City Hall Station Chinese restaurant for peanut noodles: Huhugwan

I was wondering what to have for lunch near City Hall, and it had been a while since I’d had some properly good Chinese food, so off I went! This is Huhugwan, a great spot near City Hall Station~ :) To give you the conclusion first: it was way more delicious than expected! The staff were kind, the portions were huge, so I’m re-recommending it for lunch! Haha.

Honestly, plenty of Chinese restaurants these days charge well into the mid-₩10,000s for a single dish, but Huhugwan’s prices felt manageable. Best of all, the portions were seriously generous!

We ordered three dishes: garlic scape chaopan, majangmyeon, and eggplant rice. Their flavors didn’t overlap, so they were great to order together, and none left us feeling oily or heavy afterward. I thought it was a genuinely good City Hall lunch!

How close is it to City Hall Station and Deoksugung?

Huhugwan is an easy walk from City Hall Station and also close to Deoksugung Palace, so it is well placed for an office-worker lunch or a meal during a Deoksugung date~

It is actually only about 200 m from City Hall Station. It seemed popular as a Chinese restaurant for not only lunch but also evening drinks and gatherings, with a well-organized waiting area and reservation system!

• Address: 2F, 2 Seosomun-ro 11-gil, Jung-gu, Seoul, South Korea
• Hours: Mon–Fri 11:00–23:00 / Sat 11:00–21:30 / Closed Sun

This is what it looks like on the map?! It is on the second floor, just 2–3 minutes from City Hall Station Exit 10, with a nice view from the restaurant and great access too! Haha.

A Chinese restaurant-and-bar atmosphere

Rather than feeling like a typical Chinese restaurant, Huhugwan near City Hall Station felt more like a stylish Chinese restaurant and bar~ Once you head up to the second floor, the red lighting and just-right Chinese-style decor make the atmosphere look pretty great at a glance.

This is the waiting area. It did not feel overdone, but it still had a subtly upscale mood—comfortable for lunch and good for a drink in the evening, perhaps?!

There are bar seats as well as regular tables, so dining alone would not feel too awkward. It also looked good for office dinners or for friends to order several dishes and share~ :)

There were also cute miniature food figurines here and there, which were fun to look at. The complimentary peanuts were not too salty or sweet either, so I kept reaching for them, haha.

The Chinese dishes we ordered together

We ordered garlic scape chaopan for ₩11,000, majangmyeon for ₩13,000, and eggplant rice for ₩12,000 all at once!

Garlic scape chaopan ₩11,000

First up: garlic scape chaopan for ₩11,000! It is fried rice cooked fluffy and separate rather than sticky, topped with a large piece of bok choy, so it looked quite appetizing from the start~ ♥

The rice grains really were nicely fried rather than soggy, with pieces of garlic scape adding a wonderfully crisp bite. The garlic scape flavor was not too strong, either; it blended well with that distinctive Chinese stir-fried aroma, making this a dish I kept spooning up. If you cannot decide what to get, it is a reliably delicious choice that I would absolutely recommend~!!

Eggplant rice ₩12,000

The second dish was eggplant rice for ₩12,000, haha. The fried eggplant had soaked up the sauce, making it moist outside and soft within, with seasoning that was just right for mixing into rice~! Some people are not keen on eggplant because of its characteristic soft texture, but because it is fried, that texture felt much less noticeable, so I think it would be less divisive than expected.

The sauce was glossy yet clean-tasting: a little sweet, savory, and salty, making this my top pick if you like dishes with meat and vegetables together! Even though it is Chinese food, it did not feel like it was just slick with oil; the overall balance was good. That said, I like eggplant slightly soft, so if you love eggplant’s usual texture, this eggplant rice may feel a little unfamiliar, haha.

Summer-only majangmyeon ₩13,000

Next was my personal favorite, majangmyeon for ₩13,000! This summer-only noodle dish comes with peanut sauce and arongsatae (beef shank). It looked generous right away, piled with cucumber, wood ear mushrooms, meat, and quail eggs, so I thought it was a good value for ₩13,000!

I was worried that the peanut sauce might be overly sweet or rich, but it was more nutty and mild than expected. The cucumber made the whole dish quite refreshing, and it was seriously delicious!!

The wood ear mushrooms had a lovely crunchy bite, while the beef shank was tender rather than dry and went beautifully with the thick sauce. So if you like peanut sauce, I really think this is a must-order! The noodles were springy and chewy too, so I would recommend it to anyone looking for bibim noodles (mixed spicy noodles) or a different kind of great Chinese restaurant dish, haha.

Receipt-review dumplings and spring rolls

One thing that felt like the best value at Huhugwan was that we each wrote a receipt review and received fried dumplings plus spring rolls as a free service! Honestly, I expected maybe one or two pieces for a review perk, but when both of ours were combined, the serving was very generous—almost half a main dish. At this point, joining the review event is such a win! Haha.

Mala fried rice cakes ₩8,000

Lastly, we ordered mala fried rice cakes for ₩8,000 as a side! At first, I honestly thought it would just be fried rice cakes coated in mala sauce, but it was much more delicious than expected. We kept saying, “This is good, haha,” while eating it, so please try it if you have room!!

They were evenly coated in mala sauce, whose aroma came through gently. It was savory, slightly spicy, and fragrant, so I kept reaching for more!! The sauce itself was especially tasty! It was not merely intense; it had real savory depth too, so highly recommended. The outside was lightly chewy from frying while the inside was genuinely soft and tender, making the texture so good that I have to recommend it!