COEX restaurant with no parking lot: octopus set for three, Obongjip

Craving octopus stir-fry, bossam, and buckwheat noodles all at once? How about Obongjip Samseong Branch?!

This is the Obongjip Special — can you see how many different dishes come on one table?!

Obongjip has so many branches that I'd always wondered how they compared, so I dug deep into taste, portion size, parking info, and the review event at the Samseong branch~~!

How to get to Obongjip Samseong, and why driving to COEX costs ₩8,000 an hour

Obongjip Samseong is near Samseong Jungang Station and COEX, only 5-8 minutes on foot, so I'd really recommend taking public transit if at all possible. Obongjip Samseong doesn't have its own parking lot. We drove, and parking turned out to be a total ambush ㅠㅠ

Other private lots nearby run around ₩6,000 an hour. Since I was with my mom, I parked at the closest one, Samseong-dong First Parking Lot.

Samseong-dong First Parking Lot: ₩3,000 per 30 minutes

Most lots charge in 5- or 10-minute increments after the first hour, right? But this one bills in 30-minute blocks, so I paid ₩8,000 for one hour... yikes. So everyone else, please just take public transit!

After all that drama, we finally made it to Obongjip Samseong :) There's a big sign on the first floor that says Obongjip, so no worries about getting lost! Plus there's a photo of a grandmother (looks like she's the founder,,) which makes it even easier to spot haha

A place famous YouTubers have visited! Already excited haha. We came as three — my mom, my girlfriend, and me~~

FYI we arrived around 2pm, and weekday break time starts at 2:30pm, so I'd recommend getting there about an hour before~

Inside Obongjip Samseong: wooden tables for 4 to 8 and tablet ordering

Walking into Obongjip Samseong, you'll see wooden tables ranging from 4-seaters to 8-seaters, so it seems great for family gatherings or group dinners!

The ceiling has soft indirect lighting, giving it a warm, cozy home-cooked-meal kind of vibe.

Each table has a tablet for ordering. Scissors are also already set out!

This corner is for customers! Toothpicks, hair ties, and dental floss are all provided, showing how much they care about guests haha. There's even a fast phone charger — great for when your battery's about to die!

One wall has instructions on how to best enjoy the octopus stir-fry and knife-cut octopus, so if you order either, try following the steps~~!

Naver review event and the free rice and seaweed soup corner

Obongjip Samseong is also running a review event!

Write a Naver review and get 2 fried peppers

Obongjip's fried peppers are really substantial too?! Definitely worth joining the review event~~

This is the self-serve corner! You can scoop free rice and seaweed soup refills, FYI~~! (Note: seaweed soup is served by default at the start)

Menu and prices: why three adults chose the ₩62,000 Nakji Obong Special

You can check the menu via kiosk or on the menu board on the wall. There's a lunch special too, plus a spicy version of the octopus stir-fry!

Since there were three adults of us, we went with the main menu instead of the lunch special :) (Honestly there was also a specific main dish I really wanted haha)

📍Today's order📍 Nakji Obong Special ₩62,000 (octopus stir-fry for 2, small bossam, buckwheat noodles)

Besides the 2 free fried peppers for Naver receipt reviews, Obongjip Samseong is also running a lucky draw!

Lucky draw after the Naver review event — 1st prize? Miss Dior perfume!

You could win Dior perfume for 1st place!! No reason not to do the review event!?

Eight banchan and seaweed soup at Obongjip Samseong

As soon as we ordered, the side dishes came out first! I was genuinely surprised at how substantial the banchan (side dish) spread was ㅇ0ㅇ A big tray arrived with seaweed soup and eight separate side dish plates — bean sprouts, seaweed flakes, white kimchi, stir-fried fish cake, ssamjang (dipping sauce), and more,,, A place with hearty banchan is the real deal — this place has earned its reputation!

The seaweed soup had a clear, light, savory broth, and I slurped it all down before the main dishes even arrived haha. If you want more, you can refill it yourself at the self-serve corner :)

Fire-grilled octopus, bossam and tray buckwheat noodles, one by one

Finally, the star of today's Obongjip Special: fire-grilled octopus stir-fry! Plump octopus legs piled up, generously sprinkled with sesame seeds — looks amazing before you even taste it! And the portion size surprised me all over again haha. They really give you a generous amount here. Come hungry~~

I cut the octopus stir-fry into bite-sized pieces with the scissors and took a bite — not chewy at all, totally springy and chewy in a good way! Like mochi haha. You can also taste that fire-grilled smokiness — my favorite dish of the day!

I mixed sesame oil into the rice and it disappeared in a flash... but you shouldn't fill up here! Why? Because the next main dish, bossam, is still coming haha

The bossam (boiled pork wraps) came with seasoned kimchi and dried radish strips, and the pork was so tender it just slid right down >-< My girlfriend loves soft meat, so bossam was clearly her favorite. Totally moist and lots of lean meat!

Next up, the buckwheat noodles! Topped with shredded cabbage, vegetables, egg strips, and seaweed flakes, with a sweet-and-tangy sauce that goes perfectly alongside the bossam~

Then the fried peppers from the review event! Photos really can't capture it, but the fried peppers were huge and packed full inside~~! (so good)

How many people does the Obong Special actually feed?

Since I showed you each dish separately, it might be hard to picture just how much food this actually is! I tried taking an aerial shot of the whole spread, but everything didn't even fit into one frame... lol. So I filmed a video of it all at once too haha!

Right for three adult men (light eaters would end up extremely full)

With two women and one man in our group, we felt like we were about to burst by the end.. haha

And honestly, the Obongjip Special is a great deal for groups — ordering octopus stir-fry for two and small bossam separately runs about ₩70,000, but the special set is ₩62,000, saving ₩8,000!

Is Obongjip Samseong worth it? Final verdict

If you want to enjoy fire-grilled octopus stir-fry and bossam together in one filling meal, give Obongjip Samseong a try! Next time I'd like to try the lunch special menu haha