Seoul Station after-work Japanese dinner, Set 1 at Furato Shokudo

Why Furato Shokudo for a late dinner near Seoul Station?

Furato Shokudo Seoul Square Direct Store is a Japanese restaurant in the basement of Seoul Square in front of Seoul Station, the kind of place that can handle dinner even late at night. After work, there was an errand at Shinsegae Department Store's main branch.

Since it was after work, the department store was about to close and Namdaemun Market shuts early too, so the Seoul Station area seemed like the better bet. Seoul Station has trains running late, so the shops and restaurants around it stay open later too. Looking around there, heading to Furato Shokudo Seoul Square Direct Store for a protein fix I hadn't had in a while felt like the right call.

Furato Shokudo Seoul Square: location, parking and hours

Furato Shokudo Seoul Square Direct Store is on basement level 1 of Seoul Square, the big brown building right in front of Exits 8 and 9 of Seoul Station. Parking is available, with 2 hours free.

• Daily 11:00 – 20:50
• Break time 15:00–17:00
• Last order 14:30, 21:30

Finding the entrance inside Seoul Square

Taking the escalator down to basement level 1 is the quickest way, and Furato Shokudo is the store right there as soon as you get off. It's a restaurant in the building's commercial space with a full glass storefront that lets you see straight inside, and even late in the evening it was pretty packed with customers.

Inside Furato Shokudo: seating and table setup

It was a restaurant with a clean, modern design in a current style. Even though it's a Japanese restaurant, it didn't lean heavily into a strong Japanese aesthetic — more a modern restaurant with a touch of Japanese flavor sprinkled in. There were tables for two and four in a good mix, and the customers matched that variety. Quite a few solo diners were there too, and with easy parking and convenient access by public transit, it seemed like a place you'd come back to often if you lived nearby.

Every table had its own personal brazier, which really nailed that Japanese feel.

Spoons, chopsticks, tissues, wet wipes and so on were all neatly organized in a table drawer.

Furato Shokudo menu and how to order

Furato Shokudo Seoul Square Direct Store's signature dish is gyukatsu, a Japanese-style beef cutlet with a crispy coating. There were also other dishes like udon, curry and rice bowls, though on the day of the visit both the ebi katsu don (fried shrimp cutlet rice bowl) and the curry rice bowl were sold out.

Placing your phone on a specific spot on the table automatically gets it recognized and takes you straight to the ordering page. If that doesn't work, scanning the QR code works too.

Looking through the menu, there were set combos too. Made up of the signature dish plus a drink, they came at a slightly lower price, and since it was exactly what I wanted to order anyway, I went with the set.

• Set 1 (₩38,000) — gyukatsu, omurice, 2 drinks

What comes in Set 1: gyukatsu, omurice and yuzu cider

Among the drink options was yuzu cider, so I ordered that. It was a sweet, fizzy cider with tangy yuzu flavor added, and the sourness of the yuzu was stronger than expected.

After ordering, a staff member lights the brazier for you. There's a mini candle inside that burns out after a certain amount of time, and that heat is what you use to grill the meat.

Gyukatsu is beef coated in a thin layer of batter, served rare, that you grill yourself to your preferred doneness from rare to medium. It comes in about 10 pieces, and the portion is roughly the size of a regular steak, so it was bigger than expected.

Besides the meat, it comes with rice, cabbage and doenjang (soybean paste) soup, along with sauces to pair with it: soy sauce, salt, chili sauce and wasabi.

Is the izume butter add-on worth it?

I ordered izume butter as an extra. First, the butter adds a layer of richness on the brazier, and the plate got slightly heated up first.

Thanks to the butter, a savory aroma and flavor soaked richly into the meat. It cooks fast, so if you like medium-rare, a quick sear on both sides and you're ready to eat.

The batter really is thin, so it's crispy, and that coating keeps the juices locked inside the beef, which was great for both texture and flavor. You cook it to your taste from rare to medium-rare, and since it's grilled over the brazier, you get that smoky, meaty aroma too, cooking it at your own pace so it's always hot when you eat it — that's what sets it apart from regular tonkatsu.

There were three sauces total, and personally, the salt was my favorite since it let the flavor of the meat come through fully.

Adding just a small amount of wasabi gave it a savory kick with a sharp bite — that combo was also a nice treat.

Splitting the omurice: a pretty failure

Omurice is Furato Shokudo's second main dish. There have been a lot of videos on Instagram lately of fluffy omurice being split neatly in half, and I finally got to try it myself. It comes with doenjang soup, salad, omurice sauce, and diced radish kimchi (kkakdugi).

I imagined a gorgeous moment splitting the soft half-cooked egg in half, but in reality it was a total disaster.

Eating it prettily was clearly out of the question, so I just mixed the egg, rice and the special omurice sauce together instead. The sauce was sweet and tangy, the kind that really perks up your appetite, and the egg and rice were soft, making it a style that's easy for anyone to enjoy without much preference either way.

Final verdict on Furato Shokudo Seoul Square

There are two major gyukatsu specialty brands in Korea. Personally I prefer Furato Shokudo, since the meat seemed a bit more tender and better at keeping the juices locked in, suggesting they use good-quality beef.

Furato Shokudo also has locations in most of the trendy neighborhoods, so it's a great place for a light meal when meeting up with someone. If you're ever stuck deciding what to eat, give Furato Shokudo a try!