Early-morning Korean restaurant near Solmoro CC: hanwoo ramyeon

An aged-beef restaurant for before and after golf in Yeoju

My favorite meat spot before hitting Yeoju Premium Outlets — my all-time favorite among aged-beef restaurants — Namyeoju Baechu Doenjang-guk Sukseong Gogi-jip. The owner here is genuinely devoted to meat and grills it himself, and it's famous for iron-pan grilling.

This place is known among almost every golf course in Yeoju — Araji CC, Solmoro CC, Geumgang CC, Haesley Nine Bridges CC — because they open at the crack of dawn.

Open for meals from 5:30am

You can eat from 5:30am, so it's great for breakfast before a round, and plenty of people come here after their round too. A friend who golfed at Solmoro CC recommended this place after eating here, and that's how I found it. It was packed with customers inside, so I took this photo after some people had left — but a good restaurant really is a good restaurant~

What should you order

Here's the menu. There's a wide range, but even the cabbage doenjang soup (fermented soybean paste soup), which is good for breakfast, comes out really substantial. You'll know once you eat here — you can tell right away how serious the owner is about food!

We ordered the iron-pan hanwoo sirloin 500g. The hanwoo (Korean beef) here is the real deal! If it's not breakfast, go with hanwoo! And you must have the hangover ramyeon (noodle soup). It's so good you should eat the hanwoo just to earn the ramyeon!

Even the basic side dishes are different

The side dishes came out and honestly every single one was delicious. Some I don't even know the names of, haha — I wish they sold the side dishes separately!

Why "cabbage doenjang soup" comes first in the name

When you order the iron-pan hanwoo sirloin, a cabbage doenjang soup comes with it, and now I understand why the name leads with cabbage doenjang soup. Was this cabbage raised on meat or something~ I don't know why it's this good~ It never tastes like this when I make it at home — so clean and deep-flavored, it's amazing!

Events for golf-round customers

There's a fun event too.

• Free 500g hanwoo sirloin for a hole-in-one
• Free black pork for 2 or a set for 2 for an eagle
• Spicy raw beef service on a second visit the same day

A hole-in-one, eagle event — isn't that amazing? It's a Solmoro CC favorite, a place you absolutely have to visit before or after your round!

The hanwoo sirloin arrived. The visuals were insane too — this is aged beef, so it's a signature dish you truly can't find just anywhere. Instead of charcoal like other places, it's cooked in an iron pan, and that seems to be the winning move!

Wine by the glass too

If you looked closely at the menu, you'd have noticed wine is sold by the glass too. And of course wine pairs so well with beef. I ordered a glass myself, and it was so much better than expected that I took photos. Sweet red wine, sweet white wine, and red wine are available, and I chose the red wine!

The owner does the first sear on the iron pan himself

The meat is first pre-seared all at once. He grills it deliciously on the iron pan with just the right amount of oil. What makes the iron pan legit is that as the meat cooks, the Maillard reaction happens and a deep meaty aroma and flavor stays soaked into the pan. Honestly I always thought charcoal was the only way to grill beef, but coming here completely changed my mind.

Meat grilled by someone else really is the best, haha. No wonder it's a favorite near Yeoju Outlets, haha. Aged beef meets iron pan!

Our hanwoo sirloin, deliciously pre-seared! Honestly, since you have to order 500g at once, my partner — whose stomach's been off lately — said isn't that too much? And I said it's fine, I'll eat all the meat, haha. And the ramyeon also has to be ordered as 2 servings at once, and honestly I wasn't confident I could finish it all, haha.

The nicely pre-seared meat — the owner cut it into bite-size pieces for us himself, which was also touching, haha. You can really enjoy it deliciously without lifting a finger. I think that's why everyone comes here.

You take the deliciously pre-seared meat and grill it again on the heated iron pan to your preferred doneness, then rest it on the wire rack set over the pan so it doesn't burn. The visuals are seriously insane, haha.

The Maldon salt and wasabi combo

Do you know Maldon salt? At any decent meat restaurant you often get pink salt or Himalayan salt and the like. This is Maldon salt, a salt that holds a Royal Warrant from the British royal family, produced with zero artificial additives on the eastern coast of Essex, England, in the village of Maldon — 100% pure salt.

