Seocho Korean restaurant for wine corkage and Duroc pork

A pot-lid Duroc pork restaurant near Gyodae Station

Today, I’ve brought along a great pork belly spot near Gyodae Station. It’s clean, and they grill the meat beautifully for you, so I highly recommend it for company dinners.

• Address: Sodangkkae O-gyeopjip Gyodae Main Branch, 2F, 84-3 Seocho-daero 50-gil, Seocho-gu, Seoul, South Korea (서울특별시 서초구 서초대로50길 84-3 2층 소당깨오겹집)
• Hours: 11:00–23:00 / break time 15:00–17:00 / last order 22:00
• Weekends open at 12:00
• Parking: 2 spaces in front and 3 behind the building; use public parking if full

Sodangkkae O-gyeopjip Gyodae Main Branch is five minutes from Exit 14 of Gyodae Station. It’s on the second floor, and this whole alley felt like a pork belly alley. A pot lid is drawn on the sign, fitting its rather rare pot-lid pork belly style these days. “Sodangkkae” is apparently a dialect word for a pot lid.

The banchan set out after our reservation

We booked through Naver and arrived with the table already set. There was macaroni salad that looked freshly dressed, crisp ssam vegetables for wrapping, and the star of the show: green-onion kimchi. Seriously, you need to eat that green-onion kimchi two or three times.

Each individual plate came with salt, ssamjang (seasoned soybean dipping paste), and pickled chili peppers. The peppers were pleasantly tangy and balanced the richness that the meat could otherwise have had.

I heard that every ingredient except the chili powder is Korean-grown or domestically sourced. The pork is Duroc, one of the three major pork breeds alongside Spain’s Iberico and Hungary’s Mangalica. In particular, Sodangkkae serves chilled—not frozen—Duroc pork.

The Sodangkkae assorted set and crab doenjang-jjigae

We ordered the Sodangkkae assorted set, which includes an assorted meat platter, yukhoe (Korean beef tartare), and stew, and chose crab doenjang-jjigae (soybean-paste stew). My friend and I had a deep discussion over that choice. But as a lover of doenjang sulbap, rice in soybean-paste soup, I simply couldn’t resist.

The mixed vegetables are free once, with an added charge from the second serving onward. They give you bracken fern, minari water parsley, bean sprouts, enoki mushrooms, shishito peppers, and king oyster mushrooms, and wow, they went insanely well with the meat. The cooked shishito peppers were unexpectedly sweet and delicious.

A company-dinner table where staff handle all the grilling

The veteran staff take care of grilling everything, so you don’t have to lift a finger—just trust them and relax with your group. That’s why it works so well for company dinners: the meat comes out perfectly, one piece after another, and the restaurant itself is nice and tidy.

Free corkage for one bottle of wine

I heard corkage was free for one bottle, so we brought a bottle of wine too. From the second bottle onward, it’s ₩30,000 per bottle. That excludes alcohol sold by the restaurant. They have other drinks too, but this felt just right for wine.

Can you see that gorgeous color?? The staff carefully grilled the bright pink meat, and I couldn’t help admiring it every time they flipped it.

Those shishito peppers I said were delicious! Honestly, it was a little disappointing that extra vegetables cost money. Still, the staff service and meat quality were so good that if I needed a company-dinner place next time, I think I’d come back to Sodangkkae O-gyeopjip.

Rich crab doenjang-jjigae and how to eat the yukhoe

After a wait, the doenjang-jjigae arrived. It was a deliciously rich stew, generously packed with vegetables and plump tofu. Eating it made me think they season things boldly here, so I got curious about the kimchi stew too. Have it with rice whose gentle sweetness comes through, and you can keep eating forever.

Then the yukhoe came out, and the yukhoe here was seriously, seriously good. The meat is great, sure, but the yukhoe is the yukhoe too hahaha.

This is how I tried the yukhoe

• Try the raw yukhoe on its own first.
• Try it with egg on top.
• Try raw yukhoe with Korean pear.
• Try the egg-topped yukhoe with Korean pear.

Start by trying it like this, then eat it in whichever style you like best. It was chewy yet tender, and so fresh that the meat had a nutty flavor. I really recommend that anyone visiting tries the yukhoe.

This is a great restaurant for anyone looking for a delicious, clean date spot in Gyodae, or for the junior employee tasked with picking a company-dinner venue.