Bangi-dong octopus samhap restaurant for soju nights: Muneo Cheonha

Today I'm introducing an amazing Bangi-dong restaurant famous for its octopus samhap!

What kind of restaurant is Muneo Cheonha in Bangi-dong?

Today's spot is 'Muneo Cheonha' (문어천하), a Bangi-dong restaurant tucked into the Bangi-dong food alley. Muneo Cheonha is known for its octopus samhap — boiled octopus, boiled pork belly, and aged kimchi all wrapped together and eaten in one bite.

That said, the interior is pretty small, so this is a Bangi-dong restaurant where I'd recommend getting there as early as you can.

Octopus samhap or octopus sahap: which to order at Muneo Cheonha

Here's the menu at Muneo Cheonha! Besides octopus samhap, they also sell octopus sahap, which comes with skate added in. None of us were big skate eaters, so we just went with the safest choice — octopus samhap!

The free sides: corn cheese and octopus-topped steamed egg

When you order octopus samhap at Muneo Cheonha, corn cheese and steamed egg come out as the standard side dishes. There's not a huge variety, but both are top-tier, and they were perfect for a shot of soju before the samhap arrived. The rich flavor of the corn cheese paired really well with the relatively clean taste of the octopus samhap. The steamed egg was especially interesting — it had bits of octopus sliced up and placed on top. The egg custard alone is already soft and savory, but adding the chewy octopus on top for a textural contrast made it a really special bite.

What comes on the octopus samhap platter

Now the octopus samhap we ordered at Muneo Cheonha arrived! Very clean-looking boiled octopus and boiled pork belly came out together. It's served so you wrap the pork belly and octopus together in aged kimchi. That's technically the proper way to eat octopus samhap, but they also give you a range of dried radish strips and sauces for anyone who'd rather eat the octopus and pork belly separately!

Boiled octopus served as three different cuts

Muneo Cheonha's boiled octopus mainly comes as thinly sliced leg, though there's also whole thin leg pieces, and thinly sliced pieces from the body, cut a bit like squid. The common thread across all three cuts is that Muneo Cheonha boils the octopus to perfection, so everything had a great, tender texture!

Rather than wrapping everything together right away, I tried each ingredient on its own first to enjoy the individual textures and flavors. I started with the boiled octopus dipped deep in sesame oil sauce, and with that hint of salt it was really tasty. This boiled octopus was honestly the softest I've ever had, while still having some chewy parts when you kept biting — really good!

Pork belly with salted shrimp or in a cabbage wrap

Next I picked up a piece of the boiled pork belly and dipped it in salted shrimp. Compared to the octopus, the pork belly definitely had more chew, and the ratio of lean meat to fat was spot on. It's a clean-tasting pork belly with a deep meaty aroma — good enough that you'd believe it came from a dedicated bossam (boiled pork wrap) place.

So before trying the full samhap wrap, I put ssamjang and pork belly on a piece of napa cabbage, added cheongyang chili and garlic, and enjoyed the traditional Korean flavor combo. Oh... eating it this way, it felt like a bossam restaurant that had nothing to envy from Wonhalmoni Bossam. The sweetness of the cabbage balanced really well with the spicy cheongyang chili and garlic.

Wrapping octopus and pork in aged kimchi for one bite

But as good as that is, you really need to wrap the whole samhap together to get the full appeal of Muneo Cheonha, right? I took well-rinsed aged kimchi, added octopus dipped in sesame oil sauce, then topped it with dried radish strips and pork belly, and ate it all in one bite.

Wrapping all the ingredients tightly in the aged kimchi and eating it in one bite felt like eating a single, well-composed dish. The kimchi's texture and tangy flavor really balanced out the relatively mild taste of the octopus and pork belly. Honestly, I already thought the kitchen here knew what it was doing just from eating the octopus and pork belly separately, but it turns out octopus samhap really shows its true value when you wrap it all together!

Is Muneo Cheonha worth a visit? Final verdict

So to wrap up, Muneo Cheonha is a Bangi-dong restaurant I'd recommend to anyone who wants to taste one properly made dish. As I had a bite of octopus samhap with each shot of soju, the whole drinking session that night just kept getting better!