Mapo Station gyukatsu restaurant with ramune soda in the set: Gyudo

Gyukatsu has long been one of my favorite foods, and when I heard a premium gyukatsu specialty restaurant was running its own direct branch right in front of Mapo Station, I hurried over last weekend. At Gyudo you can try quality gyukatsu and yakiniku alongside a quirky menu combining Korean sungnyung (scorched rice tea) with Japanese ochazuke — I'd honestly recommend it as a date course near Mapo Station.

How to reach Gyudo Mapo Gongdeok Main Branch from Mapo Station

Premium Gyukatsu Gyudo Mapo Gongdeok Main Branch is in the basement arcade of the Hanwha Obelisk building at Mapo Station. After getting off at Mapo Station, before you head out exits 1 or 2, there's a door that connects directly into the Hanwha Obelisk building — go through it and you'll find the place easily.

The exterior lighting and mood already won me over at this Mapo gyukatsu specialist Gyudo ෆ two statues resembling Jiji the cat from Kiki's Delivery Service were guarding the entrance, haha.

To the left of the entrance there's a small area with the main menu and waiting seats,

and to the right, a Catch Table tablet for registering your wait.

Inside Gyudo: mood, seating and coat lockers

The interior was full of authentic Japanese atmosphere, and the calm indirect lighting gave it an upscale feel!!

Tables were split between seating for two and for four, and since we came as a pair we were guided to a two-person table. It seemed to be quite a popular spot — even at around 2pm on a Saturday there were plenty of people eating.

There's also a bar table for solo diners to eat comfortably!! Definitely bookmarking this as a solo-dining spot to revisit near Mapo Station ෆ ʕ¨̮ʔ ෆ

And this coat locker was pretty fascinating!! It's a fully sealed, transparent cabinet, perfect for when you don't want your clothes to soak up restaurant smells. I bet it gets packed with coats come winter, haha.

Once seated, opening the drawer under the table reveals a cutlery case, napkins, and wet wipes — the cutlery case is provided per person, which felt quite hygienic, and it also holds a wooden paddle just for the stone pot rice.

Below the cutlery case there's also a flake topping packet — save it, since it's meant to be added to the sungnyung (scorched rice tea) at the end of the meal!

Gyudo's menu lineup and the receipt review event

Gyudo's main menu items are smoked gyukatsu, yakiniku, and niku mabushi, and you can order however you like, from set menus for two to individual course meals. Alongside these you can also order noodles, side dishes, drinks, alcohol, and even a kids' donkatsu.

On the side of the in-store menu board there were also tips for enjoying the gyukatsu, yakiniku set, and niku mabushi even more, which is handy to check while eating, haha.

If you scan the QR code at your table and leave a receipt review, you get premium butter or fried shrimp per review. My boyfriend joined this review event and got a piece of premium butter — half went on the brazier while grilling the meat, and the other half went into rice mixed with onsen tamago (soft-poached egg), making a perfect butter-soy sauce egg rice, haha.

What comes in the 47,000 won yakiniku set

• Yakiniku set: gyukatsu set + yakiniku set + gamtae mentaiko + 1 drink — ₩47,000

Sangaria ramune, the marble soda in the set

The ramune included in the set showed up first, haha. It's the drink they hand out at the Beppu hot springs foot baths when I went on a Fukuoka trip with my mom — running into it at a Korean restaurant was such a nice surprise!!! Though the bottle was a bit small for two of us to share ㅠㅠㅠ

Smoked gyukatsu meal with sirloin

My order, the smoked gyukatsu set! It comes with stone pot rice, soup, sauces, radish salad, and onsen tamago. I was so excited to have gyukatsu again after a while..

Made with sirloin, the gyukatsu had incredible sheen up close ㅠㅠ the outside was fried crisp too, and I wanted to grill it right away!

Smoked yakiniku meal with sirloin

The smoked yakiniku set also came with stone pot rice, soup, sauces, radish salad, and onsen tamago. But it had one extra soy-based sauce that the gyukatsu didn't have!

The sirloin's glossiness was just glistening...

The set also included gamtae mentaiko (seaweed-wrapped pollock roe), served neatly on top of the warm stone pot rice 🫶

How to grill at your own brass brazier

Both dishes are meant to be grilled to your liking on this mini brazier at the center — Gyudo apparently custom-orders personal brass braziers to grill the meat even more deliciously. Maybe that's why it seemed to heat up a bit faster..? Hahaha.

Ah, looking at these photos makes me want the premium gyukatsu and yakiniku all over again... While eating, I was too busy grilling to notice much, but looking back, even a moment's distraction meant the meat cooked fast, and it practically melted the second it hit my mouth.

Gyukatsu and yakiniku taste great dipped in the house sauce on their own, but wrapping them with radish salad, gamtae, and mentaiko was the real highlight!!! Since the mentaiko was low-sodium, piling on the radish salad and gamtae never made it too salty or heavy.

At first I was carefully layering small portions, but then my appetite took over and I just piled the gyukatsu and yakiniku onto the brazier until it was full. We've all done that, right? Hahaha. By the way, you can add extra meat for ₩16,000, so ordering extra meat for a more generous portion seems like a good idea.. (I'm regretting not adding it)

As for the stone pot rice served alongside — opening the lid reveals white rice topped appetizingly with sweet pumpkin, and it's all glossy and full of stickiness!!!

Mixing in the onsen tamago that came with it and eating it together with the meat is absolute bliss 😋 According to the staff, Gyudo uses a single variety of rice called Sindongjin. You could really feel the care put into every part of the menu — from the meat to the side dishes to the rice — which made it taste even better, haha.

Finishing with ochazuke from the Solomon's seal, bonito and tonkotsu broth bar

By the time we finished the meat, it was time to head to the self-serve broth corner in the center and pick a broth to make a sungnyung-style ochazuke.

The broths come in three types — Solomon's seal tea, bonito, and tonkotsu — each with a description and characteristics written out.

Once you pick your broth, just pour it into the stainless personal kettle shown in the photo and bring it back — that's it!!

Next to the broths there's also cauldron rice for refills and cold water ready to go.

I went with the Solomon's seal tea broth and added the flake topping — since it's mild and clean-tasting, it wasn't all that different from Korean-style sungnyung. My boyfriend's tonkotsu broth, on the other hand, actually tasted a bit like guk-bap (soup rice), which was fascinating!! If you visit Gyudo, going for a more distinctive broth like tonkotsu or bonito for that Japanese ochazuke feel seems like the way to go, haha.

Final verdict on Gyudo, a gyukatsu restaurant near Mapo Station

From gyukatsu you grill yourself on a personal brazier to a Japanese-style sungnyung ochazuke you don't easily find at other gyukatsu spots, Gyudo near Mapo Station offered a genuinely fun and different experience! If you're looking for a quality gyukatsu restaurant near Mapo or Gongdeok Station, I'd recommend giving it a try.