Wonju Korean BBQ lunch: aged 'whole cow' beef platter at Hanmaeum

Lunch meat date with a former student at Hanmaeum Jeongyuk Sikdang, Wonju Enterprise City

I got word out of the blue that a student of mine who went off to college two years ago wanted to come visit. He was a kid who studied with Auntie Oki from fifth grade all the way through senior year of high school. He's a total meat fiend, so I went looking for somewhere he could eat well and ran straight to Hanmaeum Jeongyuk Sikdang in the Enterprise City.

Since we were meeting right at lunchtime and heading straight there to eat, I booked an 11:30 reservation and rushed over.

This is the entrance to Hanmaeum Jeongyuk Sikdang in the Enterprise City. The place is massive, first of all.

The meat models right at the entrance already looked so good haha. My student even reached out and touched them.

The butcher's fridge with the meat all neatly displayed.

Kids' zone and kids' chairs — a place that's great with children

Hanmaeum Jeongyuk Sikdang Wonju Enterprise City Branch has extra banchan ready for refills, and kids' chairs are provided too.

Proving it really is a family-friendly place, there's a kids' zone where children can play on their own.

The interior is quite spacious, and this indoor play area looked like a great spot for kids to run around.

A full table of banchan already set out from the reservation

Since I'd booked by phone, the table was already set when we arrived. The doenjang jjigae (soybean paste stew) just needed the burner turned on to start boiling. All the neat little side dishes were delicious.

We slurped down both the potato salad and the cheongpomuk (mung bean jelly) happily.

Ordering the aged beef one-cow set: from woo-samgyeop to galbisal

The menu seemed to have just about everything you could want when it comes to meat. We went back and forth on pork versus beef. My student likes beef more, so we ordered beef this time. Next time I'll try the pork too.

Auntie Oki ordered the aged beef one-cow set. It looked appetizing just from how it was plated.

Once we started grilling we were too busy eating to take many photos. We started with the woo-samgyeop (beef belly) and devoured it happily.

Next we grilled the galbisal (rib finger meat). Meat is all about the flow — keep grilling so the rhythm doesn't break!

Can you see that pretty, fluffy gyeranjjim (steamed egg) puffed up like that?

Meat needs onions, right? The pickled onions cleaned up our palate perfectly. The best!

Honestly, the two of us aren't great at grilling and burned a bit along the way, but the meat was still so tasty. It was great eaten together with the baechu geotjeori (fresh cabbage kimchi) side dish too.

Included jjolmyeon and finishing mul-naengmyeon, plus dessert ice cream

This is the jjolmyeon with scallions that Auntie Oki, a jjolmyeon lover, ate entirely by herself.

Still, the real finish to a meat meal is naengmyeon. Since we'd already tasted the included jjolmyeon as a side, we ordered mul-naengmyeon (cold noodle soup) to finish. It was delicious even with just vinegar and mustard added, and I drank down the broth to the last drop.

On the way out we had a satisfying dessert of ice cream and coffee too.

Is the aged beef one-cow portion enough for two?

The aged beef one-cow set had a more tender, deeper flavor thanks to the aging. Both Auntie Oki and my student are huge meat lovers, and looking at the picture on the menu we worried it might not be enough — but we were completely wrong. The aged beef one-cow set looked like it would be plenty even for three adults.

I'd been holding back on eating because of a diet, but I finally caved in front of the meat. The meat was great, but the banchan and naengmyeon were all so good too that we ate everything, and in the end we couldn't even think about dinner.

My diet was a total failure since I ate until I was stuffed, but it was a wonderful time catching up, laughing, and chatting with my former student over a shared meal after so long. And getting to spend that happy, precious time together over great meat made it even better.

The place was easy to find and parking was very convenient too. If you want to share meat and make happy memories, I highly recommend Hanmaeum Jeongyuk Sikdang Enterprise City Branch.

• Location: 211, Sinjijeong-ro, Jijeong-myeon, Wonju-si, Gangwon-do, South Korea, units 201–205
• Hours: Mon–Sun 11:30–22:00