Pre-exhibition dinner near Jongno: pumpkin soup at Wystab Diet

Here's another healthy meal update — today I want to share my review of Wystab Diet Gwanghwamun, a poke restaurant I'd recommend for solo dining with salads near Gwanghwamun. 🌿

I've already reviewed this place several times, but it really is the salad lunch spot I keep coming back to for solo meals — lately I've been eating nothing but heavy food, so I decided it was time again for a healthy meal-management post.

Why? Because today is Monday 🥹🫶😇 and even if it only lasts three days, I wanted to start light with a solo salad meal!

Wystab Diet Gwanghwamun's hours and location

Wystab Diet Gwanghwamun

• ⏰ Hours: Closed every Saturday and Sunday / Monday–Friday 10:00–20:40 (last order 20:10)
• 📌 Location: within a 3-minute walk from Exit 1 of Jonggak Station
• Join the Naver receipt review event — show a printed receipt for a free drink :-)

Twice a week on a salad diet

Wystab Diet Gwanghwamun makes a great solo lunch spot in Gwanghwamun. Since I've gone back to skipping the lunchbox at work and eating heavy meals instead, I make sure to have a healthy salad, poke, or high-protein salad meal at least twice a week.

The lunches I usually end up eating at work are burgers, kalguksu (knife-cut noodle soup), yeoptteok (spicy stir-fried rice cakes), or Chinese food... 🥲🥲 Even eating just one meal like that a day is enough to put on weight. Even with the exact same activity level, or more!!!!

So I've decided that at least twice a week, I'm sticking with light but satisfying salad and poke meals for solo lunches on weekdays.

It's supposedly so I can enjoy good food guilt-free on the weekend, to make up for the heavy meals I ate during the week? Hahahaha. But funnily enough, whenever I eat like this and keep it up, my weight actually goes down a little. And I'm someone who runs wild hunting down restaurants every weekend... (It's all thanks to the salad solo meals at Wystab Diet Gwanghwamun.)

Dinner after work, before an exhibition

Anyway, this time I was planning to spend about two hours at an exhibition after work, and going in on an empty stomach seemed like it would leave me exhausted, so I decided on a light but filling dinner at salad restaurant Wystab Diet Gwanghwamun before heading over.

My husband often gets takeout from here, but this time I visited in person after a while and ate at the store — the space was still kept clean and well managed :-)

The fun of choosing base, protein, and toppings

✅ Gwanghwamun solo-dining menu recommendation from Wystab Diet

We added a side set, a drink, and a protein box. I've checked out a lot of salad and poke restaurant brands, but Wystab Diet Gwanghwamun seems to be the only place where you can choose from bases beyond just salad — oats, pasta, tofu noodles, cauliflower rice.

And to suit Korean tastes for a warm broth, they also have pumpkin soup and tomato soup that pair well with a salad meal, plus a protein lineup of tofu, beef, chicken, smoked duck, and salmon — nowhere else has all of that. Wystab Diet also has just the toppings I usually like.

I love chickpeas and green beans/soybean sprouts, so I always make sure to add these too. When I get takeout, I always have these at home, so I tend to just add extra from what I already have... hahaha. (Give the chickpeas and green beans a try.) (They're really delicious.)

Sparkling water, pumpkin soup, and a pasta-base beef protein box

We added sparkling water and pumpkin soup, and today my husband went with a beef protein box on a pasta base. (Compared to me, who always orders the same thing, he tends to try new things every time, picking different toppings and bases.)

What do you think? This is a meal I eat really often, and every time it's completely filling without ever getting old — the solo salad menu at Wystab Diet Gwanghwamun.

If you overate or ate too much of the same thing over the weekend, I hope you'll try a healthy but filling salad meal for at least one meal. Right here — at Wystab Diet Gwanghwamun!!