Hongdae makgeolli dinner at Doonjeong, a Korean restaurant in Seoul

Doonjeong Hongdae Direct Branch: hours, location and prices

Doonjeong Hongdae Direct Branch

• 📍 Location: 183-12 Donggyo-ro, 1st floor, Mapo-gu, Seoul, South Korea
• 🕘 Hours: Mon–Sun 11:00–21:00 / Break time 15:00–17:00 / Last order 14:30, 20:30 / Closed 1st and 3rd Sundays each month
• 🚘 No parking on site — use a nearby lot (Toros parking tower: ₩3,000/30min, ₩6,000/60min, ₩12,000/120min, ₩24,000/240min)
• 🐶 No pets allowed
• 🍷 No corkage

Today I want to recommend a lunch spot in Hongdae! Lately I've been craving healthy, delicious Korean food, and this place looked clean and tasty, so I went to check it out. The staff were so kind too, which made the meal even more pleasant. Here's my honest review of Doonjeong Hongdae Direct Branch, a two-time Blue Ribbon winner and a restaurant certified as a food-safe establishment by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety!

How to walk to Doonjeong from Hongik University Station Exit 1

Doonjeong Hongdae Direct Branch is about a 3–5 minute walk from Exit 1 of Hongik University Station. Unfortunately there's no parking on site, so please use a nearby alternative lot — details above!

There's a pamphlet up front for the two-time Blue Ribbon national restaurant award. Whenever I see a Blue Ribbon mark, I always feel like I can trust the place. And being certified as a food-safe establishment by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety made me feel even more at ease.

Also, it opens at 11am, so it should be convenient for anyone looking for a lunch spot!

Inside Doonjeong: atmosphere and seating at 5pm

We walked in right at 5pm, the very first customers after break time ended, and the place filled up fast. The interior is an overall clean wood tone, and the round recessed lighting gives it a really upscale feel!!

What we ordered at Doonjeong and what it cost

Check the photos for the menu ₍๐•ᴗ•๐₎ There are plenty of dishes great for lunch, but also lots that work well as drinking snacks — they sell yakju, cheongju, distilled spirits, and makgeolli here, all pairing well with Korean food.

We ordered:

• Hanwoo yukhoe bibimbap ₩15,000
• Clear hanwoo gomtang with suji ₩16,000
• Shrimp minari pancake ₩19,000
• Seonho makgeolli ₩7,000

That's what we went with haha. Since we ordered the shrimp minari pancake, I figured we should have a makgeolli with it, so I asked the staff for a recommendation, and they kindly explained each option one by one — I really appreciated that. We ended up with Seonho makgeolli, since they said it had a clean, light taste.

Brassware and ceramic table setting at Doonjeong

All the tableware was really clean and pretty. They use ceramic and brassware, which suits the atmosphere of a Korean restaurant like Doonjeong perfectly. Thanks to the neat ceramic sets and the substantial brassware, I felt genuinely pampered.

(¬_¬)ﾉ So I looked up the benefits of this brassware

• Heat retention: it's thick and dense, so soups like gomtang stay hot for a long time, apparently.
• Antibacterial effect: brass (bronze) itself is said to have natural antibacterial and germ-suppressing properties.
• Durability: it resists deformation and lasts a long time, apparently.

They said the heaviness you feel is a natural characteristic of premium brassware. From the bowls to the spoons, it was all substantial brass!

They also set the table with a bowl and perilla seeds so you can add as much as you like to taste.

Honestly... it just feels so upscale, and it's great for hygiene too. Even a single side dish made me feel pampered haha. I was already in a good mood before the food even arrived.

Clear hanwoo gomtang with suji, 16,000 won

The dishes came out one by one, and the first was the clear hanwoo gomtang (beef bone soup) with suji! There's suji (beef tendon) mixed in with the meat, and the rice comes already mixed into the soup. They also gave us a seasoning sauce so we could adjust the taste.

I think the scallions matter a lot in gomtang, and these were crisp and fresh — really tasty!!

Eating this with the kimchi felt just like a home-cooked meal, really filling. The broth was mild and savory enough that you didn't even need extra seasoning, and the meat had no gamey smell and was tender — really delicious.

Hanwoo yukhoe bibimbap, 15,000 won, with minari and onion

The hanwoo yukhoe bibimbap (raw beef rice bowl) comes with gomtang broth on the side. It's topped with minari (water dropwort) and onion, which was a combination I'd never seen before — pretty interesting!

You use your chopsticks to break up the round mound of yukhoe (raw beef) on top and mix everything together, and the portion of yukhoe was honestly huge haha.

I'm really not saying this just because it's a sponsored visit — this was the freshest, most delicious yukhoe bibimbap I've ever had. The combination of minari, onion, and yukhoe was so good, and the yukhoe wasn't chewy at all, it was tender and easy to eat. The seasoning sauce wasn't too strong either, so the natural flavor of the yukhoe really came through! Eating it, I genuinely thought, I have to come back for this again.

Shrimp minari pancake, 19,000 won, packed with whole shrimp

Then the shrimp minari pancake arrived!! Even the tongs and scissors were substantial — they really only use good tableware! At other places I've had shrimp minari pancake where the minari was barely cooked, more like raw greens than actually pan-fried, and the shrimp turned out to be dried shrimp — I've been disappointed more than once.

Here, the minari was cooked through enough that it wasn't at all tough to chew, and the shrimp were proper, plump whole shrimp — honestly, this was the best shrimp minari pancake I've ever had. I'm a little worried this sounds like blind praise, but... it was genuinely delicious, so I can't help but rave about it. Please understand.

Seonho makgeolli, 7,000 won: how it pairs with the pancake

We had makgeolli alongside, and as recommended, it really did have a clean taste. I'm not usually a big fan of makgeolli, but I could drink this without any hesitation. It paired so well with the shrimp minari pancake — do try this combination!! It's really going to be delicious.

You cut it into bite-sized pieces like this and dip it into the sauce with the onion bits — that's how you eat it!

And the makgeolli, ta-da~~ A truly perfect meal ㅜㅜ

We really finished every single dish, completely.

Verdict: is Doonjeong worth it for dinner in Hongdae?

I'm so happy Doonjeong Hongdae Direct Branch is near my place... I think I'll be eating here often. It's officially my go-to spot now. It's close to Hongdae too, so I hope more people go. Restaurants like this deserve to thrive even more.

I don't usually rave like this... but this place was so good I couldn't help it. If you're looking for a great Korean restaurant in Hongdae, I highly recommend Doonjeong Hongdae Direct Branch~!!