Gimpo shabu kalguksu with heotgae tea and misugaru dessert: Homilwon

The weather's getting cool in the mornings and evenings lately. Fall is really coming. When it turns chilly I start craving kalguksu (knife-cut noodles) or shabu-shabu, and I recently found a great shabu-shabu spot in Gimpo, so I went!

Homilwon Shabu Kalguksu Gimpo Main Branch: location, hours and parking

Homilwon Shabu Kalguksu Gimpo Main Branch is at 142-17 Gadong, Geolpo-ro, Gimpo-si, Gyeonggi-do. It's open daily from 11am to 9pm (last order 8:10pm), and there's a very large parking lot right in front.

Most people will probably drive, but the route is easier than you'd think, and there are plenty of signs along the road so it's easy to find. Once we arrived, the building looked huge and really clean from outside. The parking lot is also very spacious! Even on a busy weekend it seems like it'd be fine.

What is Homilwon like at 2pm on a weekday?

We got there a bit after 2pm on a weekday, and a few tables were still eating. I was worried it might be break time, but thankfully they were open!

The interior has a fairly old-fashioned, refined feel — like a tidy traditional Korean restaurant. And it was so clean it felt like it had only just opened. My husband came back from the bathroom saying even the bathroom was super clean, haha. Good vibes before we'd even eaten!

Free beef, mushroom and radish rice, with heotgae tea instead of water

This place gives you free beef mushroom radish rice made with Gimpo Geumssal rice (refillable)! That part was great — at most restaurants even a plain bowl of rice costs an extra ₩1,500–2,000. My husband said the water here tasted really good, so I checked, and it turned out to be roasted rhamnus tea. Nutty and lovely.

Once you sit down, you order via a tablet at the table. We ordered the Hansang-gadeuk Special Agaricus Shabu Kalguksu for two. The tablet even shows you how to eat shabu kalguksu the tasty way — worth checking while you eat. (We were too busy eating to look, haha — everything tasted great no matter how we ate it.) They also run a Naver receipt review event, worth joining if you're into that.

What comes with the Special Agaricus Shabu Kalguksu for two

Our order finally arrived. True to the name, it really is a full table spread, haha. Wow — it looks delicious and healthy all at once.

Looking at the shabu-shabu plate, there's all kinds of mushrooms, bean sprouts, and herbs like chamnamul (wild aster greens). It really feels like it'll do you good — and the broth itself is agaricus mushroom broth.

Along with the shabu-shabu, you get kalguksu noodles, meat for the shabu, and rice for fried rice. Every ingredient is fresh and looks great, haha.

Every single ingredient feels made with care and looks so healthy — this would be a great meal to bring guests or parents to.

Self-serve side dish bar and agaricus broth refills

On one side of the dining room there's a self-serve station where you can grab the beef mushroom radish rice and basic side dishes (geotjeori, green onion kimchi, sauces, etc.). Every bit of it is laid out really neatly.

While the shabu-shabu was coming to a boil, I made myself a bowl of the beef mushroom radish rice. The mushrooms were chunky and the seasoning sauce was tasty too. And this rice is unlimited refill! (We just couldn't eat much more — too much other food, ugh.)

You can also grab extra agaricus broth any time, which was great. This broth is really tasty — mild-seeming but actually deep, and maybe because of the agaricus mushroom, eating it made me break a light sweat, like it was doing me good. We refilled the broth a lot while eating the shabu-shabu.

Master's suyuk and stir-fried jjukkumi

The Hansang-gadeuk Special set comes with master's onsuyuk (boiled pork) too. My husband declared this the #1 dish and said he wants to come back later and order a big plate of just the onsuyuk, haha. To my taste too, the meat was tender and so good — absolutely no gamey smell, and the lean parts weren't dry at all. You could tell real care went into it.

The stir-fried jjukkumi (webfoot octopus) came out next, haha. The dishes arrive one after another, and each time, both the look and the taste are on point — genuinely impressive.

The stir-fried jjukkumi is spicy, with a nice smoky wok flavor too. It's tasty on its own or with rice, haha — personally I loved it paired with the beef mushroom radish rice.

How do the shabu-shabu beef and the kalguksu taste?

We came to a Gimpo shabu-shabu spot, so of course we had to eat the shabu-shabu, haha. The meat must be good quality — even dipped lightly in soy sauce it wasn't chewy at all, just savory and tender. There was a yellow mushroom among the varieties, not sure what it's called, haha, but the texture was great and it tasted good with the meat!

We were pretty full already from how generous the portions were, but of course we had to eat the kalguksu, haha. We added a bit more broth and boiled the noodles. Once the noodles go in, the broth thickens slightly and gets even richer — you keep going back for more, haha. And remember, this broth is agaricus mushroom broth?? Haha, the more I ate the healthier I felt, which made it even better.

Kalguksu needs good kimchi on the side. Both the geotjeori and the green onion kimchi were tasty, but I'm a geotjeori person, haha, so I ate a lot of it.

Minari fried rice and misugaru for dessert

This fried rice is made with Gimpo Geumssal rice, haha. It's packed with minari (water dropwort), so the aroma is great, and the texture is good to chew on. Isn't it wild how every single ingredient here is a healthy one?? My husband and I talked a lot while eating about wanting to bring our parents here.

Dessert is misugaru. Healthy from start to finish, haha, but also just genuinely delicious!!

Why Homilwon works for a family gathering in Gimpo

Plenty of parking, a spotless building, an old-fashioned interior, healthy ingredients and really, really good food. It genuinely felt like a perfect meal. Next time we have a family gathering, I'm definitely coming back. I fully recommend Homilwon Shabu Kalguksu Gimpo Main Branch as a Gimpo shabu-shabu spot!! 200% repeat-visit intention!!