Myeongdong pork belly dipped in meljeot, 3 servings: Yuktongnyeong

How to walk from Myeongdong Station to Yuktongnyeong Myeongdong Main Branch

Yuktongnyeong Myeongdong Main Branch is a BBQ place that's under a 5-minute walk from Myeongdong Station (Line 4) Exit 5. I went here with my wife after a Myeongdong date. I was craving samgyeopsal (pork belly) haha, and it turns out their signature is actually ogyeopsal (skin-on pork belly)? So that's how we ended up here. The location was better than I expected — right by the station, basically.

There's a samgyeopsal place right in the middle of Myeongdong haha. The people sitting out front were all waiting too. There's a CatchTable sign out front, so you apply through the app first — we waited a bit before getting seated.

Oh, this place even has a Blue Ribbon award. Instant trust boost. That's the first time I've seen so many Blue Ribbons on one place lol. But that red one looked like the Coca-Cola ribbon, which I've also never seen before.

Hours, parking and other basics at Yuktongnyeong Myeongdong

There's a CatchTable waitlist so you can queue up.

• Address: 37-2 Myeongdong8na-gil, Jung-gu, Seoul, South Korea
• Hours: Mon–Sun 11:30–23:00, last order 22:15
• No parking
• Takeout available / high chairs available
• Group reservations available

From Myeongdong Station (Line 4) Exit 5, it's a bit of a walk over — roughly 5 minutes or so. There's a big Uniqlo right in front, so it shouldn't be hard to find.

Two floors of seating: can Yuktongnyeong Myeongdong take groups?

Yuktongnyeong Myeongdong Main Branch isn't just the ground floor — it goes up to the 2nd floor too, so it's a fairly big space that takes group reservations. Snapped this on the way to the 2nd-floor restroom haha. The place was bigger than I expected — from outside I thought it was just one floor. There were a lot more foreign visitors inside than I expected, which made it feel like the real Myeongdong vibe.

There's this much more space upstairs too. Since they take group reservations, it looks great for tourists coming in groups, and even for a work dinner near Gwanghwamun — since it's Myeongdong, there's space for a big group here haha. And there are restrooms for both men and women inside the restaurant << this matters haha, especially for women.

What side dishes come with the meal

The basic side dishes at Yuktongnyeong Myeongdong Main Branch are salad, scallion salad, pink salt, melljeot (fermented shrimp sauce), and pickled perilla leaves. Oh, all these get set down first. The salad was really good, and they gave a generous amount of scallion salad too. Pink salt and melljeot also came out — I really liked the melljeot, the pickled perilla, and the salt. Both the taste and the quality were solid.

Gwanggaeto pork belly menu and prices

The menu has a range of samgyeopsal and ogyeopsal. What's a bit unique here is they named it Gwanggaeto (after the ancient Korean king) haha — really pumps up the national pride. Prices are a bit on the higher side, probably because it's a tourist area. Even the soju was ₩6,000 a bottle haha.

Scrolling down, there's more. We added naengmyeon (cold noodles) partway through the meal haha. They had yukhoe (raw beef) too, but we were mid-meal and thought 'noodles it is,' so we added the dongchimi bibim naengmyeon haha. It didn't come out cold, which was a bit of a letdown that stuck with me haha.

Three servings of pork belly for two: how much meat is that?

Two servings of Gwanggaeto pork belly felt a bit small for two people, so we immediately ordered one more, ending up with three total. The pork belly sizzling away haha.

They grilled it for us the whole way through. That made things easy. Our server was a woman, and she was really skilled at grilling meat — lucky us haha.

She grilled really well — and I consider myself decent at grilling too haha. She kept refilling the side dishes and grilling the meat even while clearly busy, which made it easy for us to just talk and eat haha.

She grilled it with real care — look at that color haha. Since the meat had clearly been aged, it tasted noticeably different when we ate it haha.

What omija-aged black pork belly with meljeot tastes like

Here's the finished pork belly. Being ogyeopsal, the chewiness was insane. It ranks among the best pork belly I've had recently. It really felt like a genuine Myeongdong destination restaurant. There's a reason people call it one of Seoul's top three samgyeopsal spots. With this kind of old-school vibe and this level of quality, it's worth coming out to Myeongdong for.

We also tried it topped with saeujeot (salted shrimp). I was too busy eating to photograph it, but dipping it in melljeot — oh man, that was delicious, I actually gasped haha.

Who Yuktongnyeong Myeongdong Main Branch suits best

They also slice and grill mushrooms, which was a nice touch haha. This place seems great for when you're shopping in Myeongdong and craving good meat, meeting friends, a family dinner out, or looking for a work dinner spot. If you want that old-school Korean samgyeopsal feel especially, this is a great place to bring someone haha. If you're looking for a pork belly spot in Myeongdong, I'd recommend Yuktongnyeong Myeongdong Main Branch for properly enjoying thick, black pork ogyeopsal~~ haha