Charcoal Korean BBQ in Mapo, Seoul with spicy hangover gukbap: Usijang

If you want beef and a drink on a Friday night, this might be exactly the place for it.

My husband loves meat, so we headed out for a proper Friday night at Usijang Hoegwan, a Korean BBQ spot near Mapo Station. We had a drink, grilled beef over charcoal, and finished with spicy gukbap (soup with rice) — drinks, dinner, and hangover cure all in one place. Such a great find!

Where is Usijang Hoegwan near Mapo Station, and how long is the wait?

Usijang Hoegwan is an easy walk, about 3 minutes from Exit 3 of Mapo Station. It's popular enough to have a wait in the evenings, and sure enough, when we showed up around 7pm on a Friday, it was completely full. We waited for a table to open up, about 10 minutes, before getting seated. Booking ahead through Naver Reservations is also a good option!

One thing to note: we found this place searching 'Usijang Hoegwan,' but the sign out front actually says 'Usijang Gukbap.' Worth keeping in mind when you're looking for it :)

The mood at Usijang Hoegwan: group dinners and drinking tables

Inside, there were a lot of groups of middle-aged men drinking and chatting, and everyone's energy was pretty high, so the place was loud and lively. Among Korean BBQ spots near Mapo Station, this one clearly draws a lot of group dinners and drinking parties, and with the cozy, comfortable interior, that buzzing Friday-night energy actually felt like the perfect way to kick off the weekend.

Usijang Hoegwan menu: drinking snacks, rice dishes and hangover soup

Once we sat down, ordering was easy through the tablet at the table. What I liked even more after seeing the menu was that this one place covers everything — drinking snacks, a solid dinner, and hangover cure at the end. They had a wide range: beef, yukhoe and yuksashimi (raw beef), gukbap and tang (soups), and single dishes like suyuk (boiled meat) and jeongol (hot pot). You could come just for a bowl of gukbap at lunch, or for the full dinner-drinks-hangover-cure combo at night!

The 116,900-won set for three, shared by two people

There were only two of us that day, but we'd been starving all day, so we just went ahead and ordered the set for three, haha. The 3-person set is ₩116,900 and includes yukhoe or yuksashimi, your choice of one soup, and a 700g assorted beef platter. The assorted platter has three cuts — jingalbisal, seasoned LA galbi, and galbisal — so it's great if you want variety, and the two of us ended up stuffed.

Yuksashimi (raw beef slices) and its spicy house sauce

The yuksashimi (raw beef sashimi) came out first. The marbling caught my eye right away, and the texture looked good too — you could tell just by looking that the meat quality was high. It comes with its own dedicated sauce, a spicy gochujang-based one that really suits Korean tastes, and it paired perfectly with the beef.

The meat was sliced fairly thick, and one bite filled your mouth completely — amazing! The quality of the meat, the thick texture, and the sauce all came together perfectly, haha.

Charcoal heat and the self-serve side dish bar at Usijang Hoegwan

Grilling over charcoal made everything taste even better — the heat was strong, so the meat cooked up quickly and deliciously. The side dishes — onion, pickled peppers, pickled perilla leaves — were tasty too, so we went ahead and refilled them from the self-serve bar in the back.

Our assorted platter had three types — LA galbi, galbisal, and jingalbisal — and grilling them one after another, each had a distinct flavor, which made me glad we went with the assorted option. My husband said galbisal was his favorite, while I liked the seasoned LA galbi best — the seasoning was exactly to my taste, haha.

Finishing with spicy gukbap as a hangover cure

For our soup, we chose the spicy gukbap, a yukgaejang-style beef soup simmered until it's rich and spicy. The broth was based on deep, long-simmered beef bone stock, so the flavor was excellent, and eating spoonfuls of it alongside the meat felt like it was already curing tomorrow's hangover — so good.

The rice comes already mixed into the soup, and there's plenty of broth, so even adding an extra free refill of rice was still plenty. Usually at a Korean BBQ place you'd go for doenjang jjigae (soybean paste stew) or naengmyeon (cold noodles), but having gukbap instead felt like it wrapped up the hangover cure all in one meal — even better.

Verdict: Usijang Hoegwan for a night of beef and a drink in Mapo

Usijang Hoegwan is a place near Mapo Station where you can get beef and gukbap all in one sitting. The meat quality was good, the gukbap was tasty, and especially on a night like Friday when you want beef with a drink, the lively, buzzing atmosphere of the place fit the mood perfectly.