Jung-gu Chinese restaurant for crispy fried eggplant: Huhugwan

• 📍 2nd floor, 2 Seosomun-ro 11-gil, Jung-gu, Seoul, South Korea
• 🗓️ Regularly closed on weekends
• ⏰ Mon–Fri 11:00–23:00 (last order 22:30)
• Break time 16:00–17:00
• 🛎️ Group-friendly, reservations available, corkage allowed (fee applies)

I wanted a proper lunch near City Hall Station with a friend I hadn't seen in a while! Being able to reserve in advance through Naver Map made it super convenient. It exceeded my expectations, so I really want to recommend it.

Finding Huhugwan: the storefront and the 2nd-floor entrance

An exterior with presence you can feel from far away. I chose this place because it's Chinese food with a strong Hong Kong vibe, and the exterior already sets it apart.

Go down the side alley and there's a door leading up to the 2nd floor.

The entrance and waiting area are covered with photos from Hong Kong movies like Shaolin Soccer, which is fun to look at. My friend loves Shaolin Soccer and took pictures of it.

Inside Huhugwan: seating for groups, solo diners and dates

Look at this aesthetic... I have to post the food photos as the main shot but I actually hesitated because the interior is so pretty. The seats are also huge, so it looks great for group use.

According to the notice on Naver Map, all those windows seem to open. Sitting there with a beer would be so nice.

There's also bar seating, so it's totally fine for solo dining or dates! The front is floor-to-ceiling glass so you can see into the kitchen, which makes the space feel less closed-in. The kitchen looked very clean too, so I could eat with confidence.

Who picked that blind color, seriously. The vibe was so good I found myself thinking I'd want to decorate my own place like this someday. My friend, who loves Hong Kong, loved the atmosphere too.

The menu, the side dishes and tea served instead of water

Huhugwan's menu was more varied than I expected. There was so much I wanted to try that it was almost a shame there were only two of us. We ordered mala chaofan and eggplant fritters.

They served tea instead of water by default, and it was tasty. Each table had pickled radish that you could refill freely, which was nice.

Fried eggplant, 18,000 won — crisp batter, never soggy

As someone who loves eggplant and loves fried food to a ridiculous degree, I highly recommend these eggplant fritters. What felt different: usually at Chinese restaurants, eggplant fritters release a lot of water first, going soggy once, then get doused in sauce, going soggy twice — so people who don't like eggplant end up disliking it even more. But here the eggplant is plump and never gets soggy at all, and the batter is really crispy, like other places put the effort into the eggplant while this place put the effort into the frying. That doesn't mean you can't taste the eggplant either — since it's so plump, it was really delicious. And best of all, they don't drown it in sauce, which is great for those of us who prefer dipping over pouring.

Look how plump the eggplant is. The dipping sauce we ate it with was tasty too — a chili-and-spicy flavor that pretty much everyone would like.

Mala fried rice (mala chaofan), 11,000 won — mild mala, great wok smoke

I honestly wasn't expecting much from this one, but my friend tried it first and said it was so good! Soy-sauce based, with a great smoky char from the meat and a spicy kick befitting mala. That said, the mala flavor wasn't overwhelming at all, so this too seems like something most people would enjoy without complaint. (I only realized while writing this that it was mala — at the time I just thought it was fried rice with meat and wondered why it was spicy. Turns out it was mala.)

Is Huhugwan worth it for a City Hall Station or Deoksugung date?

1000% return-visit intention. The atmosphere, the food, and the kindness were all great, and the location right in front of City Hall Station makes it super accessible. If you're planning a date around Deoksugung or City Hall Station, I definitely recommend stopping by.