City Hall Station Chinese restaurant for eggplant rice: Huhugwan

Today, I’m introducing Huhugwan (후후관), a Chinese restaurant near City Hall Station in Seoul. I stopped by while looking for somewhere to have dinner near the station~ It sells a range of Chinese dishes, including mala hot pot and eggplant rice, in a Hong Kong-inspired setting!

Huhugwan’s exterior and Hong Kong-inspired interior

This is the exterior of Huhugwan. As you walk through the Seosomun-dong alley, you can spot the gold sign reading HUHUKWAN~ Its dark exterior and gold lighting made it easy to notice.

Inside, you’ll see green tiles and red sofas. It was decorated like a Chinese or Hong Kong restaurant. The lighting was not overly bright, so it had a nice atmosphere for dinner and a drink in the evening~ There is also a bar table along one side. Various liquor bottles are displayed behind the bar, along with a red 福 light, so the Chinese feel really comes through! If you’re visiting alone or as a pair, the bar seats would be nice too.

We sat at a table by the window. We could see the streets near City Hall outside, and the table was neatly set up~

Once you sit down, tea comes out first. It was served cold, which made it nice to sip between bites!

A burner for cooking the hot pot was set up with our small plates, and peanuts came out as a basic snack. They were sweet and nutty, so I kept eating them while waiting for the food, haha.

Spring rolls, fried dumplings, and eggplant rice

The first dish to arrive was spring rolls. Scallions were placed over the crisp-fried spring rolls, with chili sauce on the side. They came out freshly fried, so the outside was crispy, and they were nicely tasty dipped in the chili sauce~

Next were the fried dumplings. Unlike typical fried dumplings, these were topped with chili oil sauce and scallions~ The dumplings themselves were crisp, while the spicy, tangy sauce helped cut through any richness.

This is the eggplant rice we ordered as our meal! Fried eggplant, minced meat, shiitake mushrooms, scallions, and more were served over rice. The sauce had that savory-sweet Chinese-style flavor. The eggplant had absorbed the sauce well, so it was great with the rice~

When you take a spoonful of rice and eggplant together, the eggplant is incredibly tender. It is lightly fried on the outside and moist inside! It also went really well with the minced-meat sauce.

How was the eggplant rice?

It was in the same family as the stir-fried eggplant or fish-fragrant eggplant you usually have at Chinese restaurants, but it was a little sweeter and richer to pair well with rice! If you like eggplant, I think it’s a reliably enjoyable flavor~

Huhuchwan mala hot pot, cooked at the table

And here is Huhugwan’s signature Huhuchwan mala hot pot! When it first arrived, I was surprised by how many ingredients it contained.

• Beef
• Shrimp
• Shiitake mushrooms
• Wood ear mushrooms
• Yuba (tofu skin)
• Enoki mushrooms
• Vegetables
• Fish cake
• Fish balls

It contains all these different ingredients~ Some are skewered, which made it feel a little different from ordinary mala tang.

You place it on the gas burner at the table and cook it yourself. At first, the ingredients are piled all the way to the top of the pot, but once the vegetables cook down, it becomes easier to eat~

Each person also gets a dipping sauce for the mala hot pot. It is a nutty, peanut-sauce-like sauce topped with scallions. When the mala hot pot feels spicy or intense, dipping into it makes the flavor a little gentler!

After waiting a little, the broth starts bubbling away~ The broth has mala’s characteristic numbing, spicy aroma. If you normally enjoy mala tang, it is a familiar flavor to eat.

I tried the fish balls first. They had simmered in the hot pot for a while, so they had soaked up the mala broth well, and I liked their bouncy texture~

It also included yuba, one of my favorite ingredients whenever I eat mala tang! Yuba that has thoroughly absorbed the mala broth is nutty and spicy when dipped in peanut sauce, so the combination works really well. There was also bunmoja, thick chewy starch noodles. If you enjoy a chewy texture, this might be your favorite ingredient~ Since it absorbs a lot of broth, it was tastier after simmering for a while.

How was the mala hot pot?

It felt more like a hot pot where you cook various ingredients together than regular mala tang. It had mala’s characteristic numbing heat and spiciness, and dipping it in peanut sauce added a nutty flavor, so it was nice! I especially think it is a good dish for several people to share with drinks~

We also had Tsingtao draft beer with the mala hot pot. Spicy food and cold beer really do go well together, haha. If you order the mala hot pot, I recommend having it with beer too~

Receipt review event and final thoughts

I also noticed that they were running a receipt review event! If you write a review including at least two keywords, you can receive either a 320 ml Tsingtao draft beer or mini menbosha (shrimp toast). It may be useful to keep this in mind if you visit~

To sum up Huhugwan, it is a place where you can have mala hot pot and Chinese food in a Hong Kong- or China-inspired atmosphere. Personally, I liked the combination of Huhuchwan mala hot pot and eggplant rice! The mala hot pot has lots of ingredients, making it good for two or more people to share, while the eggplant rice is a nice addition when you want a rice dish. If you want Chinese food near City Hall Station or Seoul City Hall, a drink with mala hot pot, or a restaurant with a bit of atmosphere, it could be worth a visit~