Skewered mala hot pot at a Jung-gu Chinese restaurant: Huhugwan

Hours: Weekdays 11:00–23:00 (last order 22:30) / Weekends: temporarily closed both Saturday and Sunday due to store circumstances

How to find Huhugwan from City Hall Station, and its opening hours

Huhugwan is a City Hall Station favorite located a 3-minute walk from Exit 10 — a Hong Kong-style Chinese restaurant near Deoksugung Palace.

The restaurant is on the 2nd floor of the building. Head up the stairs!

Open from 11am to 11pm! Normally only closed on Sundays, but for now it's also closed on Saturdays due to store circumstances. Last order is 10:30pm!

Inside Huhugwan: interior and seating

At the front there's a waiting board where you can write your name and party size, and a waiting zone right by the entrance.

Inside there's a bar, tables for two, tables for four, and group seating for several people — good whether you're coming alone or with a big group.

The bar seats had a great atmosphere 💛 kind of romantic, honestly. The Shaolin Soccer poster hanging next to it was cute.

Huhugwan's menu and how to order by QR code

Here's Huhugwan's menu for reference!

There's a QR code on the table — scan it and you can order straight from your phone.

• Eggplant rice bowl (₩13,000)
• Huhuchuan mala hot pot (₩32,000)

This is what we ordered.

Drinks and corkage at Huhugwan

They also had a good variety of alcohol and beverages.

And corkage was allowed — ₩20,000 per bottle, ₩15,000 from the second bottle on. If they don't have the drink you want, you can just bring your own!

The free mini mianbaoxia from the Naver receipt review event

And here's the best part! There were various review events. For the dinner review event, writing a Naver receipt review got you either a 320ml Tsingtao draft beer or mini mianbaoxia (shrimp toast), so we wrote one and ordered the mini mianbaoxia.

Out came three adorably tiny mianbaoxia. Bite-sized, so easy to eat without any pressure.

Fresh out of the fryer, so the outside was completely crispy. If you like mianbaoxia, try the review event!

You could also get spring rolls or fried dumplings for free. We got the mini mianbaoxia so we didn't try those, but it seemed like you could actually join multiple events at once. I don't think I've ever seen a place with this many review events. Wild!

As a side dish, we got sugar-coated fried peanuts, and they were so nutty and sweet that my hand kept reaching for more.

Eggplant rice bowl, 13,000 won: is the basic spice level spicy?

A rice bowl finished with Huhugwan's special sauce, topped with crispy fried eggplant over warm rice

The eggplant rice bowl came with plenty of fried eggplant piled on top of rice drizzled with the special sauce, and the fried eggplant was soft.

You could choose your spice level — we went with the basic level, which had almost no heat at all, so it was easy to eat without any worry.

I've never had japtangbap (mixed rice with various toppings), but my friend said it tasted similar to that. Since it's near City Hall Station, this eggplant rice bowl seems like a solid, filling lunch option too.

Huhuchuan mala hot pot, 32,000 won: a hot pot served on skewers

A signature hot pot dish featuring carefully simmered broth and a variety of fresh ingredients, enjoyed straight off the skewer

Huhugwan's mala hot pot was gorgeous just to look at!

There were huge shrimp and skewers, so it looked as good as it promised to taste. They said to cook it over high heat, and once the broth boils, take the ingredients off the skewers and keep simmering a bit longer before eating.

The ingredients felt fresh, and for ₩32,000, the portion felt generous too. Inside were shrimp, meat, shiitake mushrooms, meatballs, rice cake, enoki-tofu skin rolls, squid, bok choy, bean sprouts, napa cabbage, wood ear mushrooms, and more.

Surprisingly, the tastiest ingredient was this square fish cake! The bouncy texture was really good.

And the king prawn, which looked amazing from the start, was packed with meat and tasted really fresh.

The rest of the ingredients were delicious too, and the mala spice level was milder than hot pot, so it wasn't too spicy — I liked that.

They also gave us a dipping sauce, which seemed to be peanut sauce-based but a bit spicier and sweeter — dipping into it was really tasty.

Pairing Huhugwan with Deoksugung Palace and Jeongdong Observatory

Huhugwan, a City Hall Station favorite, is near Deoksugung Palace, so it's a good stop before or after visiting the palace, or Jeongdong Observatory at Seoul City Hall. Worth a visit if you're craving Hong Kong-style Chinese food near City Hall Station.