Jongno Korean restaurant dinner with beef tripe hot pot: Modam Dining

Modam Dining Gwanghwamun (모담다이닝 광화문점) near Gwanghwamun Station

It is located at Units B102–B103 on B1 of Deoksugung D-Palace, 10 Saemunan-ro 2-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul. It is open daily from 11:00 to 22:00, with a weekday break from 15:00 to 17:00 and last orders at 20:10. There is no break time on Saturdays and Sundays. Reservations are available, and parking is free for two hours on B3 of D-Palace.

Modam Dining Gwanghwamun, a great Korean set-meal restaurant, is in the D-Palace building near Exit 6 of Gwanghwamun Station on Line 5. You can go down one level via the outdoor stairs to the left of the building entrance and enter the restaurant from there, too.

You can also take the escalator. Follow the indoor directory to the left, and you will arrive at a softly beige space.

I arrived before my reservation, but there was a seating area in front of the restaurant, so it was easy to wait for my friend.

A large banner announced a free corkage event. After looking over the menu board at the entrance, I headed inside.

A Korean dining restaurant with private rooms and hall tables

Past a lovely space displaying Korean-style decorative pieces, there is a counter with staff. Since I had made a reservation, I gave them the reservation name and was shown to my table.

Inside, there is a room for five that is ideal for family gatherings, as well as a room for eight that is suitable for formal family meetings. There are also spacious tables in the main hall, great for group gatherings or company dinners.

I was shown to a hall table I had reserved for dinner with a friend who works nearby.

Ordering the Korean beef 1++ tripe hot pot set meal

• Weekday lunch only: Modam sotbap (pot-cooked rice) set meal, ₩19,900 per person
• Weekday lunch only: abalone tteokgalbi (grilled minced beef patty) set meal, ₩35,000 per person
• Available all day: Korean beef 1++ bulgogi hot pot set meal, ₩39,000 per person (minimum 2 people)
• What we ordered: Korean beef 1++ tripe hot pot set meal, ₩39,000 per person (minimum 2 people)

They also offer good-value weekday lunch-only options, along with dishes suited to family gatherings and formal family meetings.

The seasonal porridge was mung bean porridge. It was served warm in an individual lidded bowl, and its nutty, unsweetened taste made it a nice start to the meal.

This was flounder sashimi, a mild white fish. The raw fish was incredibly fresh with no fishiness at all, and it tasted even better than I expected. It was good on its own, but paired especially well with the jangajji (pickled vegetable) sauce served alongside it.

They cut the freshly fried, piping-hot shiitake mushroom fritters into easy-to-eat pieces at the table. The batter was crisp and the inside pleasantly chewy, and the sauce was such a perfect match.

For dishes to share, they set down a separate pair of chopsticks for each person, apart from the chopsticks included with the meal.

This mustard vegetable dish with pine nut sauce had crisp lotus root, broccoli, cucumber, and refreshing tomato. The nutty pine nut sauce kept me reaching for more.

This seasonal salad had a refreshing yuzu dressing that woke up my appetite, and the crisp lettuce texture was so nice.

Cold, thin capellini noodles were topped generously with whole perilla seeds, perilla oil, ground perilla seed, seaweed flakes, shredded perilla leaf omelet, shrimp, and other garnishes. I mixed everything well, served some onto my individual plate, and tried it.

The nutty perilla oil made it seriously addictive. The capellini was cooked just right, and the plentiful toppings let me enjoy so many different flavors—it was really delicious.

The well-fermented Cheongyang water kimchi was next. With minced Cheongyang chili peppers in it, the watery kimchi had a gentle spicy kick that went so well with the perilla oil capellini. The crunchy cabbage and radish were so refreshing that I finished every bit.

Spicy and satisfying Korean beef 1++ tripe hot pot

The Korean beef 1++ tripe hot pot arrived. I had debated between this and the Korean beef bulgogi, but this tripe hot pot had such a satisfying look that I was very happy with my choice.

As it simmered on the burner, the broth came to a boil and the vegetables naturally released their flavor into it. Once the broth had boiled for a while, a staff member mixed the ingredients well and cooked it so the seasoning dissolved evenly.

The tripe had already been cooked once, so once the mushrooms and cabbage were done, we could serve it onto our individual plates. The spicy tripe hot pot was especially filling with perfectly cooked black rice, napa cabbage kimchi, seasoned seaweed stems, shiitake mushrooms, and salted squid side dishes.

Finally, they served a refreshing maesil-cha (green plum tea), which made for a clean finish to the meal.