After-work Korean set meal in Sinseol-dong, Seoul: Hansang Charyim

A review of Hansang Charyim Bapsang Sinseol-dong, a Korean restaurant I'd recommend to anyone who's more of a Korean-food person.

I'd say I'm pretty firmly Team Korean Food if you made me pick, but lately I've been eating a lot of Chinese and Japanese food haha. I was craving a proper Korean meal, so after work today I headed to a Korean restaurant in Sinseol-dong, Hansang Charyim Bapsang.

Apparently this place has even been on TV,, seeing the photo from the broadcast on the wall made me even more curious about the food!!

Where is Hansang Charyim Bapsang, and how far is it from Sinseol-dong Station?

• 28 Hanbit-ro, 1st floor, Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul
• Near Sinseol-dong Station Exit 3

Sinseol-dong has both Line 1 and Line 2, so I thought "eating dinner here after work and heading home sounds pretty good!" and went for it. If you're looking for a Korean restaurant in Sinseol-dong and getting there by subway, the location is quite convenient.

I also kind of liked the atmosphere on the way to the restaurant. Instead of a strip of big restaurants, it felt more like small shops tucked into alleyways.

Walking there in the evening after work, with lights on in every shop, it had that feel of hunting down a hidden neighborhood restaurant haha.

Inside Hansang Charyim Bapsang: the room and who eats here

Walking into Hansang Charyim Bapsang, one whole wall was covered in celebrity autographs.

Since it's a Korean restaurant, I figured the crowd would skew a bit older. But actually, there were more young people than I expected.

• Some people had come with friends,
• and I even spotted foreign customers, which surprised me a little.

A lot of people these days are looking for places to take foreign friends for Korean food. In that case, a hansang spread where you can see a whole bunch of Korean banchan (side dishes) at once could be a pretty fun experience.

Honestly, even as a Korean, I was surprised by how many side dishes came out haha.

How much is the hansang bossam set for two?

The set menu at Hansang Charyim Bapsang Sinseol-dong is the hansang bossam set at ₩15,000 per person, and the hanbang galbi set at ₩17,000 per person.

What we ordered was the hansang bossam set for two! At ₩15,000 per person, it was an easy, no-pressure order!

And then the food started coming out... and kept coming haha.

At some point I looked up and realized there was hardly any empty space left on the table.

The full spread: more banchan than one photo can hold

It wasn't easy fitting the whole spread into one photo 😂 so I ended up filming a video too.

It really lived up to the restaurant's name, 'Hansang Charyim Bapsang' — a table set with everything.

I've been living alone for quite a while now. Eating by myself at home, I end up going for one main dish on the quick rather than cooking a bunch of side dishes more often than not.

So seeing a table spread out with this many banchan made me think, 'ah, it's been a real while since I had a proper hansang like this.'

There was fun in picking a bit of this, a bit of that. But this mini crab(?) was my favorite of all!

Between all that, my bowl of rice disappeared fast haha.

Eating the pork bossam with lettuce wraps

Instead of just eating the bossam (boiled pork wraps) on its own, I tried it together with the various side dishes on the table.

• Put the bossam in a wrap leaf,
• add a side dish on top for one bite, then back to rice haha.

I think this was exactly the kind of meal I wanted that day. Not a dinner of just one dish, but a meal where rice, side dishes and bossam all come together!

It felt like eating properly Korean food again after a long time.

Who should eat at Hansang Charyim Bapsang?

Anyone who loves eating lots of different side dishes, anyone who wants a hearty meal of bossam plus rice, and anyone living alone who's been missing a home-cooked-style hansang spread.

I'd say Hansang Charyim Bapsang in Sinseol-dong is worth a visit. I, too, got to sit down to a table full of side dishes after a long time and had a hearty, satisfying meal :)