Free rice topped shoyu ramen soup, hormone-don sauce: Mentsuru

A cool day made me crave ramen 🍜 Instead of just going for ramen alone, I headed toward Children's Grand Park with my boyfriend to combine it with a date.

While looking for lunch near Children's Grand Park Station, I found Mentsuru Children's Grand Park Branch! It's just a 1-minute walk from Exit 4, so it's easy to find. What I liked most wasn't just the food but the atmosphere — the clean black-tone interior felt nicer than expected, making it a good ramen restaurant for a date meal too.

Mentsuru Children's Grand Park Branch: location and menu

Mentsuru Children's Grand Park Branch is located at 394 Gwangnaru-ro, 1st floor, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul, South Korea. It's close to Exit 4 of Children's Grand Park Station, making it a good stop if you're looking for a meal around Children's Grand Park, Sejong University, or Konkuk University.

The menu ranged widely, from various ramen types to rice bowls.

When I visited, I ordered the shoyu ramen and the hormone-don. Looking at the menu, there were quite a few ramen varieties, so I'd like to try other dishes next time.

The atmosphere and seating layout

The first thing that caught my eye walking in was the clean black-tone interior. You'd expect a ramen restaurant to feel like a slightly rough Japanese-style pub, but this place felt overall polished, making it a more comfortable place to eat than I expected. I also liked how varied the seating options were.

There were solo seats good for eating alone, bar seats where you can feel the typical ramen restaurant vibe, and four-person tables for groups. You can choose your seat depending on whether it's a solo meal, a meal with friends, or a date.

Especially on a date, I liked that it wasn't too loud or chaotic. The clean black tone looks great in photos, and sitting there in person felt cozier than expected! It would also suit a course of strolling through Children's Grand Park and then coming here to eat.

Shoyu ramen: pouring rice into the soup

The first dish we ordered was the shoyu ramen.

Honestly, the shoyu ramen wasn't an intensely bold flavor — it was closer to a mild, easy-to-eat ramen. But the soup was pretty good. I kept eating the noodles and sipping the soup, and before I knew it, there was barely any left haha

It felt like a waste to stop there, so I added rice and mixed it into the soup. And it turned out better than I expected.

The fact that the rice add-on is free was also great, since you can finish the ramen off filling and satisfying by using the soup to the end. The ramen itself is fairly mild, but if you love a good soup, I'd recommend trying it with the added rice too.

Hormone-don grilled offal rice bowl: the sauce was insane

There was another dish that really hit my personal taste — the hormone-don.

Wait, this is seriously... the sauce is insane!!!!! At first I wondered whether it was even necessary to order a rice bowl at a ramen restaurant, but the moment I took one bite, I changed my mind.

The beef intestine and rice mixed together with the sauce, and that combination was genuinely delicious. The sauce paired so well with the rice that I couldn't stop reaching for more. Personally, the hormone-don was the most memorable dish of the day. The shoyu ramen was decently tasty too, but if I come back, I think I'll order the hormone-don again.

Wow, seriously, I kept thinking 'what is this sauce?' the whole time I was eating hahaha

A lunch date course around Children's Grand Park?

Overall, the food quality felt good for the price. Most of all, the restaurant was clean and had varied seating from solo seats to four-person tables, making it easy to visit depending on the occasion.

Stroll through Children's Grand Park → ramen and rice bowl at Mentsuru → café near Konkuk University

If you're planning a date near Children's Grand Park, this kind of course could work well. It's genuinely close to Children's Grand Park Station, so accessibility is good, and it's worth considering if you're looking for a ramen restaurant in the area. Personally, I want to come back just for the hormone-don!

I went looking for a ramen restaurant near Children's Grand Park thinking only about ramen, but ended up leaving completely hooked on the rice bowl haha. If you're craving ramen or want to have a date meal in a clean-looking restaurant, this place is worth a visit. That's the end of my review of Mentsuru Children's Grand Park Branch, a ramen restaurant near Children's Grand Park! 🍜