Seongnam Korean restaurant for soy shrimp butter rice: Morang

I often head over to Jeongja-dong in Bundang because I have friends there and there are so many good places to eat. Today, I’m sharing Morang Haemul Sotbap Jungja Station branch (모랑해물솥밥 정자역점), a Jeongja-dong restaurant where we enjoyed an excellent sotbap (rice cooked in an individual pot) lunch in an elegant atmosphere.

Finding Morang Haemul Sotbap Jungja Station branch

It is just 236 m from Jungja Station, but it is on the second floor of the Prugio 2 shopping arcade, so you cannot see the name from the main road. Take the escalator up and the MORANG sign comes into view. Parking is spacious and free for a whopping three hours, so dinner can be enjoyed at leisure.

Looking at the hours, only Sunday closes at 3 PM; on all other days, both lunch and dinner are available.

If you look over the full menu board at the entrance and decide what to order in advance,

you can save the time it takes to cook the rice after ordering. Even the Morang Haemul Sotbap poster at the entrance gives off the feeling of a good restaurant. It speaks of “top-grade rice,” “rice milled within seven days,” and “15 minutes, the time rice becomes delicious”—all the care that goes into a warm meal.

A warm, private dining space

The instant I stepped inside, the refined yet warm atmosphere really came through. The spacing between tables and the lighting are excellent, too.

There are also private seats completely separated from neighboring tables. Individual spaces are available for groups of four to eight. It is also a relaxed restaurant for company dinners and other group gatherings of 10 or more in Jeongja-dong.

They have not overlooked the indoor waiting seats, either.

Three sotbap dishes chosen by our group of three

The sotbap dishes the three of us chose were seafood sotbap (₩15,000), soy-marinated shrimp butter rice (₩13,000), and octopus bulgogi sotbap (₩14,000).

This is the seafood sotbap, which seems to be the signature dish here. The piping-hot pot holds several kinds of seafood, including shrimp, while four side dishes and a sauce are neatly arranged on individual stands.

I took a spoonful of sotbap mixed well with the sauce, and it was truly delicious. It seems to be the result of freshly cooked rice milled within seven days, combined beautifully with the seafood and seasoning.

This is the octopus bulgogi sotbap. It is generously topped with nicely cooked bulgogi and red-seasoned octopus. We each had a spoonful of this well-mixed pot rice, too. Everyone said it was delicious and that we should come back next time.

Soy-marinated shrimp butter rice and scrape-up nurungji

This is the soy-marinated shrimp butter rice I chose. Five soy-marinated shrimp lie side by side. The fluffy, separate grains of rice contain butter and have an outstanding nutty flavor. The lightly browned nurungji (scorched rice crust) at the bottom of the pot adds a toasty, savory note, making it even tastier—and it is fun to scrape up, too.

I lifted up one shrimp steeped in sweet and salty soy sauce. I cut the shrimp, with sauce dripping from it, with scissors and ate it. The shrimp flesh is wonderfully firm, and it is the kind of thing that makes you finish all your rice. My companions each took one, said it was delicious, and even spooned up the sauce. The side menu also has five soy-marinated shrimp for ₩10,000, which is tempting, but each sotbap was so generously filling that we could not eat another thing.

Drinking dishes and makgeolli for the next gathering

It was lunch today, but I looked through the food-to-have-with-drinks and alcohol menus for next time. There are so many tempting drinking dishes, including yukjeon golbaengi (pan-fried beef slices and sea snails, ₩30,000), webfoot octopus and pork belly on a griddle (₩30,000), spicy seafood sundubu (soft tofu stew, ₩22,000), and mushroom bulgogi on a griddle (₩25,000).

Among the drinks, the special varieties of makgeolli (Korean rice wine) caught my eye. Jipyeong Makgeolli is easy to find at neighborhood markets, but there was also the quite famous Slow Village Baesangmyeon Brewery makgeolli, Jeju Udo Peanut Makgeolli that I had tried on Udo Island in Jeju, and plenty of varieties I had never heard of, such as Tiger Fresh Makgeolli, Boni Chestnut Makgeolli, and Baedari Makgeolli. They were reasonably priced, too, so next time I want to pick a night with friends and try every single one.

It seems they take hygiene seriously as well as creating a refined atmosphere.

Taking part in the review event is another little pleasure of a food outing, isn’t it?