Omokgyo Chinese restaurant with a self-serve jjachai bar: Yugwanjang

Went out for dinner near Omokgyo Station and ended up at Yugwanjang Banjeom Omokgyo Station Branch. If you're hunting for a good Chinese restaurant near Omokgyo, this one is worth keeping an eye on.

This was my first visit, and let me just say it up front: cuttlefish jjampong, banzai. Banzai! Banzai! Haha. It hit exactly the spot for someone who loves a spicy jjampong.

Yugwanjang Banjeom in the Omokgyo Station food alley, open 24 hours

Yugwanjang Banjeom Omokgyo Station Branch is a 24-hour, every-day-open Chinese restaurant on the 2nd floor of 256 Mokdongdong-ro, Yangcheon-gu, Seoul. Haha, we finished at the academy around 8pm, so we went for a slightly late dinner.

Walking over, I could see Hyperion tower in the distance, and right above Yugwanjang there was a gym sign with a picture of someone working out — for a second I actually thought the restaurant was run by a gym owner, haha. Turns out the main branch is in Sangdo-dong, and this Omokgyo location just newly opened as a directly run branch.

What really caught my attention was the 24-hour, every-day operation. When you're looking for somewhere to eat late at night, few things beat Chinese food, and knowing this place near Omokgyo is open around the clock makes it easy to think of again for a late dinner or midnight snack.

How busy is Yugwanjang Banjeom at 8pm?

We got there around 8pm after academy pickup, and there were more people eating inside than I expected. Some were just having a simple meal, while others had several dishes spread across the table.

What stood out especially was how many families were there. Sitting down, I noticed the tables themselves were quite roomy — comfortable for a group ordering a few dishes together. It seems like a solid option if you're looking for a Chinese restaurant in Mokdong to bring kids to. Every table had an order tablet, and the spacing between tables and seats wasn't cramped at all, which made eating with a child easy.

Separate from this being a sponsored visit, I really want to note this: the owner and staff were genuinely kind.

Even though it was our first time there, they made sure we felt comfortable, which left a good impression not just about the food but about the place as a whole. If you've seen my other blog, you might know that for me, kindness matters just as much as taste. Why should I eat somewhere uncomfortable when I'm paying for it? So no matter how good the food is, if the service feels off, I won't go back.

And once I like a place, I tend to revisit it again and again and again and again. Yugwanjang near Omokgyo — I have a 100000% intention of going back. I mean it.

Why the self-serve bar made dinner easier

Side dishes at Yugwanjang were pickled radish and jjachai (pickled Chinese cabbage), and you could also grab onions from the self-serve bar. Bowls, tongs, ladles — any dishware you needed was there to take yourself.

Honestly, I found this really convenient. Why? Because just the day before, at another Chinese restaurant, I had to ask for more jjachai four separate times, haha.

It wasn't just me eating four servings alone — I was asking on behalf of everyone at the table — but each refill came in such small portions that I had to keep calling the staff over.

Here, though, you can just grab whatever side dishes or dishware you need yourself, so there's no need to keep flagging down staff, and you can eat at ease.

For anyone who loves jjachai, a self-serve bar is basically love, haha.

The sauces and condiments on the table

Every table had soy sauce, chili powder, vinegar, and seasoned salt, so you could mix your own dipping sauce, and chili powder to sprinkle on jjajangmyeon (black bean noodles) was freely available without asking. I made Hoho a dipping sauce with soy sauce and vinegar and called it 'fried dumpling sauce.' We didn't order any dumplings, haha. I ended up dipping the tangsuyuk into it too.

What we ordered: cuttlefish jjampong, shrimp fried rice and mini tangsuyuk

At first I planned to keep things modest within the sponsored budget. But since it was my first time doing this, I wasn't quite sure how it worked, and there were just so many things I wanted to eat, haha.

In the end I decided — forget the budget, let's eat what we want! With my husband still uncertain whether he'd make it, Hoho and I boldly ordered: cuttlefish jjampong + shrimp fried rice + mini tangsuyuk.

Once the whole spread was laid out, it looked incredibly filling just from the visuals alone.

