Rainy-day hot stew at a Sokcho Korean restaurant: Gwandongjip

Hi everyone~~! Whenever I travel to Sokcho I like to search for good local restaurants, usually searching for spots that locals actually eat at~ That's how I found Gwandongjip. It happened to be raining the day I visited, so I was craving something hot and soupy! I was all set on gamjatang, but then I got caught up in the menu photos plastered on the wall and ordered mukeunji-ppyeojjim instead. Want to see the visuals first!?

I'm both an aged-kimchi lover and a gamjatang lover... so aged kimchi + braised bones? That's basically a guarantee I'll finish one bowl of rice and still go looking for another..

Gwandongjip

Gwandongjip on Seonsa-ro in Sokcho: what the place feels like

Looking around while I ate, I noticed someone dining solo, and another customer asking about takeout. We travelers find these places by searching for Sokcho local favorites, but it really felt like the kind of place actual Sokcho residents stop by regularly for a meal!

You get a hearty meal of hot broth and tender meat, and the flavor is less about being intense and more about being the kind you keep thinking of — comforting. I could tell why locals keep coming back. The sign even said the carefully boiled meat and broth have a depth and richness that can't be compared to anywhere else... and yeah, I'll agree!

What is on the menu at Gwandongjip?

Here's the Gwandongjip menu~ Gamjatang, mukeunji-ppyeojjim, spicy chicken stew, ppyeo-haejangguk (pork bone hangover soup), budae-jjigae (army stew), and tofu hot pot.

The moment I saw these menu photos, I decided on mukeunji-ppyeojjim instead of gamjatang. Once you see this, there's no way you're not ordering it. The visuals hooked me first, but after tasting it, I gave myself a round of applause for the choice~

Whew, I want to eat it again.. Knowing the taste makes it so much harder to resist ㅠㅠㅠ Should I go eat it again... With the steam rising off it, it looked like exactly the thing to properly fill up a stomach that got hungry mid-trip!

The atmosphere felt easy enough to eat solo, so it seemed like a good spot for people working or living nearby to grab a meal too! Everything from the side dishes to the overall table setting was clean and tidy!

The banchan (side dishes) were nicely arranged too, which I liked. Not overly strong in flavor, just clean, which paired well with the mukeunji-ppyeojjim. Finally!!

How does Gwandongjip's mukeunji-ppyeojjim taste?

Looks rich just from the photo, right!? It looks delicious, and it really is... With braised pork bones, sometimes there's that particular gamy smell to the meat, but Gwandongjip's mukeunji-ppyeojjim was clean with none of that, so I could dig in without hesitation from the first bite.

The aged kimchi here is the real kicker.. ♥ Honestly you could probably eat a whole bowl of rice with just the kimchi wrapped around it! That's how good it is ㅠㅠ Aged kimchi is technically best torn by hand, but I didn't want to get my hands messy so I snipped it with scissors ㅋㅋㅋ still delicious :) The well-fermented kimchi is tangy with a deep flavor, and as it cooks in the seasoning, that distinctive refreshing, rich savor really comes alive!

The lean meat wasn't dry at all — moist and tender, easy to pick apart with chopsticks. The seasoning wasn't just coating the outside but had soaked in between the meat fibers, so with every bite it was salty and savory. And I liked that the seasoning wasn't overpowering!

Put a piece of meat on top of your rice with some aged kimchi, and there's really nothing more to say.. I just demolished a whole bowl of rice without noticing..

The combo of lean meat and aged kimchi..♥ You get that tangy, deep kimchi flavor first, followed by the tender meat's savory richness, and the more you chew the more umami you get. So after one piece, you naturally reach for the next! When am I ever going to lose weight....ㅜ The broth wasn't overly spicy or salty either — it was more the kind of hot broth that fills you up warmly, which paired well with the meat.

When you need a hot, filling meal on a Sokcho trip

While traveling around Sokcho, sashimi and seafood are the go-to travel foods, but sometimes you just crave a hearty meal of hot broth and tender meat instead. That's when I'd recommend trying Gwandongjip's mukeunji-ppyeojjim. Eating there, I could see exactly why some customers were ordering it to take home — a real Sokcho local favorite.