Suwon Korean restaurant for smoky spicy pork: Boriook Main Branch

When you want a big bowl of barley rice with plenty of namul in Suwon

This time, I visited Boriook Main Branch (보리옥 본점), a place barley-rice lovers would really enjoy. You can add all kinds of namul (seasoned vegetable side dishes) to barley rice and make your own bibimbap, with unlimited vegetables and namul to help yourself to. From the barley-rice set meals, we ordered one grilled mackerel set and one charcoal-grilled gochujang spicy pork set.

Boriook Main Branch is a place where you can have a hearty meal centered on barley rice. These days, a proper full Korean meal can get pretty expensive, but here you can enjoy a main dish and barley rice while helping yourself to as much namul as you like, so the overall setup was great. More than anything, after trying it myself, I found it was not simply a good-value spot—the food itself was genuinely delicious.

Boriook Main Branch hours

10:00–21:00

With barley-rice set meals as the main offering, it is great for a substantial lunch and works just as well for a Korean dinner.

A pleasant interior for a family meal

Boriook Main Branch allows waiting-list registration through Catch Table, and because we visited in the early evening, we were able to dine without waiting.

Once we went in and settled at our table, it felt like a nice place for families to come for Korean food and also suitable for bringing your parents.

Since the barley rice comes in the style of a Korean set meal, the interior includes touches of Korean sensibility. There are high chairs too, so it felt like a delicious restaurant everyone from babies to guests of all ages could enjoy.

A self-service bar for as much namul and banchan as you want

My favorite part of Boriook was the namul and vegetable self-service bar. There was a wide selection of vegetables and namul to add to the barley rice, and you can serve yourself as much of whichever kinds you want.

Side dishes such as seasonal fritters, braised tofu, and japchae (stir-fried glass noodles) were unlimited too. Barley rice is served at first, while extra white rice or barley rice can be taken freely from the self-service bar. This was exactly the kind of unlimited barley-rice restaurant in Suwon I had been hoping for.

Barley-rice set meals: choose mackerel or spicy pork to suit your taste

You get barley rice as standard, then simply choose the main dish you would like to have with it.

There are options from grilled mackerel to soy-sauce pork and gochujang pork, so it would be easy for meat lovers and fish lovers to choose together. After some deliberation, we ordered the grilled mackerel set and the charcoal-grilled gochujang spicy pork set.

A full spread of namul barley rice, mackerel, and smoky pork

When the food arrived, we went to the self-service bar for namul to put in our barley rice. There were so many kinds that we loaded up on our favorites and tried smaller portions of ones we do not usually eat.

Since it is not a one-and-done situation and you can come back for more, I found it better to take only what you will eat first and return for anything you need, rather than piling it up like a mountain from the start.

Interestingly, there were lotus-root, mushroom, and chili pepper fritters. The dipping soy sauce had yuzu sauce in it, giving it a tangy flavor that went incredibly well with the lotus-root fritter, and the fritters also paired nicely with the acorn-jelly soy sauce.

Pile all kinds of namul onto the barley rice, add the seasoning, and mix it all together—there you have a generous vegetable bibimbap. With so many different namul in one bowl, it had a lovely texture and was very satisfying.

Gochujang and sesame oil are set out at every table, and I liked being able to add them according to my taste. If you are looking for unlimited barley rice in Suwon, I think this self-service bar alone would leave you satisfied.

Light, savory grilled mackerel set

The first main dish was the grilled mackerel set. The mackerel came nicely browned, making it easy to enjoy with the barley rice.

I picked off a piece of fish and ate it with the namul bibimbap, and the light yet savory mackerel went so well with it. The barley rice with just namul was delicious too, but adding a bite of mackerel now and then made it feel like a proper full Korean meal.

My personal favorite: charcoal-grilled gochujang spicy pork

And then there was the charcoal-grilled gochujang spicy pork set, which I personally found truly delicious. Rather than ordinary gochujang pork, it is grilled over a charcoal brazier, so the subtle smoky aroma that hits you from the first bite was just so good.

With its sweet-spicy seasoning and smoky aroma, this would be delicious even with plain white rice, haha. I mixed lots of namul into the barley rice, topped it with a piece of charcoal-grilled gochujang pork, and the combination was really good. The mackerel was tasty too, but if you love meat, I would recommend the charcoal-grilled gochujang spicy pork set.

It also comes with doenjang jjigae (soybean-paste stew). It looked pale, as though it was made with homemade doenjang, but the flavor was absolutely excellent!

As we ate, we went back for more of the namul that we had taken only a little of at first but ended up loving. Being able to add as much of the namul I liked as I wanted was so convenient. It is actually not that easy these days to eat a wide variety of vegetables and namul, so I personally liked this place even more because I could have so many kinds in one meal.

There were barley cookies too, which I already love, and they made such a good final dessert.

There were dessert drinks that paired perfectly with the end of the meal, including coffee, maesil (Korean plum drink), and peach iced tea, so we could finish everything off nicely.

A filling finish at Boriook Main Branch

We had such a properly filling meal at Boriook Main Branch this time. It is fun to bring as many different namul and vegetables as you want and mix them into barley rice, and being able to choose a main dish to suit your taste, such as grilled mackerel or charcoal-grilled gochujang pork, made for a really well-rounded meal.

The charcoal-grilled gochujang pork in particular was so delicious, right down to its subtle smoky aroma, that it is something I would order again next time. I would not recommend this place simply because it is unlimited—the food itself is delicious enough to make me want to return. If you are looking for a great unlimited barley-rice restaurant in Suwon where you can fill up on bibimbap loaded with namul, I would recommend Boriook Main Branch.