Mapo Station Korean BBQ, waitlist #7, sea blite wraps: Moyeon Mapo

What kind of place is Moyeon Mapo?

Moyeon Mapo is a hanwoo dining restaurant near Mapo Station serving grilled Korean beef and pot rice (solbap) sets. The name is said to be inspired by 'Nongammoyeon' (농암모연), one of the Eight Views of Mapo, the sight of evening cooking smoke rising from the many homes near Nongbawi rock.

Geographically, Mapo had a thriving port culture from early on, and its beautiful riverside scenery made it a warm, welcoming place that poets and artists from all over the country loved to visit! The scenic spots of Mapo are called the Eight Views of Mapo.

Moyeon, the hanwoo dining restaurant, means 'the smoke of hanwoo being grilled deliciously,' and it promotes 'KOREAN BEEF DINING,' delivering a refined food culture experience.

Can you reserve Moyeon Mapo, and do you eat in a room?

You can reserve Moyeon Mapo through Catch Table, and every meal is served in a private room. That makes it a good fit for a private, relaxed meal.

Hygiene and amenities

Moyeon Mapo is said to be a CESCO Members business, receiving regular integrated pest control to keep the environment cleaner. It is a HACCP-designated (Korea's food safety certification) and White CESCO business with regular hygiene inspections, and it uses Anywater, so all cooking water is purified. A place you can eat at with confidence.

There's phone charging, fabric deodorizer, clean disposable aprons, lap blankets, hair ties, feminine hygiene products, baby chairs, and even a service that warms baby food and porridge, so there's zero inconvenience.

How long is the weekday lunch wait at Moyeon Mapo?

All the rooms fill up the moment Moyeon Mapo opens at 11:30 on weekdays. It usually takes until about 12:20 for a table to turn over. The waitlist number I got that day was 7. Lucky!

The lunch menu is Pyeongyang naengmyeon and the grilled hanwoo & pot rice set.

Moyeon's three stubborn principles

• Meat: Only carefully selected steers under 28 months old, wet-aged for 500 hours for the best flavor and tenderness, they say. (Marbling score 8, grade 9 or above)
• Noodles: They make 100% pure buckwheat noodles in-house from top-grade buckwheat cold-milled on a millstone for rich buckwheat aroma, and the broth uses only ultra-fresh hanwoo within 3 days of slaughter for a deep beefy flavor. (They reportedly boil the broth fresh in the restaurant every day.)
• Rice: For the taste and aroma of the rice, the foundation of a Korean table setting, they cook it to order in a cast-iron pot using Golden No. 3 rice, a top-grade domestic variety, they say.

What does the charcoal-grilled marinated hanwoo pot rice set look like?

When I ordered the charcoal-grilled marinated hanwoo pot rice set for two at Moyeon Mapo, the side dishes, wraps and pot rice made with top-grade rice came out quickly. After the wait, I was kindly shown into our room!

Charcoal-grilled marinated hanwoo for two.

For the best hanwoo flavor, Moyeon Mapo staff grill the meat for you, a high-end grilling service.

The marinated hanwoo is grilled quickly to lock in the juices. When I lifted the lid of the pot rice, it was clearly a really carefully made, well-made pot of rice.

The pot rice has ginkgo nuts, sweet potato, mushrooms, carrots and even aralia shoots (deureup). The rice alone is perfect, and they also bring the charcoal-grilled marinated hanwoo with sea blite (sebal-namul)!

Wrap vegetables that look fresh at first glance: kelp, cabbage, carrot, chili pepper and lettuce.

How to eat the abalone-butter pot rice and sea blite hanwoo wraps

The pot rice at Moyeon Mapo comes with abalone and butter to eat alongside, and honestly... it's honey. Pure honey. Long live carbs!

Put one abalone on the rice and wrap it in dried seaweed.

Eat the charcoal-grilled marinated hanwoo as a wrap with sea blite.

Is the naengmyeon at Moyeon Mapo okay to share between two?

The Pyeongyang cold noodles (mul-naengmyeon) at Moyeon Mapo cost ₩16,000, and if two of you come, ordering one is just right for sharing. Moyeon's Pyeongyang naengmyeon is popular too, so since we'd worked so hard to get in, I ordered it to finish! They brought kelp vinegar and mustard first.

Pyeongyang cold noodles (₩16,000).

Pyeongyang naengmyeon with 100% pure buckwheat noodles, prepared the moment you order.

I ordered the regular naengmyeon rather than the smaller dessert-size cold noodles, and if two people come, ordering one is just right for sharing!

The broth was mild and tasty, and above all the flavor of the 100% buckwheat noodles was great.

Moyeon Mapo in one line

Moyeon Mapo is a great space for treating someone to a neat, polished meal in Mapo.