Gangnam Station noodle restaurant for yupomyeon lunch: Namsogwan

Hi, it's Jebi! Not long ago, right after finals, a friend and I had to head to Gangnam Station, and since we'd both pulled an all-nighter and hadn't eaten a thing, we were starving. I pulled up the map right away, checked the list of good restaurants nearby, and that's how we ended up at Namsogwan U Yuk Dosakmyeon near Gangnam Station!

If you go to Gangnam Station often, you've probably spotted this place before haha. It's literally right in front of the station 😎

Why we picked Namsogwan U Yuk Dosakmyeon near Gangnam Station, and its opening hours

Namsogwan U Yuk Dosakmyeon is a dosakmyeon (knife-shaved noodle) specialist right in front of Gangnam Station. They're open daily from 11:00 to 22:20, with last order at 22:00. We visited on a weekday for lunch!

Both of us were hungry but didn't want anything greasy or predictable, so we were debating what to eat. I usually love Asian noodle dishes like pho or mala, and I'd had my eye on Namsogwan for a while since it's famous for its chewy noodles, so we finally went haha.

Noodles shaved by hand in the glass-walled open kitchen on the first floor

The first floor of Namsogwan U Yuk Dosakmyeon has a floor-to-ceiling glass open kitchen, so you can watch the whole cooking process. That open kitchen was the first thing that caught my eye the moment we walked in! Watching the chefs hand-fold dumpling wrappers to steam dim sum and literally shave noodles off a big dough block with a knife (real dosakmyeon...!!) got me so excited the second we walked in 🤍

Even on a weekday lunch, the first floor was packed with nearby office workers and other diners since it's such a famous dosakmyeon spot, so there wasn't a single free seat! A staff member showed us upstairs, so we climbed the stairs to the second floor.

The Hong Kong film-style second floor: are there enough seats?

The second floor of Namsogwan U Yuk Dosakmyeon has vintage jade-colored wallpaper with soft red lighting, giving it a genuine Hong Kong movie vibe. I bet the atmosphere is even wilder in the evening. The first floor isn't very spacious, so I was worried there'd be no seats, but upstairs had plenty of both 2-seat and 4-seat tables, so it can actually hold quite a lot of people 😆

Since there were two of us, we sat at a table like this. It was fun that not every seat is the same — there's a nice variety of distinctive seating styles!

Ordering by tablet: yupo dosakmyeon, fried eggplant and a Qingdao beer

You can order easily from the tablet on the table. We only knew about the beef dosakmyeon going in, but there were so many kinds of dim sum, rice bowls, fried dishes, stir-fries... it was a full-on Taiwanese-Hong Kong restaurant!

• Yupomyeon (oil-poured dosakmyeon) x1
• Fried eggplant x1
• Qingdao beer x1

This is what we ended up ordering. Coming straight from an exam had wrecked us so hard that... we ordered a beer too.

It looked like they started cooking as soon as we ordered, and they brought the beer out first! It came out nice and cold, so — cheers...

Then the side dishes arrived: salty jasai (pickled mustard greens) and stir-fried peanuts! I expected the peanuts to be sweet, but they were savory and salty, and delicious. Honestly, these alone are already the perfect beer snack 🍻

How does yupomyeon taste? Chewy shaved noodles coated in scallion oil

Namsogwan U Yuk Dosakmyeon's yupomyeon-style noodle is made by pouring boiling oil over it. The dishes came out almost at the same time, but the yupomyeon showed up first! I've seen this style on Culinary Class Wars haha.

That chewy dosakmyeon texture, somewhere between hand-torn dough soup and knife-cut noodles, is something I always love. If you're a dosakmyeon fan, you absolutely have to visit this place... The scallion oil soaks all the way through the noodles, and honestly I want to eat it again right now 🤤

Fried eggplant that tastes like the version we ate in Qingdao

And the fried eggplant, which I love so, so, so, so much!!! I fell completely in love with fried eggplant once at a stand in front of the Qingdao Beer factory during a trip to Qingdao 🥰 Since then it's been hard to find anywhere else, and when I did find it somewhere, it was either stuck to my teeth or just not good... But this place had the genuine, real Chinese fried eggplant taste ><

Who will enjoy Namsogwan U Yuk Dosakmyeon?

If you're near Gangnam Station and craving a hearty, delicious noodle dish or proper dim sum, Namsogwan U Yuk Dosakmyeon covers everything from solo dining to a casual drink with a friend! If you're a carb lover who's into noodles ❤️, you'll absolutely fall for that signature chewy dosakmyeon texture...