Bucheon Korean BBQ dinner with grilled white kimchi: Dwaeji Gongbang

Okgil-dong Dwaeji Gongbang: dinner out with four family members

My parents said they were treating us to something delicious, so I straight-up cancelled the Pilates class I had booked, haha. While looking for somewhere to go, I found Dwaeji Gongbang (돼지공방)! We ate soooo well, so I’m quickly leaving a record of it.

Parking and hours

It’s open 16:00–24:00 Monday through Friday and 15:00–24:00 on weekends, and you can park in front of the restaurant.

It looked like there was room for three or four cars; if there’s no spot out front, they said they issue a two-hour voucher when you park at Okgil Parking Tower. Delicious meat aging away!!!

The four of us—my parents and us as a couple—visited together. We agreed to start with the half platter, then pick our favorites and order more meat!

We went on a weekday evening and got seated right away with no wait! By around 7, it was packed.

Self-bar sauces and the included soft tofu stew

They set us up with shredded chili pickle, garlic-scape pickle, white kimchi, sauces, and more.

You can bring more of these from the self bar. I seriously went there more than five times—the sauces here are insanely good 👍🏻

The spicy soft tofu stew that comes with the meal!!!! It’s delicious when it arrives bubbling hot and you pop the egg yolk into it. They call it spicy, but it was more mildly hot, haha.

The half platter and pork grilled at the table

This is the half platter (₩49,000). Thick pork neck, gabrisal (pork jowl), intercostal meat, and chewy pork were arranged beautifully on the board in that order. We grilled and ate them in the order they were placed, haha.

At first, a staff member set it up like this, telling us to grill the white kimchi along the side!! Sizzleeeee. By the way, you grill the meat yourselves 💪🏻

Everything looks so good, so let’s dig in. Looking at it again is making my mouth water 🫢

Four delicious ways to eat the meat

There were no fewer than four ways to enjoy it. I’m good at following directions, so I tried every single one.

Dip it in galchi sokjeot, fermented hairtail innards sauce!!! It’s better once it has reduced a bit than when you first start eating, so it was tastier dipped in later on!

Grill the white kimchi and eat it with the meat!! Who thought to grill white kimchi on the griddle? A true food genius. This is insanely good!!!!! We grilled as much kimchi as meat, haha. It was practically a kimchi factory.

Eat it with shredded chili pickle or garlic-scape pickle, generously dipped in sauce! Our family’s top pick was the shredded chili pickle 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 They even sell it separately for takeout!?!? I thought it would be delicious with jeon at Chuseok, so I bought an extra pack to take home too, haha.

One big bite of white kimchi and shredded chili pickle together is even more ridiculously delicious!! 😭😭😭

There were myeonginamul, pickled wild garlic leaves, too.

Extra meat, pork skin, and soybean-paste rice to finish

We were eating like crazy and ordered more meat!! We added one serving each of pork neck, pork belly, and intercostal meat, haha. Ordering meat only according to the headcount is so cold-hearted. You need to order more—that’s Korean warmth.

Add Dwaeji Gongbang on KakaoTalk and you get steamed egg or two sheets of pork skin for free!! I chose pork skin for the first time in ages, haha. Got greedy and put both pieces on at once.

For the pork skin, is that soybean powder? They gave us some, so I dipped it in generously, haha. The meat was better, but the pork skin was tasty too.

For a finishing dish, we ordered this spicy soybean-paste rice (₩9,000). It was packed with ingredients. Such a golden ratio of doenjang and cheonggukjang!!

The four of us left truly stuffed with meat 🙌🏻 I found a great pork belly spot in Okgil-dong, a great Bucheon restaurant. It was a delicious meal made even better by the restaurant discount and my parents’ card. I really, really recommend this place! Everyone in the family was completely satisfied. I’m going again next time!! What a delicious meal 🌸