Toryeom pork rice soup for lunch with a kid: Handam Guksu, Jeju Aewol

Pork noodles in Aewol with a kid — from lean pork rice soup to an honest review of everything we ate

Why we chose Handam Guksu for lunch in Aewol with our seven-year-old

Traveling in Jeju means facing the happy dilemma of what to eat every meal. Since this was a family trip with our seven-year-old, picking a restaurant that the kid would actually eat and the adults would enjoy mattered more than usual haha.

On this trip, my husband suggested a place with decent reviews, so we went to Handam Guksu, famous for its Aewol-style pork noodles. We arrived around lunchtime and there was a wait, so we put our name down on Catch Table, waited our turn, and then had our meal haha.

Here's an honest rundown of how it went eating with a kid, and how each dish we ordered actually tasted!

Inside Handam Guksu Gwakji Aewol Branch: the atmosphere and ocean-view windows

Walking in, the first thing that caught my eye was the floor-to-ceiling windows framing that wide-open Jeju sky and sea. Being able to look out at the ocean while eating makes this a solid pick for anyone hunting an ocean-view restaurant in Aewol. Overall it's a relaxed, no-frills noodle restaurant, which made it easy to visit with a kid too.

There was also a self-serve bar set up on one side of the restaurant.

Ordering on the tablet: what we picked

Orders go through a tablet set up at each table. We'd normally have ordered pork noodles, but since we'd had noodles the day before, we decided to try something a bit different this time. So we ordered lean pork rice soup (toryeom-style), dongchimi bibim noodles (large), tteokgalbi (grilled short rib patties), and one bowl of rice.

Once you sit down and order, the basic side dishes get set out.

After a short wait, the dishes started arriving one by one, and before long everything was laid out on the table. What we ordered that day was the lean pork rice soup (toryeom-style), the tteokgalbi, and the dongchimi bibim noodles, large — three dishes in total.

Lean pork rice soup (toryeom-style): even the kid cleaned the bowl

Since we'd already had pork noodles the day before, I wanted to feed my kid rice instead of noodles, so I ordered the lean pork rice soup (toryeom-style). Our kid pouted a little, asking why they didn't get noodles too...

But once the soup actually arrived and I fed them a bite, wow — the rice grains were soaked through with rich pork broth, and it was genuinely delicious! There was plenty of tender lean meat too, really tasty~~~ Our sulky kid cheered right up and polished off a spoonful of rice in no time.

My husband and I agreed this was the best dish we had that day — the lean pork rice soup (toryeom-style). The hot broth came with a generous amount of lean meat, and eating the rice together with the broth was surprisingly filling. It tasted even better with a piece of kimchi on top, the mild flavor of the soup balancing nicely with the crunchy, salty kimchi.

The tteokgalbi runs a bit greasy

The tteokgalbi (grilled short rib patties) came out thick and looked pretty appetizing. But once we tried it, it was a bit greasier than expected.

After a few bites it started to feel a little heavy, but overall it was fine to eat.

Dongchimi bibim noodles, large: solid but unremarkable

My husband wanted something cool and spicy, so he ordered the dongchimi bibim noodles in the large size... But instead of the sharp, tangy-sweet punch we were expecting, it turned out to be a pretty mainstream, crowd-pleasing flavor that wouldn't really divide opinion. Ha,,,,,,,,, since we'd hyped ourselves up for it, it was a little disappointing.

A crunch chocolate on the way out

Oh, and as we finished up and were leaving, a staff member quietly slipped a sweet crunch chocolate into our kid's hand! It was such an unexpected little gift that our kid's face broke into a huge smile instantly ^^^ This chocolate, by the way, is given out for writing a Naver visitor review, so keep that in mind!

We shared a whole spread that day — the lean pork rice soup, the bibim noodles, the tteokgalbi. Overall it made for a solid, no-fuss meal, and since we were visiting with our kid, this little surprise event at the end left us finishing the meal on a genuinely happy note.