Ramen with fist-sized karaage after Children's Grand Park: Mentsuru

Mentsuru is a great ramen restaurant to hit up in Gwangjin after playing around at Children's Grand Park, which is lovely to visit these days with the cool breeze blowing. I went and had some delicious ramen at Mentsuru, a Children's Grand Park spot where you can enjoy the authentic taste of ramen just like you'd get in Japan.

30 seconds on foot from Exit 4, Children's Grand Park Station

Mentsuru, a Gwangjin ramen restaurant, is located just 30 seconds on foot from Exit 4 of Children's Grand Park Station. Since Konkuk University and Sejong University are nearby, this super-close-to-the-station restaurant sees a lot of college student customers — a real Gwangjin favorite.

Mentsuru bills itself as a hangover-cure ramen specialist, staying open until 11pm — perfect for anyone who's been drinking around Gwangjin and genuinely needs to sober up with some food.

Steam rising, bar-style seating

Walk inside and there's a dachi-style bar table where steam rises up from the boiling noodles, making you feel like you've genuinely stepped into a restaurant somewhere in Japan.

The interior is spacious with seats good for solo dining too, so it's easy to see why so many Konkuk and Sejong University students come to this branch of Mentsuru.

No tonkotsu ramen on the menu — so what to order?

Looking at the menu at this Children's Grand Park ramen restaurant, you won't find tonkotsu ramen, the dish most people think of as classic Japanese ramen. Instead there's shoyu ramen, a chicken-broth ramen seasoned with soy sauce; shio ramen, seasoned with salt; tori paitan, where you can really taste the richness of the chicken broth; motsu ramen, packed with beef tripe in a spicy sauce; tsukemen, where you dip cold noodles into a hot sauce (jiru); and abura soba, a mixed ramen flavored with five kinds of oil. On top of the ramen, there's also hormone-don, a rice bowl with beef intestine and beef short rib, and gyudon, a beef rice bowl, so you can order according to your taste.

You order through the kiosk near the entrance and then take a seat. Fun fact — among Japanese carbonated drinks they even have ramune, the soda with the distinctive marble-stopper bottle, plus oolong tea, watermelon cider, melon cider, and peach cider! There's also Asahi draft beer and Suntory highball, so you can pick your drink to match your taste. You can add toppings to your ramen too — pork belly chashu, menma (bamboo shoots), soft-boiled egg, and seaweed.

Each table has a container of tangy yuzu radish pickle you can help yourself to as much as you want. Looking at it now, I wonder if the Mentsuru logo is meant to represent noodles tangled together like strings — now I'm curious, haha.

Comparing the regular and spicy shoyu ramen

The regular shoyu ramen (soy sauce) has arrived! Mentsuru's ramen comes standard with half a soft-boiled egg, and you can add more, which is nice, haha.

Along with the regular shoyu ramen, I also ordered the spicy shoyu ramen, and the broth's appearance is striking — it's red like yukgaejang (spicy beef soup).

I ordered karaage fried chicken as a side dish since it goes so well with ramen, and the size is really enormous, haha. Almost the size of a grown woman's fist?!?!

The soft noodles combined with the salty-savory soy sauce seasoning make for deep flavor at this Children's Grand Park Station lunch spot, Mentsuru.

On the left is the regular broth, on the right is the spicy broth — both are shoyu ramen, but you can see the colors differ.

The noodle portion is quite generous, so it's easy to get full — a real Gwangjin ramen favorite.

There's soft chashu on top, and if needed they'll give you rice too, so you can eat it alongside the ramen.

Karaage with a squeeze of lemon

The karaage fried chicken, impressively huge in size, gets a squeeze of lemon juice on top!

Dip it in mayonnaise and chili sauce and it's so good, haha.

Eating the soft chashu and soft-boiled egg together with the ramen is so good! I had a really enjoyable meal at Mentsuru, this Children's Grand Park ramen restaurant, haha.

Store info

• Mentsuru Children's Grand Park Branch
• Address: 394 Gwangnaru-ro, 1st floor, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul, South Korea
• Hours: Daily 11:00 - 23:00