Dongtan Station shabu-shabu buffet, ₩16,900 weekday lunch: Pyeonbaek

Pyeonbaek Hoegwan at Dongtan Station

I visited Pyeonbaek Hoegwan (편백회관) at Dongtan Station, an all-you-can-eat cypress-steam and shabu-shabu place. For ₩16,900 on weekdays you get shabu-shabu and cypress steam (pyeonbaek-jjim, food steamed over cypress wood) that grown-ups love, plus a self-bar with fried rice, spaghetti, tteokbokki (spicy rice cakes) and sandwiches for kids. Best of all, there's a playroom, so it's a great pick for eating out with children near Dongtan Station.

There are lots of all-you-can-eat shabu-shabu places, but Pyeonbaek Hoegwan's self-bar is good for the price, and the Dongtan branch is a lucky one (branches can vary!!). The self-bar dishes are neat and well kept, and above all the quality of the unlimited beef is so good. 🥹 At ₩16,900 with a big underground car park, it's also perfect for a Dongtan lunch outing or group dinner. I'll give you a thorough review, from the atmosphere to the all-important self-bar, A to Z. Let's go~

Where is Pyeonbaek Hoegwan Dongtan Branch, and what are the hours and parking?

• Hours: 11 a.m.–10 p.m.
• Last order at 8:30 p.m.
• Group reservations and parking available

Pyeonbaek Hoegwan Dongtan Branch is an all-you-can-eat cypress steam + shabu-shabu + rice paper wrap restaurant on the 2nd floor of Granvia Star, right in front of Dongtan Station. Granvia Star has a big kids' café, so many families stop by here for a meal after playing.

The weekday lunch buffet is ₩16,900 and available until 3 p.m., so it's good for office workers around Dongtan to get together for a meal. It's a big 110-pyeong shabu-shabu restaurant, and lots of people come for Dongtan work lunches and group dinners!

You can use the underground car park in the building. It's big and roomy.

Atmosphere at Pyeonbaek Hoegwan Dongtan Branch

The interior has high ceilings and feels airy. With soft lighting and upscale decor, it's a nice place for a family meal out. A tidy self-bar sits in the middle of the hall. I'll give you a thorough review of what's on it!

How to order and weekday lunch price

You sit down and choose your menu on a kiosk. You pick 2 broths, and depending on the type there's an extra ₩1,000–2,000. The weekday lunch price of ₩16,900 is valid until 3 p.m., so it's a good-value way to have all-you-can-eat shabu-shabu.

After ordering for your party size, head to the self-bar for the appetizer rice paper wraps and other dishes, and staff will bring the first course, the cypress steam, to your table. For the second course, shabu-shabu, once the cypress steam is all cooked, ask a staff member and they'll swap the pot.

Pyeonbaek Hoegwan is currently running a review event where you can get a free drink. If you want a drink, it's a cheap way to join in. 👍🏻

What's on the self-bar at Pyeonbaek Hoegwan?

Shabu-shabu ingredient self-bar

Let me introduce the self-bar at this all-you-can-eat Dongtan Station shabu-shabu spot! First, the shabu-shabu bar. There's bean sprouts, napa cabbage hearts, bok choy, oyster mushrooms, enoki mushrooms, 2 kinds of vegetable dumplings, sujebi (hand-torn dough soup noodles), kalguksu (knife-cut noodles), Vienna sausages and cabbage kimchi.

How good is the all-you-can-eat shabu-shabu meat?

The shabu-shabu meat at Pyeonbaek Hoegwan includes beef belly (usamgyeop) and beef sirloin, both unlimited. I'll say upfront: maybe because so many customers come and the turnover is high, the meat quality is good even for an all-you-can-eat. 🥹 It isn't dry and has a rich beef flavor, like the shabu-shabu meat you buy at the supermarket. 👍🏻 Dig into the Dongtan all-you-can-eat beef!!

Rice paper wrap self-bar

This is the rice paper wrap bar, a healthy appetizer. There are shredded onion, cucumber, carrot and red cabbage, baby sprouts, sliced green chili peppers and canned fruit cocktail. The sliced chilies are also tasty in shabu-shabu.

