Nowon gamjatang restaurant for a summer date: Somunnan Gamjatang

These days the evenings are so hot and muggy that you start sweating just standing still, right? Everyone's worn out by this steamy heat day and night, and yet, funnily enough, all I could think about was a hot, spicy soup. So I headed to a Nowon gamjatang place already famous around the neighborhood: Somunnan Gamjatang Sanggye Branch (소문난감자탕 상계직영2호점)!

Is Somunnan Gamjatang Sanggye Branch easy to find?

It's a short walk from the station, and the big sign makes it easy to spot from far away. My boyfriend and I walked over hand in hand, and the exterior looked really clean when we arrived.

What we ordered and the price

• Small gamjatang (감자탕 소자): ₩36,000

A cool dining room in midsummer, and how was the owner?

The air conditioning was blasting, so the second we stepped in, the suffocating heat outside just vanished! And what stuck with me most was how incredibly kind the owner was!

There's also a phone charging zone on one side.

How clean is the self-bar?

The area around the self-bar was kept so spotless there wasn't a single drop of broth around it. Every side-dish container had its lid properly on, and the overall hygiene was perfect.

The soul of a gamjatang place: how are the kimchi and kkakdugi?

Once we ordered, the owner quickly set out the basic side dishes, cabbage kimchi and kkakdugi (cubed radish kimchi). It's no exaggeration to say a gamjatang place lives or dies by its kimchi and kkakdugi! The cabbage kimchi was spicy-sweet with a lovely fresh geotjeori feel, and the kkakdugi was crunchy and well fermented. Before the main dish arrived I picked up a piece of cabbage kimchi with my chopsticks, and the crisp, cool savoriness really woke up my appetite.

Portion and look of the small gamjatang

The small gamjatang comes in a big shallow pot with bones piled up like a mountain. When the star of the evening finally landed on our table, my boyfriend and I both gasped with our mouths hanging open and eyes wide.

Big bones were stacked layer upon layer in the pot, topped with fragrant perilla leaves, enoki mushrooms and a generous sprinkle of nutty perilla seed powder. It looked overwhelming even before the burner was lit, and my mouth was already watering.

How tender is the meat on the bones?

A single bone was big enough to overfill my small plate, with loads of solid meat on it. It was stewed so well that the meat slid right off along the grain with the lightest touch of my chopsticks. Not dry or tough at all, just so tender and juicy. The title of Nowon gamjatang hotspot is well deserved.

The fun of tearing hand-kneaded sujebi into the pot

Here they bring out chewy fresh flour dough, kneaded by hand and rested in the fridge, in one plump lump!

You put on the disposable plastic gloves they give you, tear the dough into thin pieces by hand and plop them into the bubbling broth. I was a little flustered at first, worried it would stick to my hands, but once we tried it, it turned out to be so much fun as a date activity too?! The sujebi came out in wonky, uneven shapes, but since we tore them in ourselves rather than getting store-bought ones, it felt extra special, like we were really cooking. So fun.

Overall: a midsummer gamjatang date in Nowon

On a hot summer day, we got a proper fight-heat-with-heat health boost in the cool, comfortable dining room of Somunnan Gamjatang Sanggye Branch without breaking a sweat! An angel of an owner, a clean self-bar, a mountain of meat and rich broth won me over, so it's a truly great restaurant. Tearing in the sujebi with my boyfriend made it a perfect date. If you're looking for a Nowon gamjatang place to blow off after-work stress, I strongly recommend this sure bet!