Bangi-dong izakaya serving mille-feuille nabe with udon: Sangkai

Where is Sangkai Izakaya Bangi Branch, and what are the hours?

Sangkai Izakaya Bangi Branch is an izakaya on the food street of Bangi-dong, using the 2nd and 3rd floors of a building at 30 Olympic-ro 32-gil, Songpa-gu, Seoul. It's open daily from 4:00 PM to 5:00 AM.

• 📍Location: 30 Olympic-ro 32-gil, Songpa-gu, Seoul, 2nd-3rd floors, South Korea
• 📍Hours: Daily 4:00 PM–5:00 AM
• 📍Other: couple seats, group seats, private rooms available, Naver reservation possible
• Limited parking in front of the building
• Nearby paid public lots (4-5 min walk from Songpa-gu Office public lot / 3 min walk from a Bangi-dong alley lot)

An outing to Jamsil after ages of no plans~~ Living in Wirye, whenever I have plans they tend to be around Jamsil and Bangi-dong! There are countless great restaurants and bars in the Bangi-dong food alley, so my close unnie and I went back and forth a lot deciding where to catch up, eat, and have a few drinks.

In the end we went to Sangkai, a Bangi-dong izakaya that's been around forever and that people kept telling me was delicious, so I'd wanted to try it!! It was about a 5-6 minute walk from Jamsil Station on Line 8, and there is a parking lot in front of the building, but it's small, so if there's no spot you can't park there and have to use a nearby public lot~! Since we were drinking anyway, I left my car at home.

Open 2nd-floor seats with folding doors: a quiet Bangi-dong bar

Sangkai Izakaya Bangi Branch uses two floors, the 2nd and 3rd, and we were seated right on the 2nd floor. On the 2nd floor the folding doors are open the whole way, so the breeze comes in like an outdoor tent bar.

The weather these days is exactly right for outdoor drinking, and with the folding doors open all the way, it was so pleasantly cool ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ Weather like this is so precious... it won't last long ㅠㅠ❤️ Sure enough, everyone else seemed to be there for the same reason, since all the window seats were taken~~ Luckily we still found a spot for ourselves haha.

Does Sangkai Izakaya have private rooms, couple seats and group tables?

Sangkai Izakaya Bangi Branch has enclosed tables, couple tables for two, group seating, and even private rooms. Naver reservations are possible, but if you need a room you have to call the restaurant directly~ Also, on Fridays and Saturdays room use is limited to 3 hours!!! Since I went with a close unnie we didn't need a room, so we just sat in the open area~!

What is on the menu at Sangkai Izakaya Bangi Branch?

Here's the menu at Sangkai Izakaya Bangi Branch, a bar in the Bangi-dong food alley. It's wide-ranging, from set menus to sashimi specialties, fried dishes, hot pots, teppan/seafood grills, special/fresh menu items, simple dishes, and skewers.

I should've looked at the menu before going...ㅋㅋㅋㅋ This was honestly the first Bangi-dong bar I've been to with this many menu items~~ There are set menus, sashimi specialties, fried dishes, hot pots, teppan/seafood grills, and more~~~

Plus special/fresh menu items, simple dishes, skewers, and so on — the menu was truly so varied~~ Honestly I love places like this...ㅋㅋㅋㅋ It's nice to be able to eat a variety of things, and since Sangkai is such a famous spot in Bangi-dong, you can order whatever you want with confidence, heh.

How strong was the Earl Grey highball?

I'm a lightweight, so I mostly stick to beer and highballs. But the highballs at Sangkai Bangi-dong are seriously delicious!!!! The ratio varies bar to bar, so some are good and some aren't, but this ratio was absolutely insane~~~

Ordering the mille-feuille nabe, salmon baguette salad and Earl Grey highballs

What we ordered at Sangkai Izakaya Bangi Branch was mille-feuille nabe (a layered hot pot), raw salmon baguette salad, and two Earl Grey highballs. As a basic side dish, a plate that felt like octopus salad came out first.

It felt like octopus salad as the basic side dish, and since cucumber came with it, it was fresh and refreshing and really got the appetite going!! We were both like 'both dishes look good~' and then proceeded to eat like crazy ㅋㅋㅋ

While looking at the menu with the windows breezily open, we thought it'd be nice to have a refreshing stew or hot pot, and then realized it had been ages since either of us had mille-feuille nabe !!! It felt perfect, so that's the dish we picked right away.

Then out came the raw salmon baguette salad !!!! It looks like it's all salad piled high, doesn't it?? There's baguette underneath and plenty of salmon loaded on top~~ The moment both dishes arrived we were like 'whoa, this looks amazing~~' — I think it came out pretty quickly.

The mille-feuille nabe arrives with its own burner

They give you the mille-feuille nabe with a burner, so the broth never goes cold !!! We adjusted the flame ourselves, reboiling it whenever it started to cool down. And the great thing about getting a burner with it is!!! you can add noodle add-ons...❤️ Both my friend and I glanced at the menu and spotted the udon noodle add-on!!!! I was quietly thinking, 'gotta get that udon later~' and it turned out my close unnie was thinking the exact same thing ㅋㅋㅋㅋ Maybe that's why we're close, haha.

An absolutely generous spread of side dishes at this Bangi-dong bar >_< First off, it earns full marks on visuals alone!!! Sangkai Izakaya Bangi Branch had such a quiet, relaxed atmosphere that conversation was super easy?? And on top of that, everything we ordered was so delicious~~ Since it's so quiet, it's great to go with a close friend or on a date — a quiet Bangi-dong bar I'd definitely recommend👍

Shiitake mushrooms, enoki mushrooms, bok choy, napa cabbage, and the meat and vegetables layered in between — it was truly the textbook example of mille-feuille nabe, and the broth was absolutely insane...!!! It had such a savory depth with a clean finish that soju drinkers could probably down a whole crate of it ㅋㅋㅋㅋ Now I get exactly why it's so famous as a Bangi-dong bar, and why my friends recommended it to me so strongly.

Let's have a good strong drink~~~ cheers~~~ Can you see how deep the color is ㅋㅋㅋㅋ For lightweights like me, it's great when a drink is sweet and you barely taste the alcohol, and this one was so good I ended up gulping it down without noticing~~~

A dish so good it made us both scrunch up our faces >_< Dipping napa cabbage, perilla leaves, and meat into the sauce and popping it all in your mouth at once gives you chills all over !!! And then a spoonful of the broth washes away all your accumulated stress~~~ It's been a while since I found a bar in Jamsil with side dishes this good, so I was very satisfied!!

How the raw salmon baguette salad tasted

The raw salmon baguette salad was a dish I knew I had to order — wanting salmon and wanting it with bread means it's basically mandatory~~ Raw salmon is laid generously over the baguette, and I think there was cream cheese underneath too. With salad piled generously over the sauce, it had both a nutty richness and a refreshing lightness at once!! Plus it paired perfectly with the nabe we chose, so we both really focused on eating it haha.

Plan ahead before adding udon noodles to the nabe

Once things had gotten down to about this much left, we both blurted out 'udon noodles!' at the exact same time ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ Guess we both love eating^^~~ You can add ramen noodles or udon noodles to the stews and hot pots, so I recommend planning for that from the start, haha.

Even after saying we were full, once the udon noodles went in we both devoured them like crazy again ㅋㅋㅋㅋ It was just too perfect... We skipped a separate dinner and went straight to Sangkai Bangi-dong, and it turned out to be great as a second-round bar and just right for a few drinks with a meal~~ Since it's a quiet Bangi-dong bar, it was great for catching up after a while, and with side dishes this good, it was pure happiness!!