Cuttlefish jjampong: the dish worth coming back for

And now, today's star: cuttlefish jjampong! I love a spicy jjampong, and the broth alone was exactly my style. Rich and hot, packed with vegetables and seafood, and the cuttlefish on top had serious presence.

Cutting the big pieces of cuttlefish with scissors, the flesh was springy and felt really fresh. As I was cutting, some liquid it had been holding inside squirted out, and Hoho suddenly said,

"Mom, this cuttlefish is so fresh. Juice is squirting out of it."

Hahahahahahaha, do you even call it 'juice' for cuttlefish? Anyway, borrowing my seven-year-old's words, it was 'a cuttlefish so fresh the juice squirts out.'

I loved the cuttlefish, but honestly the jjampong broth itself kept pulling me back in. There were bean sprouts in it too, which added great texture and made the broth taste even better. Beyond the cuttlefish, there was plenty of other seafood, like squid, packed in. And the onions were cooked so soft that it reminded me of an onion soup I once had in France — soft enough to just slide down, and I fell for it all over again.

Cuttlefish jjampong, banzai. Banzai! Banzai! I'll definitely order this again next time. Even the day after eating it, I kept thinking about that broth.

Shrimp fried rice, an easy choice for a child

I ordered the shrimp fried rice to share with Hoho. The rice was fluffy and loose, mixed with shrimp, egg, and vegetables, and it came with a generous serving of jjajang sauce on the side. Plus, a bowl of jjampong broth came alongside the fried rice!

When you're at a Chinese restaurant with a kid, it can be tough to share something spicy like jjampong, so having fried rice on the menu made pairing easier. You could mix in as much jjajang sauce as you liked, which made it convenient to split with Hoho.

Mini tangsuyuk, the right size to share

And you can't come to a Chinese restaurant without tangsuyuk (sweet and sour pork). On top of the two main dishes, we added a mini tangsuyuk. The portion wasn't overwhelming, so it paired nicely alongside the jjampong and fried rice. The restaurant's profile described it as a tangsuyuk specialty spot, and it lived up to the title.

The tangsuyuk sauce was soy-sauce based, with two pieces of pineapple bobbing cutely in it. Since the tangsuyuk itself already had a nice savory seasoning, I enjoyed it three ways — plain, dipped in soy sauce, and dipped in the tangsuyuk sauce!

Thanks to all that, the table that started out for two got wonderfully full. And once my husband joined a bit later, the ordering turned out to be just right after all, haha.

My husband's reaction, before he knew it was a sponsored visit

I didn't mention to my husband, who arrived a bit late, that this was a sponsored visit. But the whole time he ate, he kept saying, "This is good," taking another bite, "This is actually really good," and complimenting it nonstop.

I started quietly laughing to myself. Do you know something I don't? Haha. Even Hoho joined in praising the food alongside him, and the two of them started singing Yugwanjang's praises like they'd coordinated it. Honestly. So cute, haha.

It was only when we finished eating and I paid just part of the bill that my husband realized what was going on. "Why didn't you tell me earlier? I would've finished everything without leaving anything." Then right after, "But honestly, I really couldn't eat any more because I was so full." Hahahahaha. Exactly — we just ordered way too much.

Is Yugwanjang Banjeom worth another family dinner near Omokgyo?

This was our first visit to Yugwanjang Banjeom Omokgyo Station Branch. The space was clean, the tables roomy, and there was a self-serve bar for side dishes and dishware that made things easy — and above all, the owner and staff were all kind, which made the meal genuinely pleasant. Eating there myself, I think I understood a little why, even past 8pm, there were so many families and diners lingering over multiple dishes.

And for our family, it comes down to the cuttlefish jjampong! If you love a spicy jjampong, this is the dish I'd recommend first. My husband and Hoho both enjoyed it, and I know I'll be thinking about that cuttlefish jjampong again next time I'm in the area.

And on the way out, once my husband properly understood that this was my first time eating through a blogger sponsorship, he said, "Congrats on your first sponsored meal!" It caught me off guard, and it made me unreasonably happy. A good dinner, and a new experience thanks to the blogging I've been enjoying lately. I think I need to keep at this blog thing. :)