Solo weekday lunch seat for beef pancake gukbap near Hongdae station

I was looking for somewhere to eat alone on a weekday lunch and ended up going for a warm bowl of gukbap (Korean rice soup). Even during lunch hour, tables turned over fast and there was a seat that was actually comfortable for eating alone. If you're after a filling, good-value meal among the restaurants near Hongik University Station, this place is worth showing you right away!

Location and hours

It was easy to find, about a 5-minute walk from Exit 1 of Hongik University Station. Being open 24 hours except on the day of major holidays is another plus.

• Address: 9-1 World Cup buk-ro, Mapo-gu, Seoul
• Hours: Open 24 hours

There's parking in front of the restaurant for 4 cars. If it's full, you can use the paid TruParking lot near the Hongdae intersection nearby.

An interior that's comfortable even alone

I visited around noon on a weekday, so a lot of office workers from the area were in for lunch. Quite a few seats were taken, but the space extended pretty far back, so I could go straight in without waiting. If you're looking for somewhere near Hongik University Station where it's not awkward to walk in solo, this place should suit you well. You order right at the table and the food comes out quickly too, which made it convenient even for a busy office-worker lunch.

Since I went alone that day, I was hoping for a solo seat, and there was exactly the kind of table that's good for eating by yourself. I remember once eating alone at a 4-person table elsewhere and feeling a bit self-conscious for no reason — this was much more comfortable. There are also private rooms, so it works for family meals or group gatherings too.

Menu lineup and basic side dishes

The menu was more varied than I expected — yukjeon gukbap and beef gukbap, plus miso-style bone broth soup, hamburg-style bone broth soup, perilla oil cold buckwheat noodles, bulgogi, and yukjeon (pan-fried beef) on its own. There are also hot pots that are good for dinner, and you order through the kiosk at each table.

They were running a review event when I visited — write a review and get a free can of soda, which was a nice extra with the meal.

The basic side dishes are pickled onion, cabbage kimchi, and cubed radish kimchi (kkakdugi) — three in total. If you want more, you can help yourself at the self-serve bar. Topping the gukbap with a bit of kkakdugi worked really well together.

Yukjeon beef gukbap, ₩11,000 — how did it taste?

Yukjeon beef gukbap (₩11,000). What I ordered this time was the yukjeon beef gukbap. On top of the regular beef gukbap, they add freshly pan-fried yukjeon (beef pancake), cut into bite-sized pieces. They say the broth is made fresh daily and the yukjeon is pan-fried to order, and maybe that's why it was warm and nutty-tasting.

At another place I once had gukbap with yukjeon in it, the broth got heavy from too much oil. Here, the excess oil from the yukjeon was drained well enough that eating it with the broth wasn't heavy at all.

On top of that, it's not just the yukjeon — there's plenty of beef in the broth itself. As someone who loves meat, it was satisfying to get a scoop of solid ingredients with every spoonful.

With dried radish greens, bean sprouts, and radish also mixed in, the broth leaned more refreshing than heavy. It had a familiar taste somewhere between jangteo gukbap and yukgaejang, so it would probably work well as a hangover cure too if you drank the night before.

Personally, I actually preferred that it came in a regular bowl instead of a hot stone pot. I once burned the roof of my mouth eating gukbap in a piping-hot stone bowl in a hurry — here it was easy to let it cool a bit while mixing in the rice.

Solo dining in Hongdae — one bowl of gukbap is plenty

I used to head to cafés or fast food when eating alone in Hongdae, but this time, a bowl of gukbap packed with meat and vegetables was properly filling. If you're among the restaurants near Hongik University Station looking to skip the wait and get warm, good-value Korean food, giving Yukjeon Gukbap a try seems like a good call.