Yeongjong shabu-shabu with sweet chili rolls: Pyeonbaek Hoegwan

Hello hello everyone 😆 Chuseok is just around the corner. With the cool breeze picking up, I was craving hot shabu-shabu, so I went to Pyeonbaek Hoegwan, a well-known shabu-shabu spot on Yeongjong Island!

Right at the entrance there was a whole display of medicinal herbs! No wonder the cypress steam smelled so fragrant — it's because of these ingredients haha.

Pyeonbaek Hoegwan Main Branch: location, hours and parking

Pyeonbaek Hoegwan Main Branch is at 8-11 Haneulbyeolbit-ro 65beon-gil, Units 202 & 203, Yeongjong-gu, Incheon, and it's open daily from 11:00 to 22:00. Park in the basement lot, take the elevator to the 2nd floor, and Pyeonbaek Hoegwan is right there!

Pyeonbaek Hoegwan Main Branch 📍 8-11 Haneulbyeolbit-ro 65beon-gil, Units 202 & 203, Yeongjong-gu, Incheon, South Korea ⏰ Daily 11:00-22:00 🚗 Free parking with registration in the basement lot

Pyeonbaek Hoegwan, the shabu-shabu spot that's even been on the Jjinmeokshow TV show! It's one of the few places on Yeongjong Island where you can get cypress steam + all-you-can-eat 2-broth shabu-shabu + kalguksu + porridge all in one meal 😆

Can you bring kids? Inside the playroom and CCTV setup

One thing that would put parents at ease at Pyeonbaek Hoegwan Main Branch is that there's a separate playroom haha. There are baby chairs too, so it seems like a great place to bring young kids. In the middle of the restaurant there's a TV showing CCTV footage from the playroom, so you can keep an eye on the kids while eating haha.

Which broths to pick: the katsuo and mala combo

Here's the menu! Pyeonbaek Hoegwan offers katsuo, mala, beef bone tomato, and doenjang chicken broths, and we went with the katsuo + mala combo! There were also plenty of drinks, alcohol, and even Pororo juice for kids haha. Bottom line: our combo was a total win!

What's on the self-serve bar

The basic self-serve items at Pyeonbaek Hoegwan Main Branch included porridge ingredients, bread with strawberry jam, cream soup, tteokbokki (spicy rice cakes), spaghetti, corn salad, fries, shabu-shabu vegetables and rice-paper roll vegetables, and two kinds of shabu beef! I love cream soup so I scooped up a ton of it and was already pretty full 🤭

Cypress steam takes 9 minutes, and staff open the lid

Once you order, the cypress steam comes out in a cypress-wood frame, timed for 9 minutes. The cypress fragrance drifting up got me so excited haha. While waiting, we grabbed a few things from the buffet to fill up haha.

After 9 minutes, when the timer goes off, a staff member comes over and opens the lid for you. The difference between the cypress steam ingredients and the all-you-can-eat shabu-shabu ingredients seems to be the shrimp, sweet pumpkin, and dumplings! Everything else you can go get as much as you want! And since it's steamed in the cypress-wood frame, the fragrance kept me in a good mood the whole time I was eating. The meat was tender and savory too — impressively good quality for an all-you-can-eat place haha.

Rice-paper rolls dipped in sweet chili sauce

At the rice-paper roll ingredient corner, I grabbed six kinds of fillings, rolled one up, and dipped it in my favorite of the three sauces — sweet chili. Absolutely delicious 🥹🥹

Adjusting the mala heat and finishing with katsuo porridge

After finishing the cypress steam, we got our shabu-shabu broth. The mala broth was served as beef bone broth plus mala sauce added separately — even with just about half the sauce, it was quite spicy and delicious haha. So if you're spice-shy like us but craving mala, you can adjust the sauce amount and order without worry 😊 The broth was so good I kept sipping it little by little haha.

Both the katsuo and mala broths were amazing! After finishing the shabu-shabu, we made porridge with the katsuo broth, adding rice, egg, seaweed flakes, and sesame oil — it was seriously so good! We had one bowl and then had another lol.

Who this Yeongjong shabu-shabu restaurant suits

I think I overate to the point of a blood sugar spike haha. If you're looking for a good shabu-shabu spot in Yeongjong's Haneul City, I recommend Pyeonbaek Hoegwan Main Branch. It's open every day with generous hours, so it's easy to visit anytime.

I overate, but since it was a healthy meal, I feel good about it 🤭