Magok hot pot with tom yum broth and egg fried rice: J's Pot Magok

After finishing some fall clothes shopping at Magok One Grove, I felt great but my stomach clock started ringing loudly haha. I remembered the hot pot place my husband and I had spotted on the basement floor of COEX Magok last time, so this lunch was an easy decision — straight to J's Pot Magok Branch.

Since it's personal induction pots, you can enjoy your meal neatly and it's also a great vibe for solo dining — it's already word-of-mouth famous as a COEX Magok restaurant.

Where is J's Pot Magok, and when is the lunch set served?

J's Pot Magok Branch is on the basement floor of COEX Magok Tower A, and the lunch set runs from 11am to 3pm. When I arrived, the lunch set info was posted clearly out front, and you can really get good value during that window.

The interior has high ceilings and felt open, with no stuffy feeling at all. Even visiting around 1pm, there were quite a lot of people eating, giving it that popular-restaurant vibe.

What especially caught my eye was that there's a separate bar table made just for solo dining! You can order easily via tablet and enjoy hot pot alone without any pressure.

Choosing beef and tom yum from the 8 broths at J's Pot Magok

J's Pot Magok's broths range from mala to beef to tomato, 8 choices in total. Sitting down and looking at the menu, there were so many broth options I fell into a happy dilemma. We each picked according to our own taste.

My husband chose the savory beef broth, and I went with the tom yum broth that I always love.

How to mix peanut sauce at the self-serve sauce bar

Right after ordering, I dashed over to the self-serve sauce bar stocked with all kinds of ingredients.

There was a golden recipe guide written out, so even first-timers should be able to make a sauce without much trouble.

I made two versions: a clean, sweet basic sauce and a peanut sauce bursting with nuttiness.

When I loaded the peanut sauce with minced garlic, chopped scallion, and Lao Gan Ma chili crisp, it even gave off a bit of a rosé feel.

The basic sauce, built on a haixian (seafood) soy sauce base, brought out the flavor of the vegetables nicely while leaving a very clean aftertaste.

Adding beef brisket and fish balls: what comes with the lunch set

Finally, the lunch set we ordered plus the extra meat all arrived and the table was completely full — whoa. Oh, and we also added 4 fish balls!! The assorted vegetables that came as default were fresh and generous, filling just looking at them.

Being big meat fans, we added extra beef brisket. The bright red marbling looked so fresh that a quick dip in the broth seemed like it would melt in your mouth.

Dunking the well-cooked meat generously into the peanut sauce and taking a bite, nuttiness spread through my whole mouth. The sauce was so good that vegetables and meat kept disappearing into it like magic haha.

Worried we'd run out of rice, we also ordered egg fried rice, and it was exactly the fluffy, grain-by-grain egg fried rice you get at a Chinese restaurant — I scraped the bowl completely clean~!!

Stirring rice into the tom yum broth: was J's Pot Magok worth it?

The last highlight was the K-dessert moment of mixing rice into the tom yum broth! The tom yum broth had that spicy, refreshing taste just like a proper kimchi jjigae, and it genuinely felt like the perfect hangover cure. My husband's beef broth was deep and savory like a health tonic too, but the umami of the tom yum was truly the best! If you're looking for a good restaurant near COEX Magok, you have to try this combination.

The good-value lunch set filled us up nicely, making for a satisfying meal. The spicy umami of the tom yum broth in particular was so memorable that I still think about it — I'd recommend J's Pot to anyone who needs a hangover fix or prefers unusual flavors.

If you're near Magok and want to enjoy hot pot comfortably on your own without feeling self-conscious, definitely stop by!