Dong-gu, Daejeon clam hot pot with 7,500 won kalguksu add-on: Widaehan

My family loves seafood, and my daughter especially loves clams. Even when we go out for kalguksu (noodle soup), if there are clams in it, she eats every single one, haha 😄 So when I heard there was a clam hot pot spot that would be perfect for a seafood-loving family like ours, I had to check it out.

🐚 Widaehan Jogae Jeongol 📍 Address: 38 Daehak-ro, 1st floor, Dong-gu, Daejeon, South Korea ⏰️ Hours: 11:00–23:00 (break time 14:30–16:30) ✅️ Regular closed days: 1st and 3rd Sundays of the month

Where is Widaehan Jogae Jeongol, and where do you park?

Widaehan Jogae Jeongol is a clam hot pot specialty restaurant located on the 1st floor of 38 Daehak-ro, Dong-gu, Daejeon. It's open from 11am to 11pm, with a break time from 2:30pm to 4:30pm.

There's space behind the restaurant for about 3–4 cars, but when we visited it was already full, so we ended up parking on the street.

What the family ordered: clam hot pot for 2 plus clam kalguksu

Check the photos for the full menu. We ordered a 2-person clam hot pot and a clam kalguksu.

Banchan at Widaehan Jogae Jeongol: silkworm pupae and fried squid

While the hot pot cooked, the banchan (side dishes) came out one by one. They even had beondegi (silkworm pupae), which I used to eat a lot as a kid. Whenever that shows up as a side dish, I always end up refilling it at least once. And the fried squid was delicious 😆 They fry the whole leg and serve it crispy — so good.

What comes in the clam hot pot, and the owner's trimming service

While we were eating the banchan, the clam hot pot was finished cooking. Ta-da! Look how packed with seafood it is — abalone, squid, scallops, clams, the whole lineup. Once the seafood was cooked through, the owner came over and cut everything into bite-sized pieces for us. Thanks to that, we could eat comfortably 😄

We tried the well-cooked seafood piece by piece. There's soy sauce and chojang (vinegar-chili sauce) to dip according to your taste. There was also a generous amount of napa cabbage, and piling it on top of the seafood made it feel a bit like eating shabu-shabu. The seafood comes with a shallow layer of broth, and the longer it simmers, the richer and tastier it gets.

Abalone, squid and scallops dipped in melted cheese

They also give you cheese, and dipping the seafood in it is a real treat 😁 The nutty flavor of the cheese made everything even more delicious. It stretched nicely, had a rich nutty taste, and didn't harden quickly, which I liked. They gave us plenty of cheese, so we piled it generously onto the seafood.

When the hot pot first arrived, I wondered if we could even finish it all, but somehow we did 😆 After finishing the seafood, adding kalguksu noodles to the leftover broth would have been great. But since we'd ordered a separate clam kalguksu, we didn't add extra noodle dough to the hot pot — instead, we put the noodles from our order into the broth.

Is clam kalguksu at 7,500 won worth it? A good lunch price too

We also tried the clam kalguksu we ordered separately. My daughter was so focused on eating the clams in the hot pot that she got to the noodles a bit late, and once the noodles started to look a little soggy, the owner offered to make us a fresh batch. We told them it was fine since we were about to eat it right away, but I really appreciated how attentive they were 🫶

The clam kalguksu had clams in it too, so the broth was refreshing and clean-tasting. At ₩7,500, it's easy on the wallet, so it would make a great lunch option too.

And of course, kalguksu needs geotjeori (fresh spicy cabbage salad) 😆 Putting the spicy geotjeori on top of the noodles was really delicious. With the noodles added in, we were absolutely stuffed. A very satisfying dinner.

Final verdict on Widaehan Jogae Jeongol

Widaehan Jogae Jeongol serves up a generous variety of seafood — abalone, squid, clams and more — so seafood lovers should be very happy here 😄 I'd also recommend the kalguksu as a lunch option if you're looking for good food in Dong-gu, Daejeon.