

Where is Gyeoretsu Ramen Bucheon University Branch, and what are the hours?

This is Gyeoretsu Ramen Bucheon University Branch, a Bucheon ramen restaurant known for its deep-flavored Japanese-style ramen. It's at 4 Buil-ro 445beon-gil, Wonmi-gu, Bucheon-si, a 5-minute walk from Bucheon Station.

• Hours: Tue–Sun 11:30 ~ 21:00
• Break time: 15:00 ~ 17:00
• Closed every Monday
• Location: 4 Buil-ro 445beon-gil, Wonmi-gu, Bucheon-si (5-minute walk from Bucheon Station)

Seating and the self-serve bar at Gyeoretsu Ramen

Inside Gyeoretsu Ramen Bucheon University Branch there's a big 8-seat table and a bar table where 6 people can sit. The tables used to be a bit low, but it looks like the place got renovated! Now that they're higher, it's more comfortable to eat.

Each seat has pepper, chili powder, and dried kelp, and I grabbed pickled ginger, minced garlic, and pickled mustard leaf from the self-serve bar. Last time I sat at the bar I had to grate the garlic myself, but this time there was already minced garlic at the self-serve bar.

All four menus at Gyeoretsu Ramen, reviewed over four visits

Gyeoretsu Ramen has four ramen menus: tonkotsu ramen, iekei ramen, mazesoba, and egoma aburasoba. Tonkotsu ramen is the classic ramen you'd picture — a rich Japanese-style ramen simmered from pork bones — and iekei ramen adds chicken fat and a special sauce to make a shoyu ramen.

Iekei ramen: thick noodles with a spinach topping

Iekei ramen is a style developed at a Yokohama ramen shop, and unlike the ramen you'd normally picture, its defining feature is the thick noodles. Gyeoretsu's iekei comes topped with spinach.

Tonkotsu ramen: chashu and soft-boiled egg add-on prices

This is the tonkotsu ramen I had on a previous visit, with chashu and egg added ➰ If you want to build a chashu-throne ramen, definitely get the chashu add-on. The broth was rich and clean-tasting — really good!

• Chashu add-on (+₩2,500)
• Soft-boiled egg add-on (+₩1,500)

Karai mazesoba: the spiciest bowl on the spicy menu

Mazesoba is a noodle dish with no broth, where you mix the sauce and toppings together — basically Japanese-style bibim noodles. I love spicy food, so I've tried every karai (spicy) menu at Gyeoretsu. The karai tonkotsu ramen and karai iekei ramen weren't that spicy, but maybe because there's no broth to dilute it, the karai mazesoba really was spicy,,✨

📍A bit of everyday Japanese learned at a ramen shop — "karai" means <spicy>~

Egoma aburasoba: the easiest bowl to finish

I used to be firmly team broth-ramen, but after trying Gyeoretsu's mazesoba I decided to try aburasoba too. Egoma aburasoba is tossed in oil for a nutty, clean flavor, and it was the gentlest on the stomach out of all the menus.

Mazesoba vs aburasoba: which one to order

The mazesoba and aburasoba at Gyeoretsu Ramen seem to mainly differ in base toppings and sauce — mazesoba is a slightly thicker, richer style, while aburasoba, based on perilla oil, is lighter and simpler. When I was looking for a Bucheon ramen restaurant, I only thought about broth ramen, but the mazesoba and aburasoba turned out to be surprisingly delicious and kept crossing my mind! After mixing in the free rice today, I finally understood why they're the signature menus.

You just grab side dishes yourself from the self-serve corner. Who knew there'd be chashu bits as a topping for the free rice? I'm just completely in love with this Bucheon University restaurant, Gyeoretsu Ramen.

After finishing the ramen, we each made our own version of a rice bowl however we felt like it.

Unlimited free rice: what 10,000 won gets you

Isn't the free rice at Gyeoretsu pretty impressive for something that costs nothing,,,? Being able to eat rice after the noodles meant no worrying about getting hungry again right after, and since the ramen itself is only around ₩10,000, it makes sense that a lot of guys come here for a filling solo meal near Bucheon Station.

I'm not usually someone who mixes rice into broth, so even on my 4th visit, this was the first time I ever had rice — with Gyeoretsu's mazesoba💗 If you order mazesoba, you really should mix in the rice.

They brought me a heaping bowl of rice to help neutralize the spicy karai mazesoba sauce, and I worried I might not finish it, but that worry turned out to be pointless — I cleaned the whole plate, haha, guess it was that good.

I also liked that there's a dedicated restroom tucked in a corner of the restaurant.

Gyeoretsu means intense: why the writer keeps going back

I've been watching a lot of Japanese anime and variety shows lately, and I picked up that gyeoretsu means "intense." So Gyeoretsu Ramen = Intense Ramen. I swung by quickly right before the semester started at Bucheon University, but since I've already been back so many times, Gyeoretsu Ramen really is an intensely good Bucheon ramen restaurant, and I think I'll be back again~!