Sinchon Chinese restaurant, first knife-cut noodles: Cheonghwaweon

Cheonghwaweon: a Chinese restaurant on Myeongmul-gil, 260m from Sinchon Station Exit 3

Cheonghwaweon is about 260m from Exit 3 of Sinchon Station. It sits right on Myeongmul-gil, Sinchon's main commercial street, so it's an easy walk from the station, and it's also close to Hyundai Department Store Sinchon, making it a great spot to stop by before or after shopping. Basically right on the main drag.

Sinchon has so many great spots for Korean, Japanese, and Western food, but this is a rare find when you're craving Chinese food like knife-cut noodles or dim sum near Sinchon Station.

Cheonghwaweon's storefront and the menu board at the entrance

Walking down Myeongmul-gil in Sinchon, you'll spot Cheonghwaweon's sign with big letters reading beef noodles. The exterior really gives off a Taiwanese local eatery vibe, so I'd always glance at it passing by. It's floor-to-ceiling glass so you can see inside from the street, which makes it feel approachable even for first-timers!

Right by the entrance, there's a menu board showing all of Cheonghwaweon's dishes and prices! From beef knife-cut noodles to fried rice, dim sum, fried dishes, and stir-fries, the variety is bigger than expected haha. It was nice being able to browse photos and pick a menu before even going in.

Wow, they even sell ganpunggi — this is a proper Chinese restaurant. And once inside, there are actually quite a few Chinese customers dining there too.

Walking straight in, a modern wood counter greets you.

Inside Cheonghwaweon: atmosphere and seating

Inside, the wood-tone interior combined with colorful lighting gives it a surprisingly nice atmosphere. It leans more clean and casual than the typical Chinese restaurant vibe you'd imagine — more like a casual Sinchon Chinese restaurant haha.

Tables continue further back, so the space was bigger than I expected!! There were plenty of diners when I visited, and there was a good number of tables too — it seemed like a fine spot for eating with friends or a Sinchon date.

What's on Cheonghwaweon's menu, and what we ordered

Cheonghwaweon has quite a varied menu — starting with its signature beef knife-cut noodles, along with dishes like cream shrimp, shumai, and mala tofu, plus fried rice and rice bowls. Beyond beef knife-cut noodles there's also oil-splashed knife-cut noodles, and dishes like yulinki, cumin beef, and tiger stir-fry, so it works well whether you're there for a meal or visiting with a group to order a variety of Chinese dishes.

We wanted to try a bit of everything — noodles and cooked dishes — so we ordered these three!

• Sichuan-style beef noodles
• Shrimp fried rice
• Cream shrimp

Side dishes at Cheonghwaweon: zhacai pickles and peanuts

After ordering, zha cai (pickled mustard greens) comes out as a basic side dish. It's crunchy with a slightly tangy flavor, so it's good for cleansing your palate between bites. It pairs especially well with the greasier Chinese dishes here — you all know how it is haha.

And the peanuts that came with it! The outside has a slightly crisp coating with a sweet, nutty flavor, and my hand kept reaching for more lol. We were popping them one by one before the food even arrived, so they disappeared in no time.

I had to study after eating so I skipped the beer, but this was clearly the best beer snack around...

My friend and I finished it all? Inhaled it all? Lol.

Sichuan-style beef knife-cut noodles, 10,500 won: how spicy are they?

Finally, Cheonghwaweon's Sichuan-style beef knife-cut noodles arrived! Just looking at it, the broth is unmistakably red. Whoa. The broth is spicy and rich with a deep flavor from the beef, and it's pretty addictive? But it's not extremely spicy~

On top there's scallion and minced meat along with a few larger pieces of beef, so it was fun picking out the meat along with the noodles. Meat-hunting technique, activate! Ta-da~ In person the broth looks even redder. If you can't handle spice, this might be a stretch haha.

What Cheonghwaweon's wide, chewy knife-cut noodles are like

But the real star here is the knife-cut noodles, as you all know. Unlike regular noodles cut to a uniform width, these are wide with varying thickness, so every bite has a different texture. The thicker parts are chewy while the thinner parts are soft, and the spicy broth clings perfectly to the wide noodles — the noodles themselves were genuinely delicious.

Personally, if I could only order one thing again at Cheonghwaweon, it'd be this. No question this is the signature dish.

I'd always wanted to try knife-cut noodles — noodles literally sliced with a knife — and I feel like I successfully got my start with Cheonghwaweon haha. Next I want to try that Myeongdong lanzhou hand-pulled noodle place. Gotta make more money, hyung...

