Incheon abalone restaurant: 3-person 39,000-won course at Jeonbokchon

Jeonbokchon is built around a healthy menu of abalone course dishes made with fresh live abalone shipped daily from Wando, along with private rooms — recommended for group gatherings or meetings between families before a wedding. You can taste live abalone shipped straight from the source, and buy it on-site as well. We carefully prepare a wide variety of delicious abalone dishes, so come visit Jeonbokchon. - From Jeonbokchon's introduction -

Where Jeonbokchon is, opening hours and parking

Jeonbokchon is a hanjeongsik (Korean full-course set meal) restaurant located five minutes' walk from Exit 1 of Yesulhoegwan Station in Guwol-dong, Namdong-gu, Incheon. It's open daily from 11:30 to 21:30, with a break time from 14:40 to 17:00, and closed every Monday. During the Chuseok holiday it was closed on Thursday the 24th and Friday the 25th. Parking is available, and there are baby chairs, so it works well for group visits too.

It's especially famous for the sheer variety of abalone dishes it serves, and I went in with expectations — turns out it's the kind of place where you really can eat every kind of abalone dish there is. It's a great spot to visit with your parents, so this holiday, consider bringing them along :p There are two parking lots so parking is plentiful, and you can reserve either hall seating or a private room.

What you get in the 39,000-won abalone set course

We ordered the abalone course menu at ₩39,000 per person, shared between the three of us. The lineup included geuu-juk (abalone entrail porridge), salad, sushi, live fish sashimi, abalone chojoehoe (vinegar-dressed abalone), steamed abalone, japchae (glass noodle stir-fry), pollock hoe, fried food, scorched-rice soup, bulgogi, seaweed soup, and codfish kangjeong (sweet-spicy glazed codfish).

• Abalone course menu, ₩39,000 per person × 3 people
• Geuu-juk, salad, sushi, live fish sashimi, abalone chojoehoe, steamed abalone, japchae, pollock hoe, fried food, scorched-rice soup, bulgogi, seaweed soup, codfish kangjeong

First round: geuu-juk porridge, salad, steamed abalone, abalone chohoe, sushi, sashimi and nurungji soup

Order the abalone course and the food comes out in two rounds. First up is geuu (abalone entrails) porridge, and the staff personally ladle out the scorched-rice soup for you. The seafood scorched-rice soup is portioned per person so it's not a huge amount, but with so many dishes coming, if you save it for later you might not get to finish it, haha. Then comes the basic salad, and the steamed abalone arrives with an entrail sauce to dip it in. The steamed abalone was so tender it practically melted in my mouth~

Then another salad comes out, this one with abalone entrails mixed in — if you love abalone, there's honestly nothing here that skips it, you get to enjoy abalone in every form. The live abalone sashimi is also portioned per person, and you can eat it plain or dip it in chojang (vinegar-chili sauce) or soy sauce. It was so fresh it tasted nutty even eaten plain~ The abalone chojoehoe comes in a yuzu sauce, and personally, that was my favorite! The abalone sushi luckily doesn't have too much rice packed in, so it's not heavy to eat.

Second round: japchae, pollock hoe, fritters, beef bulgogi, seaweed soup and kodari gangjeong

No hanjeongsik would be complete without japchae, and here it comes. I was curious whether they'd give you more if a side ran low, but there was so much food already that I never got the chance to ask^^; The pollock hoe comes with cabbage wraps and it tasted really upscale and delicious~ The codfish kangjeong is coated in an incredibly sweet-and-spicy sauce — properly delicious kangjeong. You know that taste that's spicy but you just keep eating it anyway? This was exactly that~

Fried shrimp comes out one per person, and the bulgogi arrives already lit on a burner so it stays hot while you eat. Seaweed soup comes with three side dishes, and yes — there's abalone in the seaweed soup too :p And to finish, plum tea for dessert — a truly complete course.

Is Jeonbokchon worth it for a holiday family meal?

Jeonbokchon serves an elegant, well-put-together abalone hanjeongsik. With the holidays coming up and family gatherings on the way, if you're wondering where to take your parents to eat — somewhere that serves a tidy, refined health-food course — I'd recommend giving Jeonbokchon a try~ You end up completely full, but it doesn't feel heavy — a genuinely healthy way to eat~