Cheese dakgalbi and roe fried rice at Gunja Station bar Saechamjip

Why Saechamjip again for late-night food and beer near Gunja Station

When you want a late-night beer near Gunja, you're kind of hungry, but a full meal feels like too much, and just dry snacks with beer feels a bit sad, right?

After thinking it over, I ended up going back to Saechamjip (새참집) again.

Saechamjip location, hours and menu

Saechamjip is at 16 Neungdong-ro 36-gil, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul, South Korea, a 3-minute walk from Gunja Station Exit 6. It's open daily 17:30 - 02:00, and there's no parking available 📛

From dakgalbi (stir-fried chicken) to bone ribs, beef brisket stew, tteokbokki, savory pancakes, potato pancakes, and fried chicken — the menu is pretty varied. After several visits, I've realized they're really good at putting together dishes that work well as drinking snacks. So it's great whether you're looking for a Gunja restaurant for a meal with a drink, or, like me, dropping by late at night for a bite.

After some back and forth I decided on the nostalgic Chuncheon dakgalbi with extra mozzarella cheese, plus two cold glasses of draft beer. They also run various review events, so make sure to check — great value if you catch one!!📌📌📌

Half hall, half private rooms: easy for groups

About half of Saechamjip is regular hall tables, and the other half is private rooms, so it works whether you're visiting with a group or want a bit more privacy for drinks. For a casual late-night bite like ours, the hall was fine, but if you want to eat quietly with your group, the room option is a nice perk.

Starting with a cold draft beer

We ordered two glasses of draft beer, and as you can see, the glasses were frosty-cold, so it was refreshing from the very first sip. Ended up half done before the food even arrived...

Nostalgic Chuncheon dakgalbi with extra mozzarella cheese

The red dakgalbi was generously covered in mozzarella cheese, topped with perilla leaves, so it looked hearty from the start. Eating it while it bubbled away on the stone plate kept it hot all the way through..👍🏻

Personally I liked the spicy-sweet-salty balance of Saechamjip's dakgalbi. It had a salty seasoning flavor that went really well as a drinking snack. Adding the mozzarella cheese made it even better, mixing the spicy sauce with the cheese's savory richness. Adding it is a must✅✅

There's also rice cake and udon noodles mixed into the dakgalbi. Picking up the udon noodles soaked in all that sauce, they're chewy and you really taste the spicy-sweet-salty flavor — so good. The rice cakes, simmered in the sauce, turn soft and chewy too! With the cheese, it was like a cheese rice cake!!

Finishing the dakgalbi pan with flying fish roe fried rice

After eating a good amount of the dakgalbi, we didn't stop there — we added fried rice with extra flying fish roe. There was still dakgalbi sauce left on the stone plate, and it felt like too much of a waste to leave it behind.

The rice gets fried in the dakgalbi sauce, and with seaweed flakes and scallions added, a savory aroma rises right up. Bits of chicken still mixed in between the rice made it insanely good. I like eating stone-plate fried rice once it starts to get slightly crispy on the bottom. At first it's soft, but if you wait a bit and scrape up the crispy bottom part, the texture changes completely. It was the kind of finish where you keep saying you're full but keep taking one more spoonful.

Is Saechamjip worth it for a late night out?

This wasn't my first visit to Saechamjip, and once again I left satisfied. The biggest reason I keep coming back is the food to go with drinks! It's just so good ㅠㅠ I really think they're great at developing their drinking-snack menu.

This is the place that comes to mind when I'm looking for a Korean bar with private rooms near Gunja Station, or when a group of us wants Korean food with drinks. It also works perfectly if you want to handle late-night food and drinks together on Gunja's food street. Highly recommend ~! Go check it out~~