Gangnam Korean restaurant for six fusion dishes: Moa Gangnam

I’m Mongsuri, back from living 5 years in Germany and 5 years in Italy—for 10 years total in Europe ✈️ I visited Moa Gangnam, the place near Gangnam Station everyone seems to be talking about lately 🤎 People kept coming in and there was even a wait, so I’d been curious! Above all, it’s Korean food, but the menu is quite unusual.

After living in Germany and Italy for 10 years, experiencing European food and dining culture for so long, and even working at an Italian restaurant, I get extra curious whenever I see combinations of Korean and Western food, haha. We decided to really dig in that day, so four of us ordered a whopping six dishes 😂

Moa Gangnam’s warm, atmospheric setting

Even the exterior felt like it could be on a little European street. The brick building, big windows, brown wood tones, and warm lighting made for a really lovely mood. Inside, too, the wood tables and chairs, vintage lights, and little decorations all felt warm overall 🤎 The window-side seats were especially pretty. Since you can eat while looking outside, I thought it would be nice for a date or a blind date, too.

When I actually visited at 5 p.m. on a Friday, quite a few people were already lined up before we went in. By the time we finished eating and left, there was a wait—it was buzzing!

So I recommend making a reservation ♡ Rather than a quiet fine-dining feel, it’s closer to a place where you can enjoy tasty food and have a good chat.

Six fusion Korean dishes ordered by four people

• Gondeure cream sujebi (hand-torn dough soup)
• Chamnamul chimichurri grilled pork jowl
• Chamnamul cockle rice bowl
• Korean beef yukhoe (seasoned raw beef) aged-kimchi wraps
• Vongole kalguksu (knife-cut noodles)
• Abalone butter mushroom sotbap (pot rice)

You can kind of tell just from the names, right? There are lots of fusion dishes that add Western cooking techniques to Korean ingredients.

What does gondeure cream sujebi taste like?

The gondeure cream sujebi was fun from the very first bite. Chewy sujebi came with a rich, smooth cream sauce, plus gondeure’s distinctive aroma. It definitely felt different from ordinary cream pasta! The herb’s fragrance gently rose through the thick, nutty cream—a dish somewhere between Korean and Western food 🤍

That thick cream sauce that really clings to your mouth—totally Mongsuri’s kind of thing ♡

The chamnamul chimichurri grilled pork jowl combination

Personally, this was one of the most interesting dishes! Bright-green chamnamul chimichurri sat on top of beautifully browned grilled pork jowl 🌿 As someone who lived in Italy for a long time, I found it quite intriguing that they paired chamnamul with the Western-style sauce chimichurri.

Chamnamul’s fresh fragrance worked better than expected with the rich, savory pork jowl. Recommended for meat lovers! 👍🏻

Chamnamul cockle rice bowl

This was totally the kind of dish that makes you keep eating rice, haha. Cockles, spicy seasoning, chamnamul, and vegetables came together, and eating it with gim (roasted seaweed) brought out the savory flavor beautifully.

Mix it all into the rice and it tastes familiar, yet the ingredient combination is fun. If I had to choose the most traditionally Korean dish out of the six, I’d pick this one! 🍚

Korean beef yukhoe aged-kimchi wraps

The Korean beef yukhoe aged-kimchi wraps were pretty from the start. You eat the bouncy, tender raw beef with aged kimchi, so the beef’s nutty richness gets a tangy lift from the kimchi. A combination that whets your appetite far more than eating yukhoe alone! I really thought, this would be perfect with drinks 🍷

Vongole kalguksu: fun because it isn’t traditional

And this was the dish Mongsuri was most curious about, haha. Vongole plus kalguksu! It’s different from the classic vongole pasta I ate in Italy, but the clean, savory flavor of clams with kalguksu noodles made it something else again.

Just because I lived in Europe for a long time doesn’t mean I insist on only the traditional version. 😎

I actually enjoy K-fusion food like this, mixing Korean noodles with a vongole style!

Finishing with abalone butter mushroom pot rice

For the finish, we had the hearty abalone butter mushroom pot rice. The nutty butter flavor with abalone and mushrooms made it something we kept reaching for even after several mains. Koreans always need rice at the end, haha. If you visit with several people, ordering one pot rice to share sounds like a great idea.

Trying Myeongjak bokbunja wine with cola

Something that quietly stayed in my memory that day was Myeongjak bokbunja wine. It was good on its own, but we mixed it with cola just for fun and… wait? It was much more delicious than expected, hahaha 🤣 Cola joined the sweet flavor distinctive to bokbunja, or Korean black raspberry, and it went down so easily like a soft drink that for a moment I thought, “Is this really alcohol…?” 😳

Of course, it is alcohol, so don’t let your guard down, haha. If you keep drinking because it tastes good, you could suddenly get tipsy 🍷😂

Things to know before visiting

Parking is unavailable, so if you are driving, it’s best to use the nearby Yeoksam Cultural Park No. 2 Public Parking Lot. It’s about 240 m from the restaurant, so it’s an easy walk! Group dining is available for up to 60 people, making it suitable for gatherings, and there are various seating options including couples’ seats, table seating, and bar tables.

Wine pairing and corkage are available, so keep that in mind if you enjoy drinks. 🐶 Sadly, pets are not allowed! Hours are daily from 11:00 to 22:00, with a break from 15:30 to 17:00 and last order at 21:00. Reservations are available too, so I recommend booking ahead if you’re worried about waiting! 🤎

Mongsuri’s final thoughts after 10 years in Europe

Rather than visiting Moa Gangnam expecting one strictly traditional Korean or Italian meal, it was a place that was fun to eat at while thinking, “So this is how they’ve interpreted Korean ingredients?”

Cream added to gondeure, chimichurri added to chamnamul, vongole reimagined as kalguksu, and abalone and butter brought together in pot rice. If you enjoy new food combinations like I do, you can have a lot of fun here!

Above all, it has a warm atmosphere and lots of people, so it seems like a great fit for a Gangnam Station date, blind date, or restaurant gathering. 🥰 I especially recommend going with a group like we did, ordering lots of dishes, and trying them one by one!