Gangseo Korean restaurant with webfoot octopus and pork belly: Jju Baksa

My husband, child, and I went to Jju Baksa Magok Branch (쭈박사 마곡점) for webfoot octopus. This time, we ordered the 3-person fried-rice set. It comes with webfoot octopus, pork belly, one complimentary menu item, flying fish roe, and fried rice.

Less-spicy webfoot octopus and pork belly with my child

Since I was planning to eat with my child, I chose the less-spicy option. You can have the webfoot octopus and then finish with fried rice, so it looked like a good, filling choice when I was looking for a Magok lunch spot.

A fried-rice set with webfoot octopus and pork belly together

Bean sprouts, perilla leaves, salad, and sauce came as the basics, while the hot plate was generously loaded with webfoot octopus, pork belly, and rice cakes.

The cooking instructions are displayed at the table. At first, stir it well so the seasoning does not burn; once the rice cakes soften, start with the smaller pieces. You can add the bean sprouts from the start, or add them when you want to tone down the heat a little.

Once cooked, the webfoot octopus was nice and plump. It was good to pick up the pork belly and octopus together, and each was good on its own too. I also wrapped webfoot octopus and pork belly in perilla leaves with a little sauce.

I added some flying fish roe too. The little popping texture made it quite different from eating it plain.

The restaurant also has instructions for eating it with angel-hair noodles, pickled radish wraps, and perilla leaves topped with sauce.

Although we ordered the less-spicy option, it still seemed spicy for my child that day. My child ate almost all of the bomb steamed egg that came with it rather than the webfoot octopus.

From cheese steamed egg to corn butter and self-made rice balls

Just like its name suggests, the cheese steamed egg was puffed up high over its earthenware bowl and piled with cheese, so of course I had to take a photo first.

When I scooped into it, the steamed egg was soft all the way through. My child, who was struggling with the spicy food, ate nearly all of it, so it became my child's menu that day.

We had corn butter too. At other places, corn butter or corn cheese can sometimes have quite a strong mayonnaise taste.

But Jju Baksa's corn butter was not like that. Maybe because it did not have mayonnaise, it tasted clean. It was also nice to eat alongside the webfoot octopus here and there.

Then I got curious about the self-made rice balls on the menu. We had already ordered a set that included fried rice, but I ended up adding them in the middle of the meal.

Rice is topped with seaweed flakes, pickled radish, and sauce. You mix it yourself and make rice balls to eat. With the spicy webfoot octopus, I just kept eating rice.

We did not order everything from the beginning; I added this because I got curious while eating, but we ended up finishing almost all of this too.

Flying fish roe fried rice to finish

We were already full enough to stop here, but the final course of a fried-rice set is, of course, fried rice. They add rice, seaweed flakes, and more to the leftover webfoot octopus and seasoning, then fry it on the hot plate. There was also the flying fish roe we had eaten separately earlier, so we