Songpa, Seoul Chinese restaurant with unlimited rice, soda & fried

Unlimited rice, unlimited side dishes like onion, unlimited soda, free americano, soju and beer at ₩2,500... Is this kind of crazy value even real???

I visited Jjambbongwan (짬뽕관) Seoul Bangi Branch because I wanted Chinese food in Bangi-dong. It's a Chinese restaurant centered on jjamppong, but the value for money was way better than I expected, and best of all there's a lot of self-service you can use freely in the store.

Rice, side dishes, and soda — all unlimited refills

Wow haha, the value here is just insane — rice is unlimited refill. You can also help yourself to unlimited onion, baek-kimchi (white kimchi), pickled radish, and kimchi.

On top of that, soda is unlimited refill from a dispenser. And it's not just a couple of low-end drinks — there are four kinds. They even have Pepsi Zero, so I couldn't resist that.

On the way out after finishing the meal, there's also a machine where you can pull yourself a cup of coffee. Being able to grab all these extras with one meal — is this even value for money? It's just an insanely generous setup.

₩8,000 jjajangmyeon — what's on the menu?

Jjajangmyeon (black bean noodles) for ₩8,000, haha — I wondered why jjajang was so cheap at a jjamppong place. Beyond jjamppong, you can order all sorts of things like jjajangmyeon, tangsuyuk, and menbosha, so it also seems good for a group to visit and share.

Make sure to check the review event — you can get all kinds of extras. This time I ordered tangsuyuk and menbosha.

Four side dishes, rice, and soda are all unlimited refill, and they even give you coffee, haha, I'm losing it.

I casually grabbed some Pepsi Zero, baek-kimchi, and onion.

Dipping-style tangsuyuk topped with fried vegetables

I ordered the tangsuyuk dipping-style, but their method here is a bit unusual. Usually with dipping-style you get the sauce served separately, but here they first fry the vegetables that would normally go into the sauce in oil, then pile them on top of the tangsuyuk. They shredded and fried zucchini, onion, and carrot, and it's honestly much better than I expected. The onion keeps its crisp texture, and frying it in oil brings out a slightly caramelized flavor too.

Dipping the tangsuyuk into the sauce while eating the fried vegetables alongside makes for a pretty natural combo. Some people dislike how vegetables go soft and limp inside tangsuyuk sauce, so serving them fried separately like this is a pretty good idea, I think. It's probably more work for the kitchen, but from the eating side, it was definitely fun.

Tangsuyuk where you can actually taste the meat cut

The tangsuyuk itself was great too. Thick meat with a thin, crispy batter on top gives it a nice crunch. Above all, as you eat it, you can definitely tell it's different from factory-made frozen tangsuyuk.

It seems like they trim the meat themselves — you get bits with some fat in between and other parts with a chewier texture. I liked that the taste and richness shifted slightly depending on the cut.

Menbosha with big, chunky shrimp

Menbosha (fried shrimp toast) usually uses finely minced shrimp, but here the chunky texture of the shrimp meat really comes through. It feels like they used whole shrimp — you can feel big chunks of shrimp meat, while the minced shrimp seems to act as the glue holding the bread and shrimp together. So with one bite, you clearly get that springy texture shrimp is known for.

This menbosha with such a lively shrimp texture was quite novel and delicious. The bread had its oil drained out well so the crispness holds up, and the sauce served with it feels similar to the sauce used with cream shrimp. Surprisingly, this sauce also pairs well with the tangsuyuk sauce.

Man, I should've ordered more menbosha, haha. Every piece I ate felt precious. Ordering both tangsuyuk and menbosha can sometimes leave you feeling like you're eating nothing but greasy fried food, but weirdly, I never really noticed the greasiness even by the end. With fried onions and vegetables, baek-kimchi as side dishes, plus free-flowing soda, there's nothing to get sick of. Cleansing my palate along the way, I ended up finishing everything down to the last bite.

How is it as a Bangi-dong Chinese restaurant?

Overall, Jjambbongwan Seoul Bangi Branch was a Bangi-dong Chinese restaurant that's great for enjoying not just meal dishes like jjamppong and jjajang but also cooked dishes like tangsuyuk and menbosha together. Especially considering you can freely help yourself to plenty of rice, side dishes, and soda, and even have coffee after the meal, the value for money is really quite good. If you're looking for a casual Chinese restaurant in Bangi-dong, or a place where a group can order both meals and dishes together, it's worth stopping by at least once.