Hwaseong squid restaurant with leftover-sauce fried rice: Haetan

Looking for a place for a family meal or a get-together in Jinan-dong, I visited Haetan Hwaseong Byeongjeom, a restaurant specializing in squid dishes.

This place has been featured on several TV shows including Live Today and Tasty Guys. I ordered hot, hot-plate squid together with tangy squid vinegar salad and ate a hearty meal.

Where is Haetan Hwaseong Byeongjeom, and where do you park?

Haetan Hwaseong Byeongjeom is on the second floor of a building right on Hyohaeng-ro. A large sign on the front of the building made it easy to spot from the surrounding area.

After checking the Haetan sign at the first-floor entrance, you just follow the stairs up inside.

The store's door displays the address, 1024 Hyohaeng-ro, so I could double-check I had the right spot. If you're driving, you can park at Jinan public parking lot and cross the street. It's free for the first 1.5 hours, then ₩400 per 10 minutes after that. That should ease the parking burden even when a group splits up across several cars for a dinner or gathering.

A squid specialist that makes a point of its ingredients

Walking into the restaurant, a photo of the hot-plate squid stir-fry and a sign emphasizing good ingredients and care caught my eye first.

Haetan says it uses 100% deep-sea squid and doesn't use giant squid at all. A sign explained that the squid, vegetables, and meat are all sourced from verified suppliers.

On one side of the restaurant hung a sign introducing a collaboration between Haetan and chef Bae Yeo-hwan, a former Blue House presidential chef. It explained that dishes and sauces personally researched and developed by chef Bae give Haetan its distinctive flavor and refined food.

The place has been featured on various broadcasts and channels including Live Today and Tasty Guys, and apparently draws around 100,000 visitors a year, with squid sales passing 300 tons — which gave a real sense of the restaurant's confidence in its squid dishes.

Inside Haetan: a wide, tidy dining room

Inside, tables were generously arranged along the windows. The overall feel was bright and clean, a comfortable place to eat even during the day.

There were plenty of seats and the aisles between tables felt relatively roomy. It suited a family meal or a small gathering, but it also worked well as a spot for a Jinan-dong group dinner with several people. Each table has a burner built in for the hot plate.

Haetan's menu board and lunch special prices

The main menu includes hot-plate squid, hot-plate pork, fire-cheese hot-plate squid, hot-plate squid-and-pork combo, and flower pork belly bossam (boiled pork wraps), among others. Hot-plate squid is ₩13,000 per person, with a minimum order for two.

There were also plenty of side dishes good for a meal or as drinking snacks at a get-together, like squid vinegar salad, boiled squid, squid with aged kimchi, and whelk-mixed kalguksu (knife-cut noodles).

From 11am to 2pm, lunch specials are available too. Lunch-special hot-plate squid is ₩12,000 per person, hot-plate pork is ₩11,000. There's also fire-cheese hot-plate squid, the hot-plate squid-and-pork combo, clam kalguksu, squid hangover soup, and squid naengmyeon (cold noodles). During lunch hours, rice refills are unlimited too, good for a filling meal.

* Menu items and prices are as of the time of the visit.

What we ordered at Haetan that day

I used the kiosk to order mild-spice hot-plate squid for two, one order of squid vinegar salad, and one pear juice.

Hot-plate squid is ₩13,000 per person, so I ordered two servings. I picked the mild spice level to keep it easy to eat.

There was also a Naver receipt review event running. If you write a receipt review, you can get either a fried squid dumpling or a drink — worth noting.

Self-serve bar and unlimited lunchtime rice refills

On one side of the restaurant there's a station with water, small plates, and whatever tableware you need.

If the basic side dishes run low, you can go back to the self-serve bar and take as much as you need. It's better to take a little at a time rather than piling your plate high from the start.

The self-serve bar signage was easy to spot too. Notably, rice is unlimited from 11am to 2pm. It's a welcome touch for anyone wanting a hearty lunch, since the rich sauce on the hot-plate squid pairs well with rice.

Tangy, crisp squid vinegar salad

First, the squid vinegar salad arrived, piled generously on a wide woven tray. Squid, minari (water celery), and various vegetables were evenly coated in red sauce, with plenty of sesame seeds sprinkled on top for good measure — it looked appetizing.

It wasn't a salad loaded mostly with vegetables — squid appeared generously throughout too. The squid wasn't overly chewy but had a nicely springy texture. Eating it together with the crunchy vegetables made for even better bite.

Mixing it evenly with chopsticks showed the sauce had reached all the way down. A tangy flavor came first, followed by a gentle spiciness, which was a good way to whet the appetite before the hot-plate squid.

I tried piling squid and vegetables onto a perilla leaf and eating it as a wrap. The fresh taste of the perilla leaf softened the vinegar sauce, and the squid's characteristic chewy texture came through even more.

Eating the squid together with plenty of minari and vegetables was far better than eating the squid alone. Between the crunchy vegetables and picking up squid and vegetables together, each ingredient offered a different texture. It worked well as a meal item, but also as a shared appetizer at a group dinner.

