Jongno 3-ga mandu restaurant for a lunch hot pot for two: Jongga Mandu

📍88 Supyo-ro, 1st floor Jongga Mandu, Jongno-gu, Seoul, South Korea *311m from Exit 15, Jongno 3-ga Station ⏰ Mon–Sat 11:00–21:30 (break 15:30–17:00) (Last order 14:30, 20:30) Sun 11:00–16:00 (no break) 🅿️ Group bookings, takeout, and reservations available

Today I visited Jongga Mandu (종가만두) in Jongno 3-ga. After I finished eating and stepped outside, there was already a wait forming — it seems like this place is genuinely popular! Let's get into my review of Jongga Mandu, a spot nearby office workers line up for.

What Jongga Mandu looks like inside, and how long is the wait?

Jongga Mandu has an overall restaurant feel. There are a lot of tables, so it seems like it can seat quite a lot of people at once. It looks like the kind of place that could easily handle group visits too, haha.

When I stepped out after finishing my meal, I took another photo of the inside, and there were so many customers seated and eating, haha. I'm convinced this is the kind of restaurant that regularly gets a wait during lunch and dinner hours.

Jongga Mandu menu and hot pot prices

Jeongol (hot pot), Jongga Mandu's signature dish, comes with a choice of mild or spicy broth. You can also order it split half-and-half, which is what I decided on, haha. Single-broth jeongol is ₩13,000 per person, and split-broth jeongol is ₩14,000 per person — pretty reasonable prices!

Besides the jeongol, there's a wide range of other options like bean kalguksu (noodle soup), bibim kalguksu, and jorangi rice cake mandu soup, so you can order according to your taste.

Table setting and the self-serve banchan bar

Each table basically comes with seasoning to adjust the flavor and tableware and cups. Soju glasses are already set out, so it seemed convenient if you're ordering alcohol.

The first round of banchan (side dishes) is brought to you, and if you want more, you use the self-serve bar. There are bowls and utensils there too, so it's good to grab everything you need at once, haha.

Here's the restroom guide posted on the wall~ It was really clear and easy to follow!

Dumplings folded by hand at the restaurant

Right next to the entrance of Jongga Mandu, you can watch the dumplings being handmade. Seeing it made in front of you builds a lot of trust, and being handmade really felt like it lifted the quality of the taste. I'll go into more detail below, but the dumpling skins are packed full!!

What comes with the split-broth hot pot for two

The broth for the split-broth jeongol I ordered arrived. It came together with side dishes and kalguksu noodles, haha.

The shabu-shabu-style hot pot ingredients and handmade dumplings came out next. With the dumplings joining the shabu-shabu setup, it looked even more delicious — and for a price in the ₩10,000s, you get a generous, varied meal, so the word 'value' really fits here, haha.

I put the vegetables in first to make the broth richer, haha. With napa cabbage, mushrooms, mung bean sprouts, and bok choy all going in together, the texture was great and it tasted even better.

I added the dumplings in too, and they got bigger and bigger the longer they cooked. They looked about 1.5 times their original size — big enough that I had to split them rather than eat them whole, haha.

Meat dumplings vs kimchi dumplings: how they taste

I tried the meat dumplings, packed with meat and vegetable filling, and it felt like I was tasting the textbook definition of a dumpling. Compared to frozen dumplings, handmade ones really do taste different. I tried the kimchi dumplings in the mild broth, and the seasoning was spot on — it went really well with the hot pot broth!

There were two of us eating, and the portion was generous enough that we had leftovers. As the dumplings grew bigger, you could see the hot pot bowl fill right up. Eating them together with the vegetables makes for a satisfying meal 🙂

Kalguksu noodles: better in the spicy broth

About halfway through, I added the kalguksu noodles too — the broth was so good that it went well with whatever I added. Personally, the kalguksu noodles in the spicy broth were more to my taste, haha.

Is Jongga Mandu a good spot for a work lunch?

That wraps up today's post on Jongga Mandu, haha. Even with so many other restaurants around Jongno 3-ga, I could really understand why office workers wait in line to eat here. I think the appeal of Jongga Mandu is being able to have a satisfying, healthy meal with colleagues without sacrificing flavor ^_^ I recommend Jongga Mandu, a dumpling restaurant near Jongno 3-ga Station in Seoul!