Nowon Korean restaurant for family meals: Sutgarak Bansang Masil

A Nowon Korean set meal with my parents

My dad absolutely loves Korean set meals~ Whenever we choose somewhere to eat out, he always suggests one. Since we have Mongsil, I usually look for pet-friendly places first, but there are not many, and even when there are, my parents are not totally sold on them. Then I heard there was a Korean set-meal restaurant close to home that is also well known for meeting-the-parents meals, so we paid it a visit.

It is not a pet-friendly Korean set-meal restaurant, but it is close enough to home that I did not feel too worried about leaving Mongsil alone, so we went after work on a weekday. It is about a 10-minute walk from Exit 5 of Nowon Station on Line 4.

There is a supermarket and a sashimi restaurant on the first floor, and parking attendants are there to guide you, so parking was easy too.

The first-floor entrance displays the hours and menu, and lots of celebrity signatures are posted around it. Sutgarak Bansang Masil (숟가락반상 마실) is also known as a place for meeting the parents, and it is always busy on weekends, so there is a separate waiting area too.

The dining space is quite large too. There are private rooms farther inside, so you can have a private meal as well as a meeting-the-parents meal. One of my older friends actually had her meeting-the-parents meal here!

We sat by the window, but the curtains were drawn because the sun was so strong, which was a little disappointingㅠㅠ haha

Set meal lineup and pre-meal dishes

There are five set meals in total, and the dishes served vary by price, including tteokgalbi, galbijjim, webfoot octopus, beef tartare, yam, and smoked salmon sashimi.

Masil set meal

There is also a lunch menu at a slightly lower price!

The first pre-meal dish was adlay cherry blossom porridge. It was lightly seasoned and nice for warming up the stomach.

Next came this colorful full spread.

• Dallae (wild chive) butterfly japchae
• Orange butterfly salad
• Yakseon bossam (medicinal-herb boiled pork wraps)
• Spring forsythia fritters
• Whelk vinegared cold salad
• Crown daisy and lotus root pancake

The orange salad with butterfly-shaped pasta was fresh and sweet, perfect as an appetizer, while the tangy whelk vinegared cold salad was great for waking up the appetite. The white wood ear mushrooms decorating the japchae like butterflies were pretty too, and as they say, food that looks good tastes good—the japchae was delicious. Dad and I are both crazy about japchae, so we finished that one first haha.

The yakseon bossam was tenderly boiled without any porky smell, so even Dad, who is not much of a pork person, enjoyed it. The crown daisy and lotus root pancake was a little bland for my taste, but I liked that the mugwort-like herb aroma and lotus root flavor came through clearly. Dipped in the soy sauce served alongside it, the seasoning was just right.

Perilla seed seaweed soup came out too, and it was wonderfully nutty and delicious. Dad liked it so much that he asked for one more refill.

Galbijjim, tteokgalbi, and cherry blossom pot rice

Once we had eaten some of the appetizers, the nutritious mushroom galbijjim (braised short ribs) arrived. It comes with a brazier so it stays warm until the very end.

It contained golden enoki mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, and siregi (dried radish greens). It must have been braised for such a long time: the meat came right off the bone and was so tender, and Dad really enjoyed it.

The tteokgalbi (grilled minced beef patties) came already cooked, so once the onions underneath were done, we could eat right away. It was not the sweet tteokgalbi we usually imagine; the meaty aroma and flavor came through strongly.

My dad cannot go without rice. Mom kept asking whether rice was really coming, haha. It is a Korean set meal, of course it would come! haha Fluffy pink cherry blossom rice, five side dishes, and doenjang-jjigae (soybean paste stew) arrived together. All the seasoned vegetables were delicious, and so was the stew.

We ate it with the remaining galbi and tteokgalbi, then mixed a little into the doenjang-jjigae for a bite~ The rice comes in a pot, so you can also make sungnyung (scorched-rice tea). If you like sungnyung, scoop out a suitable amount of rice and make sure you have some!!

We finished with green tangerine tea~ It was fresh and sweet, just perfect for the end.

A family gathering meal my parents enjoyed too

Sutgarak Bansang Masil in Nowon is lightly seasoned overall, so it is good for everyone from young children to parents, and it is excellent for both meeting-the-parents meals and family gatherings in Nowon. Masil was a Nowon restaurant my mom and dad were very happy with! Next time, I should come back and try a higher-tier set meal!