Japanese restaurant at Gardenfive: sauce-free steak pot rice, Gomemui

I went to Gomemui (고메무이), a popular spot at Hyundai Gardenfive, for pot rice and soba! Both dishes I ordered were mild and clean-tasting rather than heavily seasoned, so it was a really satisfying lunch. It's a great place for a tidy, filling meal at Gardenfive!

Gomemui Hyundai Gardenfive hours and reservations

• Opening hours: daily 10:30-20:30
• Break time: 15:00-17:00
• Last order: 14:30 / 20:00
• Parking: Gardenfive Techno Building
• Reservations: by phone

Getting to Gomemui from Jangji Station, and parking

Gomemui Hyundai Gardenfive is on the B1 floor of Gardenfive, and it connects directly when you come up from Jangji Station, so it's super easy to find from the station!

If you're driving, park at the Gardenfive Techno Building side and you can head quickly up to the B1 restaurant floor.

Gomemui interior and how to order

Gomemui Hyundai Gardenfive hasn't been open long, but there were quite a lot of people!

It must already have a reputation as a Gardenfive favorite... haha.

Pot rice takes 10 to 13 minutes, and hirekatsu (pork fillet cutlet) and cheese katsu take 14-15 minutes. It can take a bit longer when it's busy, so keep that in mind!

You order on the tablet at each table, and on one side there's a fold-out menu plus paper cups, wet wipes, napkins and spoons and chopsticks. The spoons and chopsticks are individually wrapped, which I liked too, haha.

Gomemui menu and prices

The Gomemui menu covers pot rice, tonkatsu (breaded pork cutlet), udon/soba and curry. That day I ordered steak pot rice for ₩17,000 and cold soba for ₩11,500, ₩28,500 in total.

"Gomemui" sounded vaguely Japanese, but I had no idea what it meant. Turns out the name means gome = rice and mui = one and only!

How to eat Gomemui's steak pot rice

The steak pot rice is ₩17,000, and the instructions for eating it come placed right on top of the pot!

A big bowl comes with the pot rice, so you scoop the rice into the big bowl,

then pour hot water into the pot and have it as a K-dessert later, haha.

Now let's mix it up nicely with the egg yolk!

There's quite a lot of steak in it, but if you want even more meat to feel properly full, you can order extra, so keep that in mind!

After mixing it all with the yolk, the first bite was full of rich, nutty egg flavor!

Is steak pot rice good without sauce?

The description for the steak pot rice says to mix in the sauce bit by bit, but I didn't even sprinkle it on, because the mild flavor was just so my style! The food isn't heavily salted, so it was comfortable to eat.

My husband and I both like sauce, but we liked the mildness of Gomemui's pot rice so much that we only dipped in a little, haha. It also goes perfectly with a bit of wasabi on top, and this is how little sauce I added, haha.

The side dishes that come with it also go well with the pot rice, so I took a bite of each. Yum.

Gomemui cold soba: how is it different from store-bought broth?

The cold soba is ₩11,500 and it was really distinctive! You know the cold soba you get at tonkatsu places? This wasn't that kind, made with store-bought broth!

The broth tasted subtle to me, and apparently it's made by adding a signature dashi broth to katsuo tsuyu (bonito soy-based dipping sauce) that has been aged for a long time. It tastes very clean! Again, I loved that it wasn't harsh, haha.

The noodles were springy and chewy too, so I slurped them right up, haha. They were good with the pot rice as well.

If you're expecting the usual store-bought cold soba broth, you might be a little thrown at first, but as you keep eating you'll notice it's clean-tasting and not harsh!

Finishing the pot rice as nurungji

While we were busy eating, the pot with the hot water poured in made its comeback, haha.

Finishing with nurungji (scorched rice soup) is the best, right? It's getting chillier now, and ending with something piping hot warms you up and settles your stomach, haha.

What's Gomemui like at weekday lunch?

Peeking at the other tables, a lot of people were eating the pot rice dishes! Gomemui Hyundai Gardenfive gets plenty of office workers at weekday lunch, and word seems to have already spread nearby, because several groups of coworkers came in for lunch together, haha. If you're looking for a tidy, filling meal at Gardenfive, I recommend Gomemui!