Daejeon pasta restaurant for a 4-person wedding invite dinner: Plate

A month before my wedding, I'm on wedding invitation gathering number 13 with the bride's side and 25 with the groom's side, and I'm constantly stressing over what to eat next. Since we both love drinking, most of our gatherings end up at drinking-food places (like samgyeopsal), which makes me weak in the knees whenever a no-alcohol gathering comes up.

So I went digging through Superchart, and wouldn't you know it — there was a perfect spot for a wedding invite gathering right near my hometown (Jung-gu, Daejeon)! That place is Plate, Sunhwa-dong branch.

How to book Plate in Sunhwa-dong, and how long is the wait?

Plate's Sunhwa-dong location has pretty limited seating (4 seats, 7 tables), so there's usually a wait line forming outside. If you book ahead through Catch Table, you can walk right in!

We kept waiting in the outdoor waiting chairs — we met at 6pm on a Saturday and got seated around 6:40pm. Honestly, that felt like a long wait. I'd recommend booking ahead!

If you couldn't get a reservation in, I'd recommend checking out the popular little shop nearby called "The Prelude Shop" while you look around. They sell Kkumdoli goods, so there's a line to get in there too — but waiting while you wait isn't so bad, right?

What Plate looks like inside and out in Sunhwa-dong, Daejeon

Inside, Plate has tables pre-set for your party size, and there are plenty of nice-looking props creating a good atmosphere. It was so packed that I failed to get a good overall shot of the space.

I also thought this place would be great for a blind date or date night — they have a really wide selection of wines, and honestly, every other table besides ours was clearly on a date^^ Hope everyone's happy out there. There's a restroom inside, and they even provide mouthwash sticks so you can freshen up after your meal! Doesn't that scream date spot?

Plate's menu: fresh pasta where you pick the noodle

True to being a fresh pasta specialty restaurant, Plate lets you choose your noodle type. And for those of us clueless about pasta, each menu item comes with a recommended noodle number!

We had two pasta experts at our table, so we mixed their recommendations with our own preferences when ordering haha. In total we ordered four dishes! Honestly my favorite is lasagna, but there was too much I wanted to try, so I never got to it ㅠㅠ

I don't remember all the noodle numbers, but the bacon cacio e pepe came with the recommended No. 6 peach noodle, the steak cream ragù had the recommended No. 5 pappardelle, and one more we picked ourselves but I forget which — anyway, the recommended noodles paired beautifully with the pasta!

The 4,000 won set upgrade at Plate: salad, bread and soup

Every menu item at Plate's Sunhwa-dong branch can be upgraded to a set for an extra ₩4,000, which comes with salad + bread + soup as standard. I'd recommend adding it on — it keeps your mouth busy while you wait for your main dishes, and the soup, salad, and bread were all really tasty. The bread seemed to be Outback's Bushman Bread!

At Outback you have to order everything separately, but here you get a course-style experience with just the +₩4,000 set upgrade — no reason not to do it. Also, according to my friend who bakes as a hobby, you could really taste the butter in the soup, which apparently makes it very good. I can't tell the difference myself, but okay lol.

Since we had three pastas and one steak, we only got salad and bread for three people! While we were eating those, the mains started coming out in order.

What to order at Plate: creamy rosé, bacon cacio e pepe, steak cream ragù and buchaesal steak

At Plate, the dishes came out in this order: steak cream ragù → creamy rosé → bacon cacio e pepe → fanchal steak. The three pastas arrived almost simultaneously, and since we were still eating bread, it felt like the food came out quickly.

First off, the fresh noodle texture was fantastic. The peach noodle in the bacon cacio e pepe was plump and chewy — kind of like glass noodles made from potato starch? — and it paired really well with the sauce. For the two other creamy dishes, we picked wide pasta noodles, and the cream clung all over them, making for a really delicious bite.

Then, just as we were finishing up, the steak arrived, fashionably late. At first I thought our order got lost lol. Maybe it's because of limited space, or maybe it's just the course flow — but it comes out last, like the star of the show.

I didn't think the fanchal steak (₩25,000) was expensive, and the portion size was decent for the price. If two people came and shared one pasta and one steak, it'd probably be plenty! We were four people so we each ate a bit less, but the steak pasta still had plenty of meat in it, so nobody left unsatisfied haha.

Is Plate a good wedding invite spot after a Sungsimdang stop?

These days, "Daejeon trip" basically means "Sungsimdang," and it feels like our Jung-gu is riding that wave of popularity — so I'm sneaking Plate onto that list too. It was an excellent spot for a wedding invitation gathering, and honestly, this quality of fresh pasta at such a reasonable price is hard to beat! There's no reason not to come here for a date either. Today's wedding invite gathering: success~