Daegu Korean BBQ with cheese scallops and pork belly: Sangnok Hoegwan

A Goseong-dong favorite, Sangnok Hoegwan Yeontan Gui — charcoal-grilled pork belly and cheese scallops with my daughter

On days this hot you kind of want meat, but really heavy, greasy meat feels like too much, right? So this time I went for dinner at Sangnok Hoegwan Yeontan Gui Goseong Branch, where you can enjoy seafood and meat together. It's about 200m from Bukguchung Station, in the Goseong-dong food alley. It happened to be near home, so I went with my college-age daughter, arriving around 7pm.

What kind of place is Sangnok Hoegwan Yeontan Gui Goseong Branch? Location and hours

Sangnok Hoegwan Yeontan Gui Goseong Branch is a charcoal-grill barbecue restaurant at 39 Goseongbuk-ro, Buk-gu, Daegu, South Korea, 229m from Exit 4 of Bukguchung Station in the Goseong-dong food alley. It's open daily from 5pm to midnight. Sangnok Hoegwan grills meat and seafood together over charcoal on a wire mesh grill. Besides meat menus like pork belly, pork shoulder, and pork neck, you can also enjoy seafood like scallops and abalone.

Where to park in the Goseong-dong food alley

Since I live nearby, here's a parking tip: given the nature of the Goseong-dong food alley, parking may not be plentiful in the evening hours. I'd recommend looking for an open spot in the alley near the restaurant, or using the public/paid parking lots near DGB Daegu Bank Park (the citizens' stadium), a comfortable walk away.

What two people ordered at Sangnok Hoegwan

Sangnok Hoegwan grills meat and seafood together over charcoal on a wire mesh grill. Besides meat menus like pork belly, pork shoulder, and pork neck, you can also enjoy seafood like scallops and abalone. What we ordered that day: cheese scallops + pork belly (2 servings) + pork neck/pork shoulder (1 serving) + cold noodles + doenjang stew + rice. Quite a hearty order for two. But once we started eating, the variety made it fun to try a bit of everything.

A live seafood tank in the middle of the restaurant?

Inside the tank were scallops and various seafood. Ooh~~ these are so fresh. When you order scallops, they're scooped out on the spot, prepped, then topped with cheese and sauce.

Look... just look at the amount of cheese. Later there was so much cheese it overflowed while grilling, total chaos haha. Watching the fresh scallops grilled right in front of us made it a feast for the eyes and doubled the flavor.

Briquette-grill magic: lean pork belly and hangjeong-mok pork neck

We ordered pork belly (2 servings) and pork neck (1 serving). Meat really does taste best grilled over charcoal.

The meat is genuinely thick. It took a bit longer to grill because of that, but when you place the thick pork belly and pork neck on the wire mesh, the distinctive charcoal aroma gets subtly infused as it browns golden — just watching made my mouth water.

I have no idea where they source this meat from... haha. Being this thick, it felt super fresh and good. And meat grilled over charcoal is just unconditionally delicious, I think.

Slowly cooked over the charcoal, the juiciness and texture were incredible! With the distinctive charcoal smokiness layered on and the fat rendered out, the meat was so clean and tasty — the pork belly's own savory flavor came through much more intensely.

I was surprised by how clean and savory the pork neck was in the mouth. Places I'd been to before had a chewy, dry texture, but here the pork neck and shoulder flavors combine into something soft and clean yet bursting with juice. And there's something you absolutely have to grill alongside the meat — the mushrooms, bean sprouts, and kimchi served on a foil plate.

King oyster mushrooms stamped with the restaurant's name, along with bean sprouts and kimchi, sizzling away on a foil plate over the charcoal — eating them with the meat picks up a hint of oil and smoke flavor, and it's really delicious.

Topping a piece of meat with grilled kimchi and grilled bean sprouts together made for such good texture that my chopsticks kept reaching back. And you can't skip the radish salad (muchae) that comes as a basic side.

Sweet, cool, with a nice crisp texture — I kept picking at it between bites, and it refreshed my palate every time.

Cheese scallops grilled right beside the pork

One of the menu items I was most looking forward to that day was the cheese scallops. Meat alone felt like it wouldn't be enough, so we added cheese scallops!

There was a self-serve bar in the middle of the restaurant where you could easily grab more side dishes or vegetables, and right next to it was the tank. Inside the tank were the scallops. Seeing fresh scallops right in front of us made them taste even better. Grilled shellfish over charcoal is just so good!

After ordering, the scallops came topped with cheese and a sweet-and-tangy sauce — and the amount of cheese was insane. The sight of savory cheese melting over the scallops on the charcoal grill is truly the best! The chewy, clean taste of the scallop combined with the savoriness of the cheese and the spiciness of minced chili made it great to switch to every once in a while between bites of meat.

Eating meat nonstop can get a little heavy, but grilling scallops alongside it balanced the meal really well. Being able to enjoy meat and seafood together made me even happier than my daughter, honestly.

Finishing with mul-naengmyeon, doenjang stew and marshmallows

Of course, the meal has to finish with cool mul-naengmyeon (cold noodles) and rice-thief doenjang stew (soybean paste stew). One cool bite of the noodles cleaned up my palate and made me glad I'd decided to eat meat despite the hot weather. The noodles had plenty of toppings and a generous amount of broth, though I wished there'd been some shaved ice in it too. Finishing with a rich doenjang stew and rice made for a solid, satisfying dinner!

And here's something fun — marshmallows were also on hand, ready to be skewered and grilled. Once we finished the meat and there was still charcoal left, we lightly grilled some marshmallows — golden and chewy on the outside, soft and gooey inside, the perfect sweet dessert to finish off the meal.

Who should eat at Sangnok Hoegwan in Goseong-dong?

Being close to home made it an easy, comfortable trip, and above all, being able to eat charcoal-grilled meat together with fresh seafood gave it a different kind of appeal from a typical Korean BBQ restaurant. Meat grilled over charcoal really is hard to get wrong. I'd especially recommend ordering the pork belly along with the excellent-value cheese scallops.

For anyone who wants to enjoy good-quality meat and fresh seafood together at a great price, I'd strongly recommend this Goseong-dong favorite.

Catching up with my daughter over grilled meat, then scallops, and finishing with grilled marshmallows made for a small but genuinely joyful evening. Grilling meat in hot weather can feel like a lot, but if you're craving meat and want to enjoy it grilled clean over charcoal alongside seafood, right in front of a cool tank of fresh shellfish, I recommend Sangnok Hoegwan Yeontan Gui Goseong Branch. I'm definitely going back.