Shrimp fried rice, 9,500 won, with soup on the side

The shrimp fried rice we also ordered showed up! It's loaded evenly with egg, carrot, and scallion, and topped generously with plump shrimp. It's exactly the classic Chinese-restaurant fried rice you'd order, with fluffy rice that I really liked. Why does mine never turn out this good at home?? Hmm...

Since the Sichuan-style beef knife-cut noodles are rich and spicy, alternating with the milder shrimp fried rice was a perfect combo. Get sick of the spicy noodles, eat the mild fried rice, oh that's nice, back to the noodles, repeat~~~ Can you feel the fluffy rice grains and plump shrimp haha.

And when you order fried rice, a soup comes along with it too, hehe. The egg is softly beaten in with a bit of starch, giving it that thick Chinese-style soup feel! Taking a bite of fried rice followed by a warm spoonful of soup is the classic fried rice combo lol. It's a nice touch that it comes included without ordering separately. Very thoughtful of the owner.

Cream shrimp, 19,800 won, with ten shrimp

The last dish, Cheonghwaweon's cream shrimp! The shrimp are quite large and plump to begin with, and the batter is genuinely crispy. Even with a generous amount of cream sauce on top, the crunch of the fried coating held up, which was so good. The sauce is sweet, smooth cream sauce topped with sliced almonds for extra nuttiness. Crispy outside, plump shrimp inside — the texture combo is really great...

Personally I'd recommend ordering this alongside the Sichuan-style beef knife-cut noodles. One bite of the rich, spicy beef noodles, then one bite of the sweet, nutty cream shrimp — they balance out each other's richness and spiciness, so you keep going back and forth. If you're picking just one dish at Cheonghwaweon, I'd recommend the cream shrimp. So darn crispy... so good I could cry.

They give you ten shrimp and the portion is generous too. It's such a shame you can't hear how crispy the fried coating sounds in a video clip. The oil seems really clean too lol. Genuinely crackly-crisp. Not thick, the batter is light and crunchy, and it was truly delicious. Good call ordering this.

Three dishes for two at Cheonghwaweon: 39,800 won total

The full shot of our order — Sichuan-style beef knife-cut noodles, shrimp fried rice, and cream shrimp! With all three laid out, the table looked completely full. Noodles, fried rice, and a shrimp dish made for a filling spread even for two people. And the surprising part is that all of this came to just ₩39,800!

• Sichuan-style beef knife-cut noodles ₩10,500
• Shrimp fried rice ₩9,500
• Cream shrimp ₩19,800
• = Total ₩39,800

Lol, it didn't even hit ₩40,000. These days, eating out for two in Sinchon and ordering even one cooked dish, this price feels pretty solid. And the portions speak for themselves. We walked out practically holding our stomachs like we were pregnant.

The dim sum counter by the entrance: shumai next time

On our way out, I spotted Cheonghwaweon's dim sum corner! Right near the entrance, they steam dim sum in bamboo steamers on the spot. Seeing the steam rising made me want to sit back down and order dim sum...

Cheonghwaweon also has dim sum like xiaolongbao (soup dumplings), shumai, and crystal dumplings, but we were already too full from our three dishes to try any that day. Next time I want to have the beef knife-cut noodles again and add on some dim sum. My beloved shumai, don't cry, just wait for me.

Is Cheonghwaweon worth a visit in Sinchon?

Cheonghwaweon is a place I'd want to revisit whenever I'm craving knife-cut noodles or Chinese food in Sinchon! Above all, the wide, chewy noodles in the Sichuan-style beef knife-cut noodles were the absolute best. The rich, spicy broth with meat mixed in made even a single bowl filling, and the shrimp fried rice was that fluffy, classic Chinese-restaurant style that paired well alongside it.

And my surprise favorite — cream shrimp...♥ Plump shrimp, crispy batter, sweet nutty cream sauce — I couldn't stop reaching for more. Ordering three generous dishes still came to just ₩39,800 total, which felt satisfying price-wise, and the space was spacious and clean, making it a good option for a Sinchon date or eating with friends.

• If you love chewy knife-cut noodles
• If you love rich, spicy beef noodles
• If you want to try a variety of Chinese dishes affordably

then Cheonghwaweon is a Sinchon Station restaurant I'd recommend. Next time I'm definitely tackling the dim sum I missed out on this time 😌