Hot-plate squid arrives sizzling on a stone plate

Soon, the day's main dish, hot-plate squid for two, arrived. On the wide stone plate sat squid, rice cakes, onion, green onion, and a generous helping of other vegetables. Chives and sesame seeds on top complemented the red sauce's color nicely.

The sauce bubbling away on the hot plate looked delicious just to watch. Unlike squid stir-fry served on a regular plate, the heat stayed the whole meal, which I liked — it stayed warm right down to the last bite.

With the squid vinegar salad and the hot-plate squid side by side, the table looked quite full. The vinegar salad was tangy and crunchy while the hot-plate squid was warm and rich, each with its own appeal, good to eat in turns.

The basic side dishes were also a good match for the hot-plate squid. When the sauce started tasting rich, the plain side dishes helped reset the palate.

The hot-plate squid had generous amounts of rice cake and vegetables along with the squid. Since I ordered mild spice, it wasn't overly hot, and I could enjoy the sweet-and-spicy sauce without any worry.

The squid was richly coated in sauce, but it didn't taste overly salty. Eating it hot brought out the squid's springy texture and the sauce flavor even more. The stir-fried vegetables were soft but still had a bit of crunch left. The vegetables were well coated in sauce too, good to pick up together with the squid. There was fun in picking through the squid, rice cake, and vegetables. The sauce left at the bottom of the hot plate got even richer as time went on, and paired especially well with rice.

Eating the squid with lunchtime rice

From 11am to 2pm, rice refills are unlimited. You just scoop as much as you want from the rice cooker set up at the self-serve bar.

I scooped warm rice into a bowl and ate it with the hot-plate squid. Since the sauce is so generous, plain white rice paired well with it.

Hot-plate squid spooned over rice

I piled squid, rice cake, and stir-fried vegetables generously on top of the rice. The sweet-and-spicy sauce mixed in with the rice, and I could enjoy a whole bowl deliciously without any extra side dishes.

The chewy squid, soft rice cake, and tender vegetables all together in one bite made for a fairly filling mouthful.

Lightly mixing the rice with the hot-plate squid was tasty too. Even at mild spice, the sauce had enough flavor that the seasoning was just right once mixed with the rice.

Fried rice with perilla leaves, lettuce and bean sprouts

After eating a good amount of the hot-plate squid, I put rice into the leftover sauce and made my own fried rice. No separate fried rice ingredients were served — I brought perilla leaves and lettuce from the self-serve bar. I also scooped bean sprouts out of the bean sprout soup that came with the meal and stir-fried them together with the rice.

I added rice, perilla leaves, lettuce, and bean sprouts onto the leftover sauce. It was fun adding whatever ingredients I wanted, like making fried rice at home with whatever's in the fridge.

I mixed together the leftover sauce, rice, and vegetables on the hot plate. The perilla leaf aroma blended well with the squid stir-fry sauce.

I mixed slowly so the sauce would soak evenly into the rice. The bean sprouts added crunch, while the lettuce and perilla leaves softened the rich sauce flavor a bit.

After mixing the sauce and vegetables evenly, I spread it out across the whole hot plate to cook a bit more.

The finished fried rice had leftover squid and rice cake mixed in throughout. With the fragrance of perilla leaf and the crunch of bean sprouts added, it felt much richer than if I'd just stirred in plain rice.

Pressing the fried rice lightly against the bottom of the hot plate let me taste both the softly stir-fried parts and the nutty, slightly crisped parts.

Taking a big spoonful brought up squid, rice cake, and vegetables all together. Even though this fried rice was made after finishing the main dish, it was filling enough to be its own separate meal.

Between bites, I also had some warm, nutty sungnyung (scorched rice tea). Its savory, mild flavor gently settled the spicy hot-plate squid sauce.

Stirring it slowly with a spoon revealed plenty of softly dissolved rice grains, a comforting way to settle the stomach at the end of the meal.

From the squid vinegar salad to the hot-plate squid to the fried rice at the end, I finished almost everything. The portions were generous, but with each dish offering a different flavor and texture, I never got tired of it right up to the last bite.

Free ice cream to finish the meal

Near the register there was also an ice cream freezer. After the spicy squid dishes, finishing with cool ice cream left my mouth feeling refreshed.

Is Haetan Hwaseong Byeongjeom worth a visit?

The squid vinegar salad was a good combination of tangy sauce, crunchy vegetables, and chewy squid. Thanks to the hot stone plate, the hot-plate squid stayed warm right to the end, and with generous rice cake and vegetables it went well with rice too.

The fried rice I made myself with the leftover sauce — adding perilla leaves and lettuce from the self-serve bar, plus bean sprouts scooped out of the soup — was memorable too. Rice refills are unlimited from 11am to 2pm, which is a plus for anyone wanting a filling lunch.

The restaurant is spacious with roomy gaps between tables, making it suitable for a family meal as well as a group dinner with coworkers. If you're looking for a Jinan-dong group dinner spot or a place in Byeongjeom for a hearty squid meal, Haetan Hwaseong Byeongjeom is worth a visit.