Yeonnam-dong Chinese restaurant for second-round drinks: Seodamheon

Seodamheon near Hongik University Station, a Yeonnam-dong bar spot for round two

After drinking makgeolli for round one in Hongdae, Seoul, I wanted something simple for round two, so I headed to Seodamheon, a well-known spot near Hongik University Station.

Seodamheon sits in a quiet alley in Yeonnam-dong, so seeing the building's exterior made me think, 'wait, a restaurant like this is here?' Since it serves Korean-style Chinese food, the outside is done up like a tile-roofed hanok.

Inside Seodamheon, the Yeonnam-dong bar spot, and its seating

Step inside and it barely feels like a Chinese restaurant — it's decorated more like a regular Korean restaurant. Rather than the usual rough-and-ready Chinese restaurant look, being able to eat Korean-style Chinese food in such a modern, Korean-restaurant-like space felt like a real plus.

At Seodamheon, this Hongdae Yeonnam-dong bar spot, I saw tables ranging from solo seats to two-person and four-person tables. Even though I visited around 2pm, after lunch hour, foreign visitors were still coming in for Korean-style Chinese food.

What we ordered at Seodamheon and the prices

• Mokhwasom tangsuyuk (sweet and sour pork) ₩15,000
• Mapo tofu ₩10,000
• Alcohol ₩5,000

The basics

It's a Korean-style Chinese restaurant, but since the main focus is Chinese food, they served pickled radish and jjasai (pickled mustard greens) as the basic side dishes.

Mokhwasom tangsuyuk, ₩15,000 — a lean, meat-only pairing for somaek

Since I'd already eaten a full meal during round one, I needed something at this Hongdae spot and Yeonnam-dong bar that wasn't heavy and wouldn't fill me up too much.

I ordered mokhwasom tangsuyuk as something to go with somaek at Seodamheon. At ₩15,000, the price and portion weren't a burden even split between two people, which made it feel even better as a drinking snack.

Visually, it's deep-fried pork shaped into round balls like cotton bolls, topped with wood ear mushroom, scallion, and sauce. When it was served, the tanginess of the sauce stood out right away.

Tangsuyuk sauce flavor varies from restaurant to restaurant and tends to be divisive, but Seodamheon's is slightly sour, and that sourness cuts through the greasiness of the fried pork nicely, balancing everything out.

One thing I really liked was that unlike the fattier sirloin-based tangsuyuk, mokhwasom tangsuyuk uses pure lean meat, which made it a better drinking snack for me personally.

Since I'm not a fan of the mushy texture of fat, Seodamheon's mokhwasom tangsuyuk paired really well with a glass of somaek.

Mapo tofu: with rice or without?

Next we ordered mapo tofu. The mapo tofu menu comes with two options — with rice included or without —

the price difference is just ₩1,000, so if you're there for a full meal, go with the rice-included option; if you're just having a light drinking snack like we were, the no-rice option works fine.

I ordered thinking the mapo tofu at Seodamheon, this Yeonnam-dong bar, would be like the mapo tofu served in school cafeterias, so I was a little caught off guard when it turned out to be actual Chinese-style mapo tofu.

The mapo tofu is loaded with ground meat, chili oil, and scallion, with a subtle aroma of Chinese spices — it smelled like mala, but not in an unfamiliar way.

The taste was completely different from the cafeteria-style mapo tofu I knew — this, I thought, is what real Chinese-style mapo tofu tastes like.

According to my partner, who thoroughly enjoyed it, the Chinese-style aroma felt slightly off-putting at first, but after a few bites you get used to it and the sauce turns out to be really delicious.

Also, if you want to eat it even more Chinese-style, you can drizzle on the mala oil sitting on the table for a spicier, more numbing kick — my partner said that way of eating it was delicious too.

How was Seodamheon as a round-two drinking spot?

So that was round two at Seodamheon, the well-known spot near Hongik University Station and Yeonnam-dong bar, with mokhwasom tangsuyuk and mapo tofu alongside somaek. I expected Korean-style Chinese food to be heavy, but ordering just these simple dishes turned out to be more than enough as a drinking snack — and that was a nice surprise.