Eulji-ro 4-ga lunch buffet: 6 kushikatsu and butagakuni, Hotel Kukdo

Hi everyone~~ this is Hyun.

I finished up work quickly in the morning to meet a friend who works near Eulji-ro 4-ga for lunch, and got to Eulji-ro 4-ga Station. Today's spot is Hotel Kukdo Patio, which has recently gotten a reputation as a great-value lunch buffet!

It's an Asian buffet where the main dish is either chuck flap steak or spaghetti, and the price is 29,800 won. So I went straight there haha.

Where is Hotel Kukdo Patio, and do you need a reservation?

Hotel Kukdo Patio is located right in front of you as soon as you come out of Exit 10 of Eulji-ro 4-ga Station. It's on the 2nd floor inside Hotel Kukdo, and since the hotel lobby is right there too, there are really a lot of foreign tourists.

Take the escalator up and turn right, and the buffet appears right away!

We visited with a reservation made in advance. For the main dish, you can choose between chuck flap steak and seafood tomato pasta — they said the seafood tomato pasta is a bit spicy, so we ordered chuck flap steak for both of us!

Inside Hotel Kukdo Patio: the floor-to-ceiling window seats

It was 11:30 and the place was already half full?? Most were office workers, and by the time we left, groups of tourists were coming in too.

Maybe because we had a reservation, we got a window seat with a full view of the Eulji-ro 4-ga street? It's only the 2nd floor so not that high up, but with the floor-to-ceiling windows and the buffet's fairly high ceilings, it felt really open and refreshing haha.

What is on the Hotel Kukdo Patio buffet menu?

So before the main steak comes out, let's take a look at what's on the Asian buffet~?

There are two big sections. Looking from the front door, the right side has salads, then fruit, dessert, and drinks.

Salad and sautéed mushrooms, good as an appetizer.

Fresh fruit like oranges and grapefruit, tteok (rice cake) for dessert, orange and apple juice, and even coffee you can brew yourself!

On the left there's the noodle section, where you can cook your own udon, buckwheat noodles, or ramen.

Starting with futomaki (thick sushi rolls)

Marinated grilled eel

Kushikatsu! These are fried fish skewers that taste different depending on the type, but I didn't know that and just grabbed two random ones ㅠㅠㅠ. Total rookie move... so annoying.

Melt-in-your-mouth kwamegi (dried Alaska pollock/spotted mackerel-style fish)

Top pick: butagakuni, braised pork belly

My top pick, butagakuni. It's a bit like Japanese-style boiled pork, but as braised pork belly the sauce is sweet and salty at the same time! Since it's pork belly, there's fat attached too, and ugh, it just melts in your mouth.

Abalone from Wando and sautéed shrimp. Everyone's eating a lot of shrimp these days, right? At Hotel Kukdo Patio you can eat as much as you want.

For those who are 100% into Korean food, there's plain white rice plus basic side dishes like seasoned pepper leaves, dried radish strips, kimchi, braised burdock root, and braised black beans as standard... I'm not really a Korean-food purist, but the pepper leaves and dried radish strips looked so good I grabbed them without even thinking.

Chicken teriyaki, and

Stir-fried udon. I tried a bite of everything first and grabbed a chopstick's worth of the ones I liked more so I could refill later haha.

Now let's go back to our seats.

First plate to all 6 kinds of kushikatsu

You know how at a buffet, the first bite should be vegetables, right?

I also carefully made myself some buckwheat noodles haha. There was crushed ice in the tsuyu dipping sauce so it was so refreshing.

Ahh, this kushikatsu ㅠㅠ it was seriously so good — cod, squid, potato, fish cake, white fish, and hyacinth bean, six kinds total. I had the cod and potato ones. The batter isn't too thick and the pieces aren't huge, so you can try one of each kind — you really should try it.

The main course: 140g chuck flap steak

While I was busy stuffing my face, the chuck flap steak arrived! It's 140g, but it looked like a lot more than I expected.

And honestly, the buffet is already 29,800 won, so you can't expect too much from the steak's quality, right? But it was tender with barely any tough parts. They didn't ask how I wanted it cooked, but it came out about medium!

For garnish there were cherry tomatoes, green beans, and mashed potatoes too.

Dip it generously in the red wine gravy sauce and eat it with the mashed potatoes — so delicious.

After hastily finishing the steak, I went back to the buffet menu again... but that butagakuni is basically dongpo-yuk (Chinese braised pork belly) level, I think I ate like 10 points' worth of that alone.

Unlimited sake and organic matcha at Hotel Kukdo Patio

And everyone, here's why I can really say Hotel Kukdo Patio's buffet is great value — the sake is unlimited.

Here's the type of sake available: honjozo sake (13.5%). I actually don't drink much, so my friend, who took half a day off, drank 5 glasses instead...^^

Instead, I had the organic matcha that was next to the sake. There was a cold and a hot version, so I had a cup of each.

After clearing 3 plates, for real the very last round, just a little more of what I wanted to eat...

The chicken teriyaki was so good I think I ate about 5 pieces. And to cleanse the palate, fruit and tteok haha.

And truly last of all, one more cup of hot matcha... enjoyed even the dessert thoroughly before leaving.

By the time we finished eating and left, Hotel Kukdo Patio was full of foreign guests! There aren't many places like this in Eulji-ro 4-ga with such a great-value lunch buffet, so I think I'll come back again when I want to enjoy that upscale atmosphere too ;-)