New mala dakgangjeong at Yeosu shabu-shabu buffet Tongkeun Shabu

Today's story is about Tongkeun Shabu, my go-to spot near Yeosu City Hall whenever I want to stuff myself silly with all kinds of delicious food. It's an all-you-can-eat place where you get quality shabu-shabu meat and vegetables, plus a salad bar packed with so many good things. Let me show you around right now!

Where is Tongkeun Shabu, and where do you park?

Tongkeun Shabu is in Hakdong, on Mangma-ro, close to Yeosu City Hall. There are plenty of public parking lots nearby, so no worries there.

Tongkeun Shabu's exterior, interior and seating

Tongkeun Shabu is on the 3rd floor of the building. Once inside, the space is much wider and more comfortable than you'd expect. There are all sorts of seats — clean table seating, cushy sofa spots to lean back into — so it's perfectly comfortable for family meals or group gatherings too.

How do you choose your broth at Tongkeun Shabu?

Once you sit down, the first thing you do is choose your broth. There's basic broth, plus mala, sukiyaki and chicken bone broth. Anything other than the basic broth costs extra, and you can do a half-and-half split (excluding sukiyaki), so it's easy to pick according to your taste.

How much does the Tongkeun Shabu buffet cost?

• Weekday lunch shabu buffet ₩23,900
• Weekday dinner shabu buffet ₩26,900
• Weekend shabu buffet ₩26,900
• Preschooler ₩11,000
• Elementary school student ₩14,000

We wanted something plain that day, so we just went with the basic broth. (If you're in the mood for spicy, half mala broth is perfect!)

The salad bar, with yukhoe (raw beef) too

Even before the shabu-shabu broth starts boiling, your feet naturally wander over to the salad bar corner — it's fun just to look around. There's a huge variety of salads, and even raw beef (yukhoe)! If you love buffet raw beef, you'll love Tongkeun Shabu haha. Right next to the salad section there's a fruit corner with oranges and kiwis, perfect for cleansing your palate.

Sushi zone and two kinds of pizza

Even though it's a shabu-shabu buffet, they have a sushi zone that rivals a regular buffet! There are all kinds of rolls, plus squid sushi, shrimp sushi and egg sushi. There's no raw fish sushi, but at this price, having shabu-shabu unlimited refills plus salad bar unlimited refills plus a sushi zone is really good value haha.

The sushi is made fresh as you go, so it's very fresh.

There are even two kinds of pizza baked fresh — an ogie cheese potato pizza and a gorgonzola pizza. The ogie cheese potato pizza in particular looks amazing and tastes even better, loaded generously with toppings.

Hot food zone: new mala dakgangjeong and fried chicken

The hot food zone also has a wide variety of dishes! Staff kept walking around checking the food and refilling it immediately whenever something ran low, which gave the impression that food management here is really well done.

Spicy chicken feet with cheongyang chili sliced in.

Sweet mala chicken bites with a subtle mala aroma — this was delicious haha. It wasn't here the last time I visited Tongkeun Shabu, so it seems to be a new menu item! It was nice to see new dishes being added.

The cream pasta is loaded with bacon and mushrooms too.

And my favorite thing at Tongkeun Shabu, the fried chicken. It looks a bit dry and unremarkable, but one bite and it's crispy outside, super moist inside — good enough to rival a specialty chicken shop haha. You can really feel the care put into the salad bar food too, which makes this such a satisfying restaurant in Hakdong near Yeosu City Hall.

What's in the all-you-can-eat shabu-shabu zone

Next up, let me introduce the shabu-shabu corner.

There's fresh napa cabbage, bok choy, bean sprouts and mushrooms — vegetables galore. And it's not just vegetables — knife-cut noodles, glass noodles, dumplings, rice cakes and rice paper wrap vegetables are all unlimited too. There's mushroom soup and tempura to go with it as well. Such a solid lineup haha.

There are also three kinds of shabu-shabu sauce.

• Cheongyang soy sauce
• Chili sauce
• Peanut sauce

Dessert zone: drinks and the chocolate fountain

Sprite, cola, Fanta sodas, and plum and pomegranate juice are all unlimited too!

For dessert, soft serve ice cream, coffee, and even a chocolate fountain are perfectly set up.

How did the shabu-shabu itself taste?

While the shabu-shabu broth was heating up, I loaded up a plate full of delicious things from the salad bar! I always pile up a mountain of fried chicken without fail, and the pizza and sweet and sour pork also hit my sweet spot — I couldn't stop, ugh.

Plenty of fresh shabu-shabu vegetables too~ Coming here for shabu-shabu means I get to eat a lot of vegetables, which I love! It's not easy to eat enough vegetables at home.

This is the premium beef I got as a receipt review perk! Just look at that color, so luxurious haha. It was tasty, but honestly the regular unlimited-refill meat is already so good that I didn't notice a huge difference.

The shabu-shabu meat comes in two kinds — pork neck and beef belly~ The beef belly is delicious but a bit fatty, so alternating between the two is just right.

Enjoying it in the clean basic broth, loaded generously with vegetables and meat.

I love rice paper wraps, so I also grabbed vegetables and pineapple for making them. Adding pineapple to rice paper wraps is really delicious!!

Making delicious rice paper wraps loaded with meat and vegetables. You have to dip generously into the peanut sauce and chili sauce.

For dessert you can have either porridge or knife-cut noodles made from the leftover broth, but the salad bar was so good that I finished with the salad bar instead. If I was willing to skip the shabu-shabu porridge, you can imagine just how good Tongkeun Shabu's salad bar really is haha.

Is Tongkeun Shabu in Yeosu worth it?

Fresh shabu-shabu with unlimited beef belly and pork neck is just the baseline here — you also get a well-curated, quality salad bar packed with dishes people actually reach for. Tongkeun Shabu is a great restaurant in Hakdong, Yeosu, and a fantastic all-you-can-eat shabu-shabu specialist near Yeosu City Hall — make sure to stop by. You won't regret the hearty meal you'll get!