Jongno Korean restaurant lunch course: Modam Dining Gwanghwamun

It had been a while, so I went to Modam Dining Gwanghwamun (모담다이닝 광화문점), a well-known spot for Korean set menus in Gwanghwamun, for lunch with the Dopamine Family. Modam Dining serves neat Korean set meals as individual courses, which makes it lovely for a proper meal. I happened to see a department head from another team having a business meeting there that day, but it is not a secret that I pretended not to know them hahaha. It also seemed like a good option for anyone looking for a tidy gathering spot or a place for a formal family meeting in Gwanghwamun, so let me introduce it!

Modam Dining Gwanghwamun location and atmosphere

Modam Dining Gwanghwamun, a great Korean set-menu restaurant, is about an eight-minute walk from Exit 6 of Gwanghwamun Station and a 10-minute walk from Exit 5 of Seodaemun Station. It sits midway between Gwanghwamun and Seodaemun stations, so it is easy to reach from either one.

Head down to B1 of the D Palace building~! The entrance does not face the front, so apparently lots of people walk right past it without realizing it haha.

We arrived around 11:30 a.m., and it was completely full... There were so many people that I took the photos on our way out! Luckily, I had reserved a table and could sit down right away, but I think lunch visitors should book ahead if possible. There are tidy tables in the main hall, four- and eight-person rooms, and a group room too, so it is excellent for formal family meetings or gatherings.

Lunch Korean set-menu course order

This is the lunch menu! Only the main dish differs between the courses; the rest of the course dishes are the same.

• Jindo green onion crispy bulgogi set (₩29,000) × 2
• Abalone tteokgalbi set (₩35,000) × 1

Course lineup

• Seasonal porridge
• Cheongyang water kimchi
• Seasonal salad with yuzu dressing
• Mustard greens with pine-nut sauce
• Seasonal raw fish and pickled-vegetable ceviche
• Modam fritters
• Perilla oil capellini
• White rice
• Soup of the day
• Four side dishes
• Dessert

The seasonal porridge came first! I think mine was mung bean porridge, while my companion wondered if it was chestnut porridge? I am not sure of the ingredient, but it had little bits to chew and a gently sweet flavor.

Cheongyang water kimchi, seasonal salad with yuzu dressing, and mustard greens with pine-nut sauce. The refreshing yuzu-dressing salad got my appetite going, and then the mustard greens with pine-nut sauce!! It was my first time trying pine-nut sauce; it was nutty like sesame dressing and went so well with the tangy mustard greens.

Modam fritters and perilla oil capellini.

Slurp slurp, perilla oil capellini~ It was a mild, clean-tasting noodle dish without anything overpowering!

That day's Modam fritters were shiitake mushroom fritters.

This was seriously soooo good hahaha. I could honestly eat 10 of these!!!!!! The batter was incredibly crisp, and the fritters came tossed in sauce that was a little spicy but also mayonnaise-like and rich!! Please sell this separately as a side dish....👏

Seasonal raw fish and pickled-vegetable ceviche. The sauce had such an intriguing flavor: some salty notes from the pickled vegetables, plus a tanginess, making it really distinctive.

White rice, soup of the day, and four side dishes. The four sides were kimchi, dressed pickled cucumber, seasoned seaweed stems, and seasoned bean sprouts. The soup of the day was radish soup, and it was pleasantly spicy and refreshing!

The crispy bulgogi and abalone tteokgalbi

Jindo green onion crispy bulgogi and abalone tteokgalbi. The crispy bulgogi requires an order of at least two servings, so I thought it would come plated together, but because it was a course meal, each serving was plated separately.

It tasted like grilled bulgogi, but the meat was not dry at all, and the seasoning was just right with rice. Jindo green onions came as shredded scallions, and eating them with the meat added a lovely scallion fragrance.

Surprisingly, the tteokgalbi was lightly seasoned haha. The meat was juicy, and since it was not strongly seasoned, it tasted even better with wasabi or shredded onion. And I do not know why, but it had a buttery flavor too!!

We finished with maesil-cha (plum tea) for dessert~!

How was it as a Gwanghwamun gathering spot?

Modam Dining, a great Korean set-menu restaurant in Gwanghwamun, had a substantial course lineup, and none of the food was overly seasoned. From the mains to every dish that followed, everything left a clean finish and seemed to bring out the ingredients' natural flavors well.

The shiitake mushroom fritters were what I remembered most!! Crispy shiitake mushrooms with that spicy, nutty sauce were seriously, seriously, seriously delicious. The course came out beautifully, the selection was substantial, and I was veeeery satisfied!

And while eating, something suddenly occurred to me. It is personal, but I need to host a pre-wedding invitation gathering soon, and lately I have been thinking a lot about where would be a good place to eat that is reasonably priced but still feels like you have treated everyone to something nice hahaha. Modam Dining has neat food, prices starting in the ₩20,000 range, and private rooms, so I thought it would be a good fit for wedding-invitation gatherings, family gatherings, or formal family meetings like mine.

I had a delicious meal, solved one of my worries, and had the happiest lunch hour!!!!!!!!!!!!