Bucheon Korean restaurant where staff park your car: Gim Myeongju

I was looking for somewhere to take my parents out to eat and ended up back at Gim Myeongju Tteuranchae Bapsang Bucheon Main Branch. This wasn't my first visit either! I'd been once before with my parents-in-law and had a great, satisfying meal with a clean Korean set-meal setup, so this time I brought my mother-in-law and my own mother together :)

If you're looking for a good place to eat with your parents, this might be worth a look.

Where Gim Myeongju Tteuranchae Bapsang Bucheon Main Branch is, and its hours

• Address: 59 Giljuro560beon-gil, Wonmi-gu, Bucheon-si, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea
• 10-minute walk (868m) from Gachiul Station Exit 2
• Hours: daily 10:30–21:00 / last order 20:00
• Parking available, takeout available

The large Gachiul parking lot: leave the key in the car

Gim Myeongju Tteuranchae Bapsang Bucheon Main Branch is located near Gachiul, and what I liked most of all was just how huge the parking lot is!

Once you park within the marked spot, you can just leave your key in the car and head in — the parking staff will move your car themselves if needed and park it back in its spot. When you're bringing your parents along, having easy parking actually matters quite a bit haha.

The second-floor dining room and roomy waiting area

The restaurant is on the second floor. I was a little worried at first about the older generation going up stairs, but it turned out to be not that high a climb, so it was manageable without any trouble.

Once you go up, a spacious waiting area greets you first, and they apparently run air conditioning on hot days and heating on cold days.

Inside, there's a Catch Table tablet set up, and you can also check the current wait status on a monitor in the waiting area.

Stone-pot rice made with hwangmi rice, and the borigulbi gift set

Gim Myeongju Tteuranchae Bapsang cooks its rice with hwangmi (yellow) rice. They even have a rice-milling machine on-site, so it looks like they mill it themselves haha. Since rice is such a key part of a Korean set-meal restaurant, this detail caught my eye.

Since it was holiday season, the restaurant was also selling borigulbi (dried yellow corvina) gift sets. The extra-large size was priced at 5 pieces for ₩90,000 or 10 pieces for ₩170,000. Worth noting if you're thinking about holiday gifts!

Why Gim Myeongju Tteuranchae Bapsang is easy for older parents

The interior of Gim Myeongju Tteuranchae Bapsang is quite spacious and clean. There's a ramp between the waiting area and the dining room, and there was even a sign warning about a step on the floor there.

Since this restaurant clearly gets a lot of elderly visitors, they seem to have thought through details like this. I was there with both my mothers-in-law-to-be — well, my own mother and my mother-in-law — and this kind of thoughtful signage felt reassuring.

The menu and how we ordered for three

The menu is built around the ₩13,000 Tteuranchae Bapsang set meal, which you can add à la carte dishes to.

• Dried yellow corvina (borigulbi): ₩18,000
• Soy sauce marinated crab: ₩18,000
• Charcoal-grilled pork: ₩18,000
• Cockle salad: ₩16,000
• Grilled mackerel: ₩16,000

For parties of 4 or more, you need to order one Tteuranchae Bapsang set per person plus at least one à la carte dish, so keep that in mind before you visit! There were three of us this time — my mother-in-law, my mother, and me — so we ordered 3 set meals plus charcoal-grilled pork and grilled mackerel :)

12 side dishes and cheonggukjang: a full table

After a short wait, our order arrived and filled the whole table. Along with the stone-pot rice came 12 side dishes and cheonggukjang, plus the grilled mackerel and charcoal-grilled pork we'd added!

What I liked most was that the side dishes weren't just a handful of basics — a wide variety of labor-intensive dishes were laid out. It was fun trying each one, and there were plenty that went well with the rice, so overall I was very satisfied. A Korean set meal with your parents really does feel that much more satisfying when there's this much variety in the banchan (side dishes) lol.

Self-bar refills, and how to ask for japchae or cheonggukjang

The restaurant also runs a self-bar. You can freely refill the basic side dishes yourself at the self-bar, but japchae (glass noodle stir-fry) is brought to you by staff if you ask for it.

Apparently japchae is managed separately because leaving it at the self-bar would make a mess with splattering and it spoils easily. And cheonggukjang can be refilled too! Just ask a staff member and they'll boil up a fresh batch for you, so if you're a fan of cheonggukjang, feel free to ask without hesitation haha.

Paper cups, wet wipes, and a bottle opener are set out on the table, while the utensil holder and tissues are underneath the table — worth knowing if you're looking for them!

Finishing the stone-pot rice with nutty sungnyung

After finishing the stone-pot rice, we didn't just leave the empty pot sitting there lol — we poured barley tea into the stone pot to make sungnyung (scorched rice tea).

Pouring barley tea into the still-warm stone pot made the slightly crisped rice at the bottom boil up into a hearty, toasty drink. Finishing the meal off with a warm bowl of sungnyung made it feel like we'd properly completed a full Korean set-meal experience 😆

Free coffee after the meal

And on our way out after the meal, we spotted a coffee machine! It's set up near the entrance so you can brew yourself a cup, making it a nice way to wrap up the meal with coffee haha.

When you're out for a meal with your parents, sometimes it feels like a shame to part ways right after eating — being able to wind down with a cup of coffee like this was really nice.

Side dishes and cheonggukjang sold by the pack at 5,000 won

While looking around near the entrance, I spotted one more thing — they also sell cheonggukjang and side dishes to take home. Each pack is ₩5,000.

The photo came out a bit blurry, which is a shame lol, but I thought this info was worth including anyway. If you enjoyed any of the side dishes or the cheonggukjang during your meal and want to eat them at home too, it looks like you can take them home to go :)

What made this a good meal out with both mothers

Once again, both moms said the food was delicious and seemed genuinely satisfied. I'd had a good experience here before with my parents-in-law, and this time I felt the same way — it's a great place to eat with your parents.

The parking lot is spacious, the restaurant is clean, and the food comes out generously with a wide variety of side dishes, so it seems like a good fit for family meals or anyone looking for a place to eat with their parents. If you're looking for a good restaurant near Gachiul where you can comfortably bring your parents, like I was, give Gim Myeongju Tteuranchae Bapsang Bucheon Main Branch a try :)

Who Gim Myeongju Tteuranchae Bapsang suits best

• Anyone looking for somewhere to eat out with their parents
• Anyone looking for a spot for a family gathering
• Anyone wanting a clean, proper Korean set meal
• Anyone looking for a restaurant with easy parking
• Anyone looking for somewhere to eat near Gachiul

A great place to enjoy a clean, generous Korean set meal together with your parents!