Nowon Station Korean BBQ with a friend: Moksam Hanpan, Moksam Hwaro

What kind of Korean BBQ restaurant is Moksam Hwaro near Nowon Station?

Moksam Hwaro (목삼화로) is a Korean BBQ place near Nowon Station known for tasty pork neck and pork belly. I met a friend for dinner on a weekend, and since we always end up around Nowon, I wanted to try somewhere new. I went searching, heard about a BBQ place with great pork neck and belly, and decided to give it a visit.

So that Nowon Station favorite is Moksam Hwaro..! I think it used to be a yukhoe (Korean beef tartare) restaurant, and since the BBQ place opened it seems to have become quite well known.

Getting to Moksam Hwaro: 3 minutes from Nowon Station Exit 1

Moksam Hwaro is just a 3-minute walk from Exit 1 of Nowon Station!

Do you have to grill the meat yourself at Moksam Hwaro?

At Moksam Hwaro, the staff pre-grill the meat over a charcoal brazier and finish it at your table, so all you have to do is eat. Walk in through the entrance, where the menu greets you, and you'll see the pre-grilling brazier, the signature of Moksam Hwaro. Since the staff do the pre-grilling, you can just sit back and eat comfortably.

Moksam Hwaro at 5:30 pm on a Sunday: what's the atmosphere like?

We got there around 5:30 pm on a Sunday and plenty of guests were already deep into their meals. Once we sat down, the staff set out the neat basic side dishes right away.

Moksam Hwaro menu: Moksam Hanpan or Moksam Keunpan for two?

The main cuts on the menu seemed to be pork neck, pork belly and Iberico pork jowl. We eat quite a lot, so we ordered the Moksam Hanpan set, which is good value. I was curious about the jowl and eyed the Moksam Keunpan, but there were only two of us, so Hanpan it was (sob).

There were tips on how to eat well posted around the restaurant, and hair ties were hanging up too, which women will be so grateful for in summer. I used one as a handy little perk!

What's unusual about the sauces at Moksam Hwaro?

What stood out at Moksam Hwaro were the pollack roe with truffle oil and the tonkatsu sauce and breadcrumb dip. The wrap vegetables were varied too, but the sauces were the surprise. The pollack roe drizzled with truffle oil was unusual, and the sauce next to the perilla leaves was tonkatsu sauce with breadcrumbs, a type of sauce I'd never seen at a pork belly place before haha.

How long is the wait for the Moksam Hanpan set?

Because the meat is pre-grilled and brought out, expect to wait about 10 minutes. The Moksam Hanpan we ordered came out first so they could show it to us, then they took it back for pre-grilling. The pork neck and belly were a bright pinkish red and looked really fresh.

With the pre-grilling system you wait about 10 minutes, so before meeting the meat we cracked open a cold beer first, cheers haha.

Moksam Hwaro's free cheese steamed egg

Every table gets a cheese-packed steamed egg for free. The owner of Moksam Hwaro in Nowon is generous.. a cheese-loaded steamed egg comes out free at each table, which easily saves you 2,000 to 3,000 won haha. It's free, but of course it tastes as good as it looks..

Once the pre-grilling is done, a staff member comes over to finish the meat. Even with pre-grilling, the charcoal at our table looked like good quality too.

They grill everything carefully on our grill too, so all we have to do is eat! When two of you are chatting over dinner, grilling can be a hassle, and at Moksam Hwaro having it all grilled for you is definitely nice haha.

How do the pork neck and pork belly at Moksam Hwaro taste?

The pork neck wasn't dry, lean-only meat, and it went well with the pollack roe, meljeot (salted anchovy sauce), wasabi and Maldon salt. I topped it with the pollack roe with its faint truffle aroma, dipped it in meljeot, and tried it with wasabi too. The salt is Maldon salt as well, so even the basic combination was great!

The pork belly comes in a bowl already pre-grilled, so after finishing the pork neck you put it on the grill for just 20 to 30 seconds more. They say the main cut here is pork neck, but the pork belly was just as good, and I'd have regretted it for a long time if we hadn't ordered it.

Pork belly and bibim naengmyeon at Moksam Hwaro

As proof the pork belly was really good, we ordered bibim naengmyeon (spicy cold noodles) and ate it together with the pork haha. We'd been saying we were stuffed, yet we finished the noodles in no time.

Is the pork skin at Moksam Hwaro worth ordering even when you're full?

The pork skin at Moksam Hwaro was so thick and chewy it beats even pork skin specialty restaurants. We were truly full, but pork skin..... it's a bit of a shame to leave without it, right..haha. After trying it, I think it would have been a lot of a shame, not a bit, because it was thicker than anything at a pork skin specialist, so chewy it was hard even to cut.

The pork neck, pork belly and pork skin were all delicious, so I left that day wondering how good the pork jowl we missed must be, promising my friend we'd come back. Nowon seems to have lots of BBQ places, but if it's hard to find one with both good atmosphere and good food, I recommend giving Moksam Hwaro a try!