Gwangbok Japanese restaurant, Set A with strawberry ade: Daidokoro

On the second day of our Busan trip, before heading into Yeongdo, our suitcase was starting to feel like a burden, so we looked for somewhere to store it and ended up at Lotte Department Store Gwangbok Branch near Nampo Station. While we were there we figured we'd grab lunch, and that's how we found Daidokoro (だいどころ), a Japanese restaurant near Nampo Station. The Ghibli-style props caught my eye, but the set meal, plated all together on one tray, looked really pretty too.

What is Daidokoro? The name's meaning and the menu

Daidokoro Gwangbok Branch is a Japanese home-style restaurant on the 10th floor of Lotte Department Store Gwangbok Branch. The name struck me as unusual, so I looked it up — daidokoro means kitchen in Japanese. A meal made with care, Japanese home cooking felt out of a Japanese restaurant near Nampo Station.

From the signature karaage set to the chicken nanban set and the kkanpunggi set, there was a lot I was curious about, but the 100-hour aged curry is also one of their signature dishes, you know? When in doubt, go for the set menu.

A or B. Since we were each curious about different dishes, we went with the 2-person Set A: chicken nanban set, kkanpunggi set, one drink, and menbosha. We swapped the drink for ades — one mango, one strawberry — and I'm glad we did.

Daidokoro's location and hours, plus luggage storage on B1

This place is located on the 10th floor of Lotte Department Store Gwangbok Branch in Nampo-dong, Busan. Being a food court spot inside the department store, it was clean, and there was plenty of time to spare — plus it's connected to Nampo Station, so it was easy to find. More than anything, traveling with a suitcase had been inconvenient, but here at Lotte Department Store Gwangbok there was a place at B1 where you could store your luggage, with the first 4 hours free.

• Open 10:30–21:00
• Parking available
• Closed this Chuseok on the 24th and 25th

The cute little space stood out to me — honestly, I love the Ghibli vibe, so the moment I spotted No-Face and Ponyo I was sold. In terms of a travel itinerary, Jagalchi Market and Nampo-dong are nearby, so this is a good spot to stop by on the first or last day. If we'd had more time, we might have gone shopping too. For us, it was a lunch stop near Nampo-dong before heading into Yeongdo.

Menu choice was left to him haha, while I toddled off to look at the Ghibli-style props — that cute, quirky vibe is just my taste.

It's a Japanese home-style restaurant with a Dotonbori kind of vibe, right there in Busan — if we'd come in the evening, we might have tried a Japanese beer too. Daidokoro's recommended menu items are curry, tonkatsu, and chicken karaage. If it's your first visit like it was ours, the set menus are a solid choice.

Chicken nanban set and kkanpunggi set: how do they taste?

Right up until the end I was torn between curry and tonkatsu, and I was curious about the chicken nanban set too. It's basically fried boneless chicken thigh, dipped once in a tangy sauce and served with tartar sauce on the side, if that helps picture it.

The moment I saw it, I was sold on the kkanpunggi set. This dish I'd only ever known as Chinese food, reimagined as Japanese home cooking? Cute quail eggs, sausage, curry... and even a milk pudding all came as basic side dishes.

The sweet-and-tangy kkanpunggi sauce was familiar, but as a Japanese-style set meal, it had a crisp yet clean flavor to it.

Eating it along with the shredded cabbage, I noticed there was rice underneath too. The fried egg made me smile — so cute. You could also mix the accompanying curry into it, so it wasn't just one main dish — there were several things to taste on a single tray. Oh, and this here is the menbosha included in the set.

The menbosha (shrimp toast) that comes with the set

It was a perfect one-bite size — crisp on the outside, moist inside, and really good. Honestly, menbosha is meant to be eaten just like this, even without any dipping sauce it's plenty tasty — if we hadn't already been full, I would have wanted to order more.

The chicken nanban set has this generous mound of tartar sauce on top that's great to eat with — it's soy-sauce based so it tasted familiar, yet had a slightly exotic feel too. Chicken nanban, a name that sounds a bit unfamiliar, is apparently a specialty dish from the Miyazaki region. I think even after visiting other places, I'll still think back to this tray we had at Daidokoro on our Busan trip. It's the set meal I'll remember, holding onto the good feelings from the whole trip.

Adding strawberry and mango ade, and the milk pudding in Set A

We added one more drink to the set and chose ade, good call — we were told to stir it well before drinking, and it wasn't too sweet, pairing perfectly with the fried dishes. Mine was strawberry haha. A handmade milk pudding also comes along as a palate cleanser. The cute little spoon was for eating the pudding. Jiggly, springy, and scooped up in a spoonful — a dessert included with this much thoughtfulness, you're kind of adorable.

I kept an extra photo of just this bowl and plating haha, because I wanted to try recreating it at home. There are two options for the 2-person set — Set B comes with the karaage set and the tonkatsu curry set. Choose based on your taste... I was seriously torn right up until the end between that aged curry and the one with the writing on it. If there'd been one more person with us, we'd have gone for curry and tonkatsu too!!

Why Daidokoro worked as a mid-trip lunch stop in Busan

Being inside a department store, it had that clean, put-together feel, and since we came in during the early lunch hour it was still spacious when we arrived — though a few solo diners came in one by one, and there were tables with parents holding their kids' hands too. For us, the nearby location made it convenient to fit into a travel itinerary without worrying about break times or meal times. If you're curious about a home-cooked Ghibli-style tray and like Japanese restaurants near Nampo Station, add this to your route too. We came here traveling with our older kid, and we both left having eaten well.

It was also fun just browsing the cute character props scattered around — since it was lunchtime, I'll just leave you with the one photo I took at the entrance. This was the travel feeling we caught in Busan, at Daidokoro, a Japanese home-style restaurant near Nampo Station.