Korean beef date night at a Daejeon Doan hanwoo BBQ: Worang Myeongga

Today I went with my boyfriend for a dinner date at Worang Myeongga Daejeon Doan Branch, a famous hanwoo (Korean beef) restaurant in Daejeon. It had been so long since I'd had beef, so I was extra excited haha.

Worang Myeongga Daejeon Doan Branch: location, hours, parking

• Address: 23 Doanjin-ro 12beon-gil, 1st floor unit 101, Seo-gu, Daejeon, South Korea
• Hours: Daily 11:00–22:00
• Weekday break time 15:00–17:00 / Last order 21:30
• Reservations available

There are three Worang Myeongga locations in Daejeon, and I came to the Doan branch. There's a small outdoor parking lot behind the building and underground parking too. There's a door on the inner side of the building, and if you walk toward the front you'll see the main entrance.

You pick the hanwoo yourself at the entrance

As soon as you walk in, the hanwoo is the first thing you see. Since we came to eat grilled hanwoo today, we picked our meat first. There's everything from mixed platters to single cuts.

They say they only carry top-quality hanwoo. The marbling was honestly insane haha. I'll show you what we picked below.

Private rooms — good for group dinners?

Worang Myeongga Daejeon Doan Branch is a huge space. In particular, there are a lot of private rooms, so it's great for group meals or gatherings. Besides the rooms, there are also several tables in the outer hall, so it's a good place to visit either way. (For group meals or company dinners, I'd recommend booking ahead!!) I also visited after reserving — the room was already set up when we got there, so we could sit right down.

The menu lineup

Besides the hanwoo cuts I showed you earlier, there are separate meal dishes and grilled items. There's galbitang (short rib soup), ttukbaegi bulgogi (hot-pot bulgogi), hanwoo gukbap (beef and rice soup), and hanwoo bulgogi. For grilling, there's premium beef intestine and large intestine, seasoned galbi, and even beef sashimi and beef tartare. Lots to choose from.

Here's the mixed hanwoo platter we chose. The portion looked pretty big, so we thought about ordering a single cut instead, but went with the mixed platter in the end haha.

What's on the self-serve bar

The side dishes in the photo are the default setup. Just so you know, lettuce and fruit are self-serve — you grab those yourself. Ssamjang and mushrooms come as part of the basic setup, but there are extra side dishes at the self-serve bar too.

The self-serve bar is near the entrance. It has lettuce, peppers, ssamjang, fruit, and mushrooms.

How good is the basic spread?

Here's the basic table setting. Onions take the center stage, with seasoned water dropwort, wild garlic, and salad on the side.

There's also beef tartare, japchae (glass noodle stir-fry), tripe with salted pollack roe, and seasoned crab. The quality of the side dishes was great and everything was neatly arranged. Just a heads-up — refills on the seasoned crab and beef soup cost extra. There were only two pieces of seasoned crab and the sauce was quite strong, so we ordered a bowl of rice to go with it. The beef tartare was soft too, and the salad was tasty. Tripe is a love-it-or-hate-it thing, but my boyfriend liked it and ate it well with the pollack roe.

The hanwoo soup comes as a default. It has beef and napa cabbage in it, and it's delicious. The fluffy steamed egg and the salad were both great too. The spread was seriously impressive.

They give you a whole mushroom, which they cut up and grilled for us. It was huge haha. But somehow we kept picking at it, and by the end we'd eaten the whole thing..

The charcoal-grilled hanwoo platter

Finally, time to grill the hanwoo!! Wow, I was so excited haha. You can also put garlic and sesame oil on the charcoal to cook separately.

It cooks fast, so we grilled small batches and ate slowly. With the mushrooms and all the side dishes, it felt like a real feast. Charcoal grilling means it cooks in no time!

The first bite has to be with salt! The hanwoo was so tender 🤤. It melted in my mouth — maybe it tasted even better because it had been so long since I'd had beef.

Even cut into bite-sized pieces, it was delicious. We wrapped it in onion or wild garlic, and also tried it with wasabi or garlic. The beef itself is so good that it tastes amazing with pretty much anything 👍🏻

Eating the huge spread along with the hanwoo, we got fuller and fuller, but that tender beef just kept shining..?! So we kept eating till the end haha lol. Grilled that beautifully marbled hanwoo, dipped in salt, and wrapped it up~~

Dessert: fruit and soft-serve ice cream

We also had cherry tomatoes and oranges for a fruit dessert. The fruit was fresh and sweet. And besides fruit dessert, this Daejeon hanwoo restaurant also has soft-serve ice cream. A perfect way to finish 🤗

With such a generous spread, high-quality mixed hanwoo, and dessert to top it off, it was a satisfying meal at Worang Myeongga Daejeon Doan Branch, a hanwoo restaurant in Daejeon. The beef melting in my mouth was so good. With so many private rooms and plenty of other seating too, it really seemed like a great spot for group gatherings or company dinners.