The beautifully cooked hanwoo sirloin — being aged beef, the visuals are on another level. It's incredibly tender, with a melting texture that seems to push back against your teeth before dissolving softly — the only word for it is artistry. Aged beef really is different. Restaurants near golf courses attract a lot of foodies who've eaten only the good stuff, so an ordinary place couldn't survive — but once you taste this, you understand why everyone gives it a thumbs up.

Nothing that comes alongside it is anything less than delicious. Not the usual overly-seasoned scallion salad you're used to, but a clean, distinctly flavorful pa-jeori (scallion salad). It goes perfectly with the beef — the scallion isn't too spicy or sharp, just the right amount of delicious harmony, the kind of flavor you keep reaching for endlessly.

The wasabi and Maldon salt combo is also incredible. Truly a balance of flavor that even foodies couldn't find fault with!! So good. I don't think any other beef place could hold a candle to this one~

An amazing pairing with the red wine, haha. And the cabbage soup might seem like an odd match, but the cabbage doenjang soup is so good that I kept eating it alongside too, haha — this isn't just talk, it's genuinely true!

The best side dish is the chili pepper one

Among the side dishes, this finely chopped chili pepper dish especially stands out — it's the real deal. I wanted it with rice so badly I almost ordered a bowl just for it. It pairs so well with the meat too. Lightly spicy with a slightly sweet soy sauce marinade, it's basically addictive!! Please release the recipe, haha.

Wait, this person said their stomach was off, haha, and now they're straight-up inhaling it~~~ haha. My partner, who's been feeling under the weather lately, polished off a whole 500g of hanwoo. Of course I ate my share too, haha — it melts in your mouth so fast that we ended up racing each other to claim just one more bite, haha.

The hanwoo hangover ramyeon — this is the main event

It's not an exaggeration to say people come here just for this. There are people who haven't tried it, but no one who's tried it only once — the hanwoo hangover ramyeon of a lifetime. If you eat hanwoo here, you absolutely must have this too. It's so insanely good that every ramyeon you've ever eaten stops counting as ramyeon.

Once you finish the meat, ask the owner and he'll come prepared exactly like this. Already looks serious. The ramyeon was so good I asked what brand it was — turns out it's Jin Ramyeon. I never really thought Jin Ramyeon was that great before, but today changed my mind, haha.

He adds scallion and onion along with the leftover tendon and fatty bits from the meat, stir-fries them with a little oil. Once they're cooked through, he pours in water and adds the ramyeon soup base right away. It seemed like nothing special, but I filmed it anyway — I'm definitely going to try recreating this, haha.

Ramyeon must be ordered in units of 2 servings

As mentioned above, the ramyeon has to be ordered in 2 servings at once, so I was a bit worried. We'd already eaten a good amount of meat, and no matter how you look at it, we'd never had ramyeon as dessert for two, one serving each, two total. Ramyeon really is meant to be dessert, so we usually order one and share it. But having to order 2 servings, I worried — won't a lot be left over? Can't we just order one?

But the owner has incredible passion for ramyeon. He cooked it so deliciously!! haha To make sure the seasoning soaks properly into the noodles, and so you can enjoy them chewy and springy without breaking them, he gently loosens the noodles back into their original form as they first came out, lays them out, and even cools them down crisply. All this prep so you can enjoy them perfectly al dente.

By the time I came to my senses~ yep~ it was gone, haha. No exaggeration, the two of us drank down even the broth, sweating buckets. Ramyeon of a lifetime. For real. I'm going to try recreating the recipe myself. First I need to go buy an iron pan, haha.

It's truly spicy and refreshing, opening up your sweat glands from head to toe — a proper hangover cure, this hanwoo hangover ramyeon.

The Maillard-browned aroma and flavor soaked into the pan from the meat mixes perfectly into the broth, with the deep savor of onion and scallion added on top — the ramyeon just obliterates every other ramyeon on earth~~ You must have hanwoo and ramyeon together, no question!!

What I thought after eating

Even while paying, I kept feeling grateful for the meal. It's genuinely delicious. Honestly, I hope the owner does just enough business to make a living. If it gets too popular the wait will get too long, and if it doesn't do well I worry he'll switch business types, haha — just kidding, but really, grilling the meat this properly and delicious while also cooking the ramyeon to perfection means this restaurant, the kind you stop at before or after golf, is in a class of its own. If you're coming to golf in Yeoju, or visiting Yeoju Premium Outlets, this is a restaurant you absolutely have to try: Namyeoju Baechu Doenjang-guk Sukseong Gogi-jip.