Sadang soju bar with truffle hanwoo yukhoe: Gyeongseong Sanghoe

When you want a drink with friends around Sadang, there's no shortage of options — grilled meat joints, pojangmacha (tent bars), raw fish restaurants, izakayas, you name it. This time I wanted to sip soju while comfortably working through a few different snacks, so I headed to Gyeongseong Sanghoe (경성상회) in Sadang.

What is Gyeongseong Sanghoe near Sadang Station like?

I met up with friends at Gyeongseong Sanghoe for a drink. Sadang has plenty of bars, but this time I wanted somewhere with more of an izakaya feel than your average pojangmacha.

It's a comfortable spot for drinking with friends, and it works well if you want to order small portions of several dishes to go with soju or sake. Personally, I think this kind of izakaya-style bar is great as a first stop where you eat a proper meal, but it's just as good as a second stop — order a few dishes and drink slowly.

The basic side dishes — gochujang-pickled radish and jangjorim (soy-braised beef) — came out first! Honestly, these alone are enough to get a drink going!!

Truffle hanwoo yukhoe, 28,000 won: how to eat it

The first thing we ordered was the truffle hanwoo yukhoe (28,000 won) — raw Korean beef with truffle. I already like plain yukhoe as a drinking snack, but adding truffle to it made me curious the moment I saw it on the menu. The naturally tender texture of the raw beef combined with the truffle aroma gave it a completely different feel from regular yukhoe.

You just mix the egg yolk on top and eat it with bread — an easy dish, haha. What's great about yukhoe is that it doesn't fill you up too much, so your chopsticks keep going back for more. Grab a piece of meat, eat it, take a shot of soju. Grab another piece, another shot. It's a dish that quietly suits a long night of drinking.

Once the truffle hanwoo yukhoe arrived, we naturally started filling our soju glasses. I noticed Hallasan 21 on the menu, so I ordered a bottle for something different, haha. A cold bite of yukhoe, a shot of soju, and then straight back to the yukhoe again, haha.

It's especially easy to pick at while chatting with friends, so it seemed like a good side dish choice for a company dinner near Sadang Station or any group drinking session.

Chicken karaage, 18,000 won: why order it with the yukhoe

Yukhoe alone felt a little lacking, so we also ordered chicken karaage (18,000 won). Karaage is probably one of the hardest things to get wrong at an izakaya. Served piping hot, it was crispy outside with juicy chicken inside — a completely different experience from the yukhoe.

Going from the cold, soft yukhoe to a hot bite of karaage turned out to be a better combination than I expected. If we'd ordered just one type of dish, it might have gotten a bit tiring toward the end, but ordering both raw beef and fried chicken together meant we got to enjoy switching back and forth.

Chicken karaage is definitely best eaten hot. As soon as it arrived, I grabbed a piece and immediately followed it with a shot of soju. I always thought crispy fried food went best with beer, but it actually went down pretty well with soju alongside the yukhoe that day too.

Especially as the night goes on, it's nice to have a familiar fried snack on the table. If yukhoe is the lighter dish you pick at, karaage is the one that fills you up a bit more with each bite. The two dishes clearly played different roles.

Best two-dish combination to share over soju

Truffle hanwoo yukhoe and chicken karaage are such different styles of food that they actually worked really well together. A bite of soft yukhoe, then a crispy bite of karaage. A shot of soju, then back to the yukhoe. Alternating like this meant we never got tired of the same dish for the whole night, unlike sticking to just one menu item.

If you're visiting with friends and only ordering two dishes, pairing one cold dish with one warm dish like this seems like a solid approach.

Why pick a Sadang izakaya over a raw fish restaurant

Gyeongseong Sanghoe has an izakaya-style menu, so it's a place people looking for raw fish (hoe) or sashimi also check out, alongside the yukhoe and fried dishes. So if you're searching for a raw fish restaurant near Sadang Station but thinking "I'd rather have a variety of dishes than just raw fish," this kind of izakaya could be a good option.

Especially when there's a group, someone might want raw fish, someone might want meat, someone might want fried food — a bar with plenty of menu variety makes things much easier in that case.

We came to drink soju with friends, but Sadang itself is a location that's easy to gather at from various areas, so a lot of people look for it as a spot for friend meetups or after-work drinks with coworkers. When you've got soju lovers, beer lovers, and people with different taste in snacks all together, an izakaya really is convenient.

Next time I'd like to try the sashimi and skewers too :) Thanks for the meal today!