Tofu kimchi set at a Sejong hanjeongsik restaurant: Bapkkot Hansang

You know those days — you get off work so tired and stressed that even the thought of cooking dinner at home feels unbearable.

But you don't want anything too heavy or greasy, and it's not really a cheat day either — you just want someone to set a nice meal in front of you! For days like that, here's a restaurant near Sejong Lake Park that's perfect.

Where is Bapkkot Hansang, and is there parking?

Bapkkot Hansang sits in the Twosome building behind Government Complex Building 1, with its own building parking, and it's a nice spot for a walk around the area before dinner.

The restaurant is on the 2nd floor, so you go in through the center of the building and take the stairs or elevator up.

Bapkkot Hansang's menu: set courses, rice bowls and sides

The menu ranges from hanjeongsik to rice bowls to a variety of side dishes — and the sides in particular look like they'd work well as drinking snacks!

There's also a big menu board inside the restaurant that's nice to browse.

The interior vibe is roughly like this — soft lighting and wood tones that give off a warm feeling.

The Bapkkot Special at 25,000 won per person, ordered for two

My boyfriend and I ordered two Bapkkot Specials (₩25,000 each). Once you sit down, they set the basic table for you.

While waiting, I browsed the menu on the table kiosk — the rice bowls come as a neat single-person set with side dishes, and even the sides are shown with actual photos the restaurant took themselves, which makes ordering so much easier!

Lately a lot of places put AI-touched-up food photos on their menus, and weirdly, those places never make me hungry — I just can't bring myself to pick anything, ugh.

What banchan comes with the Bapkkot Special

Here's the basic banchan (side dishes) laid out!

• Buckwheat noodle salad (small dish, far left)
• Regular salad (right)
• Royal court tteokbokki (2 o'clock direction)
• Seaweed noodle japchae (center)
• Buchujeon (chive pancake, center)
• Tofu kimchi (center)
• Herbal-boiled pork with chicory salad (bottom left)

There's a whole range from appetizers to mains, so you can eat in order or just pick whatever you're in the mood for.

The salad has a tangy dressing, so if you like sour flavors this will suit you. The portion is also bigger than expected, so it takes a while to finish!

The buchujeon isn't really a taste-sized portion for two — it felt more like ordering a mini size at another restaurant — but the soy sauce, which seemed homemade, was the real hook. The seaweed noodle japchae has a chewy texture and tastes less greasy than regular japchae!

Tofu kimchi: the kimchi does all the work

For the tofu kimchi, honestly, the kimchi did everything — it's not even that aged, but it's genuinely delicious on its own, and doubly good with the tofu.

I told the staff the kimchi was amazing, and they said even they sometimes take some home from the kitchen, haha. It's the kind of kimchi that's a rice thief even eaten plain with white rice.

If anything, the herbal-boiled pork, which is supposed to be the star, feels a bit understated — but it comes out in a reasonable single-bite portion, so it works well as an appetizer!

Tucked in the corner and saved for last, the buckwheat noodle salad had something like a black sesame dressing drizzled on top, giving it a nutty flavor.

The main course: two tteokgalbi patties with gangdoenjang and doenjang soup

Now I understood why the herbal-boiled pork was really just an appetizer — because the actual main dish is two large pieces of tteokgalbi (grilled short rib patties), doenjang soup, and gandoenjang (thick soybean paste dip).

There's a lineup of five namul (seasoned vegetables) perfect for making bibimbap, plus candied nuts, two tteokgalbi pieces, and a bigger-than-expected serving of gandoenjang!! The staff let us know when serving it that the gandoenjang isn't salty, so we could use as much as we liked.

It comes properly plated over julienned onion with young sprouts on top, and by the time it arrived — after we'd already worked through the buchujeon and tofu kimchi — my first thought was, can we actually finish all this...? haha.

They give you scissors, so I cut one piece — it sliced so softly that you could honestly just pull it apart with chopsticks. Looking at the cross-section, you can see little bits of what look like chives dotted through the meat, and it tastes strongly of meat while still giving you the occasional bite of vegetable, keeping the essence of tteokgalbi intact.

My stomach was getting full by this point, so I only mixed half the rice with the gandoenjang — the flavor has a deep, savory anchovy-like note, but it's genuinely not salty at all and has a smooth texture, so you can add plenty without worrying. The chunks in the gandoenjang are also big, curry-style, so it's tasty just spooned over rice!!

Is it enough food for two people?

We also ordered a zero-sugar cider along the way and drank it down bit by bit... Since it's a course meal with a lot of different dishes, working through everything one by one is genuinely enough to fill two adults completely.

The menu lineup itself is the kind of style adults tend to like, and there were actually quite a few family tables around us. Since it's right in front of the government complex, a lot of office workers come too, and they mostly seem to order the rice bowls!

The restaurant is clean, too, so it looks like a solid option to bring coworkers for a group lunch sometime. After eating, I'd recommend a walk around Lake Park right out front~

Would go back — recommended!