Dangsan Station gopchang restaurant for a quiet date: Chodaechang

It had been a while since our last date, so we went to Chodaechang Dangsan Station (초대창 당산역점), a popular spot near Dangsan Station, to relive the old days when we'd meet after work and chat over gopchang (beef small intestine) and makchang (last-stomach tripe).

First visit to Chodaechang at Dangsan Station

I knew Chodaechang well as a chain, but this was actually my first time visiting, haha. And of all the branches, the Dangsan Station one is the famous one for good food.

On top of that, corkage is free, and if you book on Naver and come in between 5 and 6 pm you can get a discount. Worth knowing if you're planning to come!

The tables are spaced well apart, so the place isn't the loud, rowdy type, which I loved. The meat restaurants around Dangsan Station are always packed on a Friday night after work, so crowded it's hard to hold a conversation. Sigh.

Ordering gopchang and makchang à la carte

Hanwoo gopchang-gui ₩21,000 x2 Makchang-gui ₩20,000 x1 Doenjang sulbap ₩7,000

There's a mixed platter too, but we prefer gopchang and makchang over daechang (large intestine), so we ordered them à la carte. As the name Chodaechang suggests, daechang is what the place is known for, but with the reputation it has around Dangsan Station, the rest has to be good too, right?

For side dishes they brought out what I think was a corn-mayo salad, lettuce geotjeori (fresh lettuce in a spicy dressing) and a special house sauce. The sides were so good that we'd inhaled more than half of them before the mains even arrived, haha.

Charcoal-grilled gopchang, cooked by the staff

At last, the stars of the night: the gopchang and daechang arrived, looking incredibly fresh. A cute robot delivered them to the table, haha.

Doesn't it make your mouth water just looking at it?! Vegetables to eat alongside came out too, which made the whole spread feel even more generous.

The gopchang and makchang are grilled over charcoal, and a staff member comes over to grill and cut everything into bite-size pieces, so you can just relax and eat. Even as it cooked you could tell the ingredients were genuinely fresh: no off-smell at all, just rich, savory flavor. I hadn't known it going in, but Chodaechang is a Blue Ribbon Survey restaurant, which made me look forward to the food even more, hehe.

There's an extractor hood right above the table, so even though it's a grill restaurant the air never got thick or hard to breathe. You know how you come back from a grill place covered in smoke from head to toe and feel grimy even after the meal? Ugh.

Hanwoo gopchang-gui, stuffed to the brim

After a little while it turned golden brown, and they cut it up for us into bite-size pieces. If you visit Chodaechang, the daechang is great, but I recommend the hanwoo gopchang-gui, packed full inside!!

Needless to say it went perfectly with the warm cooked vegetables. Special sauce, slivered chili and plump gopchang: for me, that's the real samhap (the classic three-way combo), haha.

₩7,000 doenjang sulbap and marinated makchang

We ordered doenjang sulbap (soybean paste stew rice) on the side. At a friendly ₩7,000, I never expected it to be this generous. It's loaded with tofu, vegetables and a heap of rice. The seasoning isn't too salty and has a gentle kick, so it could easily pass as a hearty meal on its own. Feels like a must alongside all that rich, oily food, haha. I wanted to try the kimchi-mari guksu (cold noodles in kimchi broth) too, but we had to pass because we were stuffed. Such a shame.

And we had the chewy marinated makchang too. It has a totally different charm from gopchang, and I fell hard for it. The marinade isn't overly spicy or aggressive, which made this Dangsan Station spot even better in my book 💗

Hours and parking notes

• Daily 17:00–23:00, last order 22:00, open year-round
• Free parking if a space is available: weekdays after 6 pm, weekends after 4 pm
• If the building lot is full, there is a public parking lot under the Dangsan Station overpass