Ready-made dishes: mukbap-style acorn jelly soup, salad and jjolmyeon for adults

A shabu-shabu restaurant doesn't only have shabu-shabu veggies and meat. 🥹 There are ready-made dishes too, all unlimited at Pyeonbaek Hoegwan's self-bar 👍🏻 Acorn jelly cold soup (muk-sabal), green salad and jjolmyeon (chewy spicy cold noodles) are the grown-ups' self-bar dishes, I'd say..!

Kids' spaghetti, fried rice and tteokbokki

There are also 3 dishes for kids: spaghetti, fried rice and tteokbokki. The spaghetti and fried rice aren't spicy at all, and the fried rice in particular is seasoned like real toddler food, so Pyeonbaek Hoegwan is good for visiting with little ones and for family meals out in Dongtan.

French fries and potato salad morning-roll sandwiches

Last are shoestring fries and flavored potato wedges, plus morning rolls and potato salad to stuff in them. As a healthy snack, kids can tuck veggies and potato salad into a morning roll and, presto, a sandwich they can hold easily in both hands.

There are also ingredients to make fried rice or porridge after your shabu-shabu. Ramyeon noodles are unlimited too.

Playroom and high chairs at Pyeonbaek Hoegwan Dongtan Branch

The Dongtan branch has a playroom kids love, fully equipped. You can see right into the playroom from two sides, so families with little ones should sit at a nearby table. Plenty of high chairs are also ready for children.

Before the cypress steam arrives: sauces and the first plates

While I was fetching food from the self-bar, staff put the cypress steam on the table. They light the burner and come back to collect the lid when it's nearly done, so you can relax and enjoy your appetizers.

They give you 3 sauces for dipping shabu-shabu and rice paper wraps, chili sauce, peanut sauce and shabu-shabu soy sauce, in full portions. Sauce lovers can dunk away. 👏🏻

The dishes I neatly brought over, starting with rice paper wraps and acorn jelly cold soup~

I brought a variety of other dishes too, and they all tasted fine. As I ate, I noticed staff refilled the self-bar dishes in small amounts, often, so the trays never ran empty and I could keep eating freshly made food. 👍🏻

Cypress steam at Pyeonbaek Hoegwan: how much meat, and how does it taste?

When the time was up, they opened today's cypress steam~🥹 The meat was stacked in pretty layers!!! With shabu-shabu you pick your own ingredients, but not with the cypress steam, so I worried it might be packed with only vegetables. Instead it was stuffed full of meat 😇 Under the layered beef belly there's a thin bed of bean sprouts.

A faint herbal aroma, the fragrant scent of cypress wood, in a delicious bite of cypress steam 🥹 Unlike ordinary steamed beef belly or steamed vegetables, it has that distinctive upscale cypress-steam fragrance, so you don't get tired of it and it just keeps going down.

If you order more cypress steam, they bring a fresh one in the same condition, and even if some is left you can still order shabu-shabu. Call staff on the kiosk, ask for shabu-shabu, and they'll swap in the shabu-shabu pot.

Shabu-shabu in half-spicy, half-mushroom broth

The shabu-shabu broths I chose that day were the spicy broth and the mushroom broth, half and half. These are the classic broth flavors Koreans like, and the spicy broth is milder than you'd expect. If you like heat, I recommend adding the sliced green chili peppers.

I brought back a generous basket of shabu-shabu vegetables from the self-bar~ and plenty of both kinds of shabu-shabu beef, as much as I wanted. 😋 Rich beef belly and clean-tasting chuck (almoksim), take whichever you like.

Need I say more about the hearty shabu-shabu, so delicious.. Fresh vegetables and tons of meat. You don't gain weight from shabu-shabu no matter how much you eat.. 😇 So I ate to my heart's content. Yum yum, super tasty~

Dessert and final verdict

After feasting on shabu-shabu, I even had french fries for dessert. Neat, clean Dongtan shabu-shabu, with cypress steam and rice paper wraps all unlimited too: I recommend Pyeonbaek Hoegwan, a Dongtan Station favorite!

On your way out they also give you icy misugaru (roasted grain drink) as a dessert. It's nutty and sweet, and I downed it in one go.

Pyeonbaek Hoegwan Dongtan Branch is a big shabu-shabu spot at Dongtan Station with roomy parking and a well-kept self-bar. With kids' self-bar dishes and a playroom, it's especially good for eating out with young children. Come enjoy value all-you-can-eat shabu-shabu at the ₩16,900 weekday lunch~😋