Sejong Korean restaurant with shabu kalguksu full course: Italy Shabu

Today I'm introducing a Korean restaurant in Sejong that I loved — Italy Shabu Kalguksu. Not only was the food delicious, but the portions and value were on point too, so I was really satisfied! Let me walk you through it below~

Where is Italy Shabu Kalguksu Sejong Eojin Branch, and where do you park?

Italy Shabu Kalguksu Sejong Eojin Branch is on the 3rd floor of Taehan Press Center, 172 Jeoljae-ro, Sejong, South Korea. It's open 10:30–21:00 with a break time from 15:00 to 17:00, and you can park in the building's basement lot.

Italy Shabu Kalguksu is located on the 3rd floor of the Taehan Press Center building~ I was able to park comfortably in the basement lot before visiting.

Before going in, I saw the 'good price establishment' sign at the entrance along with a notice saying it was picked as a top restaurant by the Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, which gave me confidence that this place would have both great value and great taste.

How big is the dining room, and is there a room for group dinners?

Here's the interior of Italy Kalguksu~ I visited after the lunch rush, but the dining room was spacious with plenty of seats, so it looked like you wouldn't have to worry about finding a table even during peak lunch or dinner hours.

There's also a separate space in the back that can seat about 20 people for group meals, so I'd recommend it as a spot for lunch or dinner get-togethers!

Instructions on how to enjoy the Italy shabu were posted on the table's tablet screen and up on the wall~

Menu, broth choices and whether dogs are allowed

Here's the menu at this Korean restaurant in Sejong. Shabu kalguksu is the main dish, alongside a Jeonju-style seafood pancake and mushroom kalguksu, which is great for solo dining~ For the shabu kalguksu, you could choose clear broth, spicy broth, or perilla seed broth depending on your taste.

You could also add extra noodles to the shabu kalguksu for a low price~ Italy Shabu Kalguksu is also known as a dog-friendly restaurant in Sejong, and they even sell dog treats, haha.

Hutgae tea and the unlimited self-bar

The water on the table wasn't plain — it was hutgae (Korean raisin tree) fruit tea! If you drank the night before, you could go there for shabu kalguksu to cure your hangover and also enjoy some cool hutgae tea~ The self-bar offered unlimited side dishes, kalguksu noodles, and even ramyeon noodles!

How the shabu kalguksu tastes and how filling it is

Ta-da! Here's today's star, the shabu kalguksu. The pot was piled high with napa cabbage, all kinds of mushrooms, bok choy and other vegetables, plus mandu (dumplings) and beef~

Now comes the waiting game! As the vegetable and meat stocks steep together, it bubbles away and gets more delicious by the minute!

The fact that kalguksu noodles and the ingredients for porridge afterward come included as standard also seems to be one of the strong points of this Korean restaurant in Sejong.

Let me describe the taste in detail~ First, I scooped up a spoonful of broth that had steeped richly from all the ingredients, and it really felt like it was curing a week's worth of hangovers at once, with warmth spreading right through me, haha.

The vegetables and meat looked really fresh, and dipping a generous bite into the secret soy sauce was really delicious!

It was fun picking through oyster mushrooms, enoki mushrooms, bok choy, alba cabbage and all sorts of ingredients, and the mandu, which you'd be sad to miss in a shabu kalguksu, was excellent too.

Makgeolli by the glass for 1,500 won

The food was so good that even while curing my hangover, I found myself craving a cool makgeolli, so I ordered a glass~ At the cheap price of ₩1,500, it was just the right amount to enjoy alongside the meal.

The full-course order: shabu-shabu to kalguksu noodles to vegetable porridge

Once we'd eaten through most of the ingredients, in went the kalguksu noodles!

The combination of well-cooked kalguksu noodles with the remaining ingredients was great, and especially eating a big bite of the noodles together with the napa cabbage kimchi was a real delicacy among delicacies!

Once you've finished the kalguksu noodles and the broth has thickened down to just a little left, in go the vegetable porridge ingredients! This right here is the true shabu kalguksu full course, haha.

They stir in egg and cook it up into a delicious porridge, and even people who were already full from the shabu-shabu and kalguksu find themselves picking up their spoon again — a K-dessert is complete!

It was savory and soft, and it really held onto that final concentrated essence of the vegetable and meat stock, so the umami was fantastic~ Just like the kalguksu, it's a perfect match with kimchi!!

I honestly wondered if I could finish it all since I was so full, but in the end I caught myself scraping the bowl clean, haha.

Dessert ice cream and puffed rice snacks

Believe it or not, Italy Shabu Kalguksu even has an ice cream machine for dessert!! How could I not recommend this as a favorite Korean restaurant in Sejong~~

The soft ice cream, which reminded me of a McDonald's soft-serve cone, paired with heart-shaped puffed rice snacks, completed the full course — no other dessert needed, haha.

The owner had big photos of their family up on the wall along with heartfelt written commitments about how they run the business, and seeing that made me trust Italy Shabu Kalguksu even more — a place like this, you know you can eat with confidence.

That's how I ended up enjoying a truly filling and delicious meal at Italy Shabu Kalguksu, one of my favorite Korean restaurants in Sejong! I highly recommend you all pay it a visit at least once~~