Noodle restaurant in Yongin with spicy fresh noodles: Chilseong Jemyeonso

A noodle restaurant near Seongbok Station with free parking

Thinking back to my school days, I feel like my friends and I were always hunting down restaurants that were cheap, generous, and delicious. If I were a student again and someone asked where I wanted to go, I think I’d say Chilseong Jemyeonso in Seongbok-dong, Suji without hesitation, haha. Maybe students these days feel the same way—I once visited around the time school let out and was surprised to see so many groups in uniforms sitting together.

Chilseong Jemyeonso (칠성제면소) is on the first floor of Seohui Starhills in Seongbok-dong, Suji. You can walk from Seongbok Station, but I usually drive. The parking lot is fairly spacious and free, so there really isn’t much reason for me to walk.

It is on an elevated first floor, so once you get there, the openness is really nice. There is a stream out front too, which makes it feel a little like you have gone away on a trip.

I did not realize it, but Chilseong Jemyeonso apparently has 33 noodle dishes in total. As befits a noodle house, they must make the noodles themselves—honestly, all I can say is that the owner is amazing, haha.

A spacious, neat setting for dates and family meals

The restaurant is quite spacious and clean. Some great-value restaurants can feel a little dated, but this place is stylish and tidy enough to have the atmosphere of a Korean set-meal restaurant.

There are lots of tables and plenty of room, so it is also a nice place for a date or a group gathering.

Even though I came late in the evening, quite a few people were already eating. Since it is clearly a great-value local favorite, it looked like neighborhood residents in casual clothes had come with their children.

Children’s tableware, small sharing plates, and more are set out for guests to take and use conveniently.

33 noodle dishes and seasonal menu items

As I mentioned earlier, Chilseong Jemyeonso has so many menu items that it takes quite a while just to choose after sitting down, haha.

Perhaps because it is summer, seasonal items such as chogye guksu (cold chicken broth noodles) and yeolmu chilled jjolmyeon are newly available. They also have handmade soy-milk noodles, so I do not think I need to travel far to eat them.

The set meals include pork cutlet with each main dish. At around ₩15,500, they are a good-value way to enjoy a set menu.

Rice dishes include meat soboro bibimbap, charcoal-grilled beef belly bibimbap, and gukbap (rice soup). For noodles, they seem to have nearly every kind you could want: kalguksu, fresh noodle soup, udon, buckwheat noodles, and more. At ₩8,500, the fresh noodle soup especially felt like unbeatable value.

There are also lots of Korean snack foods such as dumplings and fried items, plus a children’s menu, so it is a nice affordable option when visiting with an elementary-school child.

• Chilseong yeolmu bibimbap: ₩12,500
• Chilseong chilled jjolmyeon: ₩10,000
• Nostalgic rice-cake skewer: ₩3,000
• Vegetable-seasoned flat dumplings: ₩8,000
• Cauldron fresh noodle soup: ₩8,500

From yeolmu bibimbap to fresh noodle soup: what we ordered

For a rice dish, we ordered the refreshing yeolmu bibimbap.

It was full of vegetables including yeolmu kimchi (young radish kimchi), cucumber, carrot, and cabbage, making it a very satisfying meal. The sauce was not overly spicy either, so I thought it would be good for children too.

My favorite: cauldron fresh noodle soup

This was the fresh noodle soup, my favorite menu item.

There was a lot of noodles for the price, and because they are made in-house, you should eat them quickly after they arrive so they do not get soggy. The noodles were chewy and soft, clearly different from the kind you normally buy. And the broth was so pleasantly spicy and refreshing that I thought this would absolutely be what I ate to recover after drinking.

Chilseong chilled jjolmyeon, which I tried for the first time

It was my first time trying chilled jjolmyeon, and it was such a quietly special dish.

With kimchi and sauce inside, it was like mul-bibim guksu (cold noodles in a spicy broth), but fresher, less spicy, and less salty, which suited my taste much better. I thought the cold noodles might feel tough, but they were actually softer and even more chewy—I almost wondered whether this was really jjolmyeon, haha.

The broth was not too intense, so it was easy to keep sipping.

Vegetable-seasoned flat dumplings and nostalgic rice-cake skewers

These nostalgic vegetable-seasoned flat dumplings are so delicious every time that just looking at them makes my mouth water, haha.

There was a generous amount of flat, crisply fried dumplings and spicy, tangy seasoned vegetables, and the two went together so well.

You just put a suitable amount of vegetables onto a dumpling and eat it in one bite—the flavor is excellent.

These are the rice-cake skewers my husband loves so much. Even though I said we were full and should not eat more, he insisted that we had to order them, haha. But they really are that good, and they bring back old memories, making them one of those things you have to eat whenever you come.

A satisfying Seongbok-dong meal for both flavor and portion size

This was Chilseong Jemyeonso, a Seongbok-dong, Suji favorite with incredible value and nothing lacking in flavor or portion size! If I was satisfied enough to want to keep it to myself, that says it all, right? But places like this are always popular local favorites that everyone knows about, haha. It is well known among nearby students and neighborhood residents alike, and I hear there can be quite a wait at busy times.