Hamdeok Beach black pork restaurant with grapevine smoke: Jeju Samchun

If you come to Jeju Island, you have to eat black pork, right? We spent time at Hamdeok Beach and booked accommodation nearby, too.

It was about a five-minute walk from our accommodation to the beach, and Jeju Samchun was about three minutes away. Since it was one of the Hamdeok Beach black pork restaurants we could walk to from our accommodation, it was handy for dinner.

A black pork dinner walked to from Hamdeok Beach

We entered the restaurant in the early evening, and several tables were already eating. I especially noticed lots of families with children.

They also had high chairs ready, so it looked comfortable for visiting with a child. The tables themselves were wide and there was plenty of space between them, so even with quite a few people there, it felt less crowded.

The Joka Set with pork neck and pork belly

We ordered the Joka Set (₩60,000). It comes with both pork neck and pork belly, so we could try two cuts at once.

Before the meat even arrived, plenty of accompaniments came out, as you would expect from a Hamdeok Beach black pork spot.

From ssam vegetables (wrap greens) and shredded scallions to cucumber kimchi, gim (roasted seaweed), and several sauces, there was so much that I wondered how we should eat it all.

The moment grapevine smoke filled the table

This place had a special performance. Rather than simply bringing the meat straight out, they brought it with grapevine-smoking smoke sealed inside a lid.

They opened the lid at the table, and white smoke came billowing out. It naturally made me go, “Wow~,” and because it was my first time seeing it done this way, it felt a little special even before eating.

The staff carefully grilled everything for us from start to finish, explaining in detail how to enjoy the meat, which was so convenient.

Pork neck can turn dry if it cooks too long, so we ate that first and then moved on to the pork belly. At a place that grills it for you like this, we could focus only on eating.

Black pork with aged kimchi, seaweed, and sauces

They arranged aged kimchi around the edge of the grill and cooked it alongside the meat. You know aged kimchi gets even better grilled, right? Eaten with the pork, it also cut through the richness nicely.

It was my first time seeing meat wrapped in gim, but I put pork on the seaweed with other side dishes and dipped it in soy sauce, and it was pretty good in its own way?

There were so many sauces and side dishes that, as we tried this and that combination, we had finished all the meat before we knew it. We chose Jeju Samchun as a Hamdeok Beach black pork restaurant, and its varied combinations meant we did not get tired of it to the very end.

Even complimentary kimchi stew for posting a review

We were about to order kimchi stew, but it turned out to be complimentary if you posted a review. Nearly every other table had kimchi stew too, so we could not not have it! We added one bowl of rice and ate it together.

The portion was quite generous, and there were big chunks of meat in it that we cut up with scissors. It had the rich, pleasantly spicy kimchi stew flavor I like, so it went really well with rice. After black pork and then kimchi stew, it felt like we had properly filled up on the meal we wanted to eat in Jeju.

Recommended for

• Anyone who wants to properly try Jeju black pork at a Hamdeok Beach black pork restaurant
• Anyone looking for a dinner restaurant within walking distance after spending time at Hamdeok Beach
• Anyone looking for a spacious black pork restaurant that is easy to visit with children
• Anyone who wants to comfortably enjoy staff-grilled black pork with a variety of accompaniments