Jeongwang-dong kalguksu restaurant with clam add-on: 52 Degree

This year I skipped a separate summer vacation and decided to just eat well and rest during the holidays. So I headed out to Oido to see the sea and eat some good seafood~! Let me introduce 52 Degree Kalguksu Oido Main Branch, a kalguksu spot in Jeongwang-dong that's worth the visit.

• 52 Degree Kalguksu Oido Main Branch
• 📍1st and 2nd floors, 113 Oido-ro, Siheung-si, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea
• ⏰ 11:00-22:00 (last order 21:10)
• Wed 11:00-16:00 (last order 15:10)

Where is 52 Degree Kalguksu Oido Main Branch, and where do you park?

52 Degree Kalguksu Oido Main Branch operates across the 1st and 2nd floors of a standalone building. You'll find it as you head toward the Oido seaside, and it's conveniently located near the Oido Red Lighthouse and the coastal walking trail, making it a good lunch stop during an Oido outing.

I drove there, and on weekends there were almost no parking spots in front or behind the restaurant. Catch Table lists 40-minute support if you use paid parking outside, so it's worth asking about when you make a reservation. If you look around a bit, you can sometimes find a spot along the roadside.

Jeju-style interior and the 2nd-floor waiting line

Walking in, the interior felt a bit different from a typical kalguksu place. The basalt-like stone-wall interior combined with calm lighting gave it a slight Jeju Island feel. Since the restaurant itself spans two floors, seating was fairly generous, making it a good option for families or groups dining together.

Even though we arrived around noon on a weekend, the 2nd floor was already full, and by around 1pm there were 9 parties waiting for the 2nd floor. If you want a 2nd-floor seat, I'd recommend arriving a bit earlier. We were able to sit right away on the 1st floor with no wait — and since it happened to be low tide, we saw mudflats rather than ocean view. So we didn't insist on the 2nd floor and just settled comfortably on the 1st floor.

52 Degree Kalguksu menu and prices

Seafood hot pot kalguksu ₩21,000 x 2 servings, clam add-on ₩8,000

At 52 Degree Kalguksu in Jeongwang-dong, ordering the seafood hot pot kalguksu comes with barley rice and yeolmu kimchi (young radish kimchi) as basic sides, so we could eat plenty without ordering extra rice.

What comes in the seafood hot pot kalguksu?

We ordered the seafood hot pot kalguksu. From the moment it arrived, the sheer variety of ingredients made it look impressively hearty. Octopus, abalone, shrimp, clams, littleneck clams, and crab filled the pot, along with beef brisket, mandu (dumplings), enoki mushrooms, napa cabbage, and bean sprouts. The octopus in particular, cut into big chunks, caught my eye first — lightly cooked, it wasn't chewy at all but had a nice bouncy texture. The abalone was plump yet tender, and peeling the shrimp shells myself was half the fun.

True to an Oido kalguksu restaurant, there were several kinds of clams, so the broth's flavor kept evolving as it boiled. The clams gave off a clean, refreshing taste, and once the crab joined in, the broth turned clean yet deeply savory. It wasn't just seafood either — beef brisket was mixed in too, so we could fish out pieces of meat along the way. The refreshing seafood flavor paired surprisingly well with the savory brisket. With mandu, enoki mushrooms, napa cabbage, and bean sprouts added in, it felt less like kalguksu and more like a seafood hot pot in terms of sheer heartiness — even with so many restaurants around Oido, I felt like we'd chosen well!

Staff cut open the blue crab and hairy crab for you

The food was delicious, but the service was satisfying too. Even with a lot of customers, staff kept adjusting the flame and checked in to see if we needed more broth. In particular, staff came by and prepped the crab and hairy crab for us themselves so they were easy to eat. With so many restaurants in Oido, I understood why this one has a wait. The generous seafood spread was great, but so was the attentive service of checking on tables regularly even on a busy weekend.

Extra kalguksu noodles in the rich broth

After eating our fill of seafood, the noodles finally went in. Having eaten plenty of seafood beforehand, the broth was deeply infused with seafood flavor, and adding the kalguksu noodles made for the perfect finish. Rather than adding noodles from the start, eating the seafood first and adding noodles at the end deepened the broth's flavor and left us thoroughly full.

Final verdict on 52 Degree Kalguksu in Oido

With a generous variety of seafood plus beef brisket and vegetables, there was fun in picking through everything, and finishing with kalguksu noodles was satisfying. The food was great, but even on a chaotic, busy weekend, staff kept checking tables to adjust the flame and top up broth as needed, which I appreciated. From the generous seafood to the kalguksu, everything was satisfying, and with such good service, I'd give 52 Degree Kalguksu Oido Main Branch — my go-to Jeongwang-dong and Oido kalguksu restaurant — a full 100% return intent.