Yeongjong shabu-shabu restaurant with a playroom: Pyeonbaek Hoegwan

Haneul City cypress steam and shabu-shabu we've visited with our child many times

As a couple who loves Gu-eup Ferry Terminal, we want to introduce Pyeonbaek Hoegwan Main Branch (편백회관 본점), one of our favorite restaurants in Haneul City! We've already visited the main branch who-knows-how-many times, and we've picked up our own little tricks, so today I'm sharing them all.

Pyeonbaek Hoegwan Main Branch is on the second floor at 8-11 Haneulbyeolbit-ro 65beon-gil, Yeongjong-gu, Incheon, South Korea. It is open daily from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., with last orders at 9 p.m.; Naver reservations and parking are available, and there is a playroom too.

At Pyeonbaek Hoegwan Main Branch, a beloved Yeongjong shabu-shabu spot, you can enjoy as much fresh, delicious, healthy pyeonbaek jjim (cypress-steamed dishes) and shabu-shabu (Japanese-style hot pot) as you like 🩷🩷🩷

There are lovely seats with a view, where you can enjoy unlimited beef shabu-shabu while looking through the floor-to-ceiling windows at Haneul City's central commercial district. But when you're visiting with a child, nothing beats the ultimate VIP seats facing the playroom 😆👍

The minute we arrive, our child heads straight for the playroom 😁🤣 They love this place because the playroom is so well stocked! While we wait the 10 minutes for the cypress steam to cook beautifully, they happily play away.

Broths, the salad bar, and 10 minutes while the cypress steam cooks

While our child plays, we quickly put in our order! Pyeonbaek Hoegwan has five broths—bonito, spicy mushroom, soybean paste chicken, beef-bone mala, and beef-bone tomato—so you can choose whatever suits your taste ♡

We ordered the classic bonito and spicy mushroom broths!

There are a few things to do if you want to make the wait for the cypress steam even tastier!

First, you need to prepare your sauces! And you need to pick up vegetables at the salad bar. For the cypress steam, you need vegetables for Vietnamese rice-paper rolls.

At the rice-paper-roll vegetable station, there are some things that seem a little lost... fried tofu pockets... plus Cheongyang chilies, onion, cucumber, kimchi, sprouts, red cabbage, pineapple, and carrot. That fried tofu is seriously delicious in the spicy mushroom shabu-shabu broth, so make sure you try adding it ♡

The shabu-shabu vegetable station has mung bean sprouts, oyster mushrooms, enoki mushrooms, sujebi dough flakes, dumplings, bok choy, napa cabbage, wide glass noodles, wood-ear mushrooms, and more! The unlimited meat at Pyeonbaek Hoegwan is genuinely such good quality too. There are ramen noodles as well, along with extra broth, scissors, tongs, ladles, and children's spoons.

The cypress steam and shabu-shabu are delicious, but the salad-bar dishes are seriously delicious too!

And here is the final K-dessert rice, hahaha. When our child was younger, we would just add seaweed and make rice balls for them. Somehow, they've grown into a child who enjoys shabu-shabu right along with us now, hahaha.

My Cheongyang chili soy sauce tip

Now I'll share my own little tip! Most people eat these three sauces that are on the table, right? I'm going to transform that last soy sauce into something even tastier.

I brought over the Cheongyang chilies from the rice-paper-roll vegetable station earlier. Then I add them generously to the soy sauce. It becomes a spicy, salty sauce that makes the cypress steam go down so easily 🎶

After the wait, the cypress steam is finally ready 🎉🎉🎉

My child's favorite shrimp, beautifully cooked meat, and vegetables—just looking at them makes my mouth water 🤤😋

We used to add more meat to the cypress steam too. But Pyeonbaek Hoegwan has unlimited lean pork shoulder and rich beef brisket, so we eat a sensible amount first and then properly enjoy the shabu-shabu as well.

Let's dig in with the vegetables we brought from the rice-paper-roll station. We load up the rice paper with our favorite vegetables and meat and wrap it however we like. Dip it in peanut sauce and take a huge bite—wow, please let there be no one who hasn't tried this 🙏 Add the Cheongyang chili soy sauce we made earlier and it is pure K-food itself, hahaha. Seriously, why is everything here so delicious?

Once you've enjoyed the cypress steam, move on to shabu-shabu!

Yes... we're moving on, hahaha haha.

After cypress steam comes shabu-shabu, and porridge at the end

A staff member switched us over to a shabu-shabu pot! We were so eager to eat that we tossed in vegetables before it had even started boiling, hahaha. Once the vegetable-filled broth boils, enjoy the pork shoulder and beef brisket as shabu-shabu, however you like.

How can unlimited meat be this thick, nutty, and delicious? Dipped in that Cheongyang chili soy sauce from earlier, I could have kept eating forever.

This is the fried tofu I mentioned earlier! It is really, really delicious, so please make sure you try it.

We were too full for kalguksu noodles, so we skipped them and made K-dessert juk (rice porridge) instead ♡

It was delicious to us, and our child ate it so well too! We finely chopped all the leftover vegetables and meat to make the porridge, and it became a nourishing porridge full of healthy ingredients.

Final thoughts

Pyeonbaek Hoegwan Main Branch is a Yeongjong shabu-shabu restaurant made great by its delicious food—and even better by its fun playroom. It is wonderful for visiting with children or holding a family gathering, with both great value and great flavor 💛👍💛👍💛👍