Yeonnam-dong pasta restaurant, kid-friendly no-jalapeño tomato pasta

My 9-year-old daughter Seol-yi and I often take photos at a studio called Pannacotta Studio near Hongdae. Last weekend, once we finished shooting, it was already mealtime, so I looked up pasta places recommended in Yeonnam-dong. Since Seol-yi still can't handle spicy food, our dining options are a bit limited...!

Why we picked Hey Joji

Both of us love noodles, so we looked up recommended pasta spots around Hongdae. That's how we found Hey Joji. It was a perfect walk from the studio, and the reviews were great, so we decided to try it as a date spot with my kid in Hongdae.

Hey Joji location, hours, and parking

• Location: 1F, 42-24 Donggyo-ro 46-gil, Mapo-gu, Seoul, Hey Joji
• Hours: Daily 12:00 – 21:00
• Last order: 20:00
• No parking available

Hey Joji, a Hongdae-area pasta restaurant, sits about 500m from Exit 3 of Hongik University Station. Parking is scarce near Hongdae, so public transit is basically a must. If you're driving, you'll need to use a nearby public parking lot.

We got there around 1:30pm on a Saturday and waited outside for about 2 minutes before being seated. There's a chair and a photo zone in the waiting area, so the wait doesn't feel boring if you're snapping pictures!

Interior and seating

Inside, green tones paired with wood furniture give the space a warm feel. There's a variety of seating — 2-seat tables, 4-seat tables, and sofa seats — so it works for couples on a Yeonnam-dong date, friends catching up, or families like us.

Choosing a menu with a kid who can't eat spicy food

True to its American home-style concept, the menu is mostly pasta and risotto. Since Seol-yi can't eat spicy food, our options were somewhat limited. Luckily, the friendly staff offered to leave the jalapeños out of the bocconcini meat chili tomato pasta, so we ordered that tomato pasta for her plus a garlic squid oil pasta.

Prices were ₩16,000 for the garlic squid oil pasta and ₩17,000 for the tomato pasta — surprisingly reasonable for a place known as a top pasta spot in Yeonnam-dong. These days plenty of places charge well over ₩20,000 per dish, so this felt like a pretty fair price for a Hongdae date.

Bocconcini meat chili tomato pasta, no jalapeños

This is the tomato pasta Seol-yi ordered, and the melted cheese on top immediately caught the eye. There was plenty of sauce and a generous amount of meat — not a dish that felt like a waste of money at all.

Mixed with the cheese, it was seriously delicious. Seol-yi ate it with such gusto that I honestly wondered what we would have done if we hadn't ordered it.

She kept her head down eating without stopping... Honestly, my daughter is sensitive to smells and textures and is a pretty picky eater, so eating out with her is nerve-wracking. Finding a dish she devours like this makes me so happy. I was quietly worried the pasta might still have a bit of heat even without the jalapeños, but there was zero spiciness, and she ate it all up happily.

There was plenty of cheese and meat to go with the noodles without ever feeling skimpy, and the combination of cheese, meat, sauce, and pasta was so good that even though we were full, we kept eating to the very end, haha. And sure enough — looking at these photos again makes me want more!

How was the garlic squid oil pasta?

The second dish was the garlic squid oil pasta! This was the dish the staff recommended once we mentioned my daughter couldn't eat spicy food, and I could immediately tell why. Despite being an oil pasta, it wasn't greasy or spicy — light might be the right word for it.

Without the usual heaviness oil pastas can have, there was no need to balance it out with spicy ingredients. It was very light and exactly to my taste. There was also plenty of squid, which made me appreciate that this restaurant doesn't skimp on ingredients. Next time we're at the studio, Seol-yi and I are definitely coming back to Hey Joji!

I wonder if the lemon was meant to be squeezed over the dish... I assumed it was just decoration and didn't use it, but thinking about it now, maybe it wasn't just for show?! Either way, we enjoyed it so much it hardly matters. As someone who loves oil pasta, it's been genuinely hard to find one that fits my taste, and this Yeonnam-dong pasta hit exactly the right note for me.

How big were the portions?

The portions were bigger than expected, and to our own surprise, we cleaned our plates because we didn't want to regret leaving anything once we got home. Honestly, the tomato pasta was close to 1.5 servings, and it's wild that Seol-yi ate nearly all of it on her own...! (Granted, the not-having-breakfast buff helped a bit.) That's genuinely how well it suited our taste.

When you write posts like this, professional etiquette usually means sticking to nice things to say — but honestly, even bloggers tend to hold back on flavor descriptions for places that aren't actually good. The fact that I'm gushing this much means it was genuinely, truly delicious! I'm bookmarking this place to come back and pay with my own money next time..!

Somewhere I know I'll go back to

The two of us were happy to have a delicious meal after a while. Before leaving Hey Joji, our Yeonnam-dong date spot, we even snapped a photo in front of the mirror in the waiting zone. At the end, the owner asked if we enjoyed our meal, and even the owner's tone was so warm that it left a great final impression. I'm definitely going back the next time we visit the studio!

If you're looking for a genuinely delicious spot for a date in Hongdae and can't figure out which place is the real deal, I'd say give Hey Joji a try. I have a feeling your girlfriend would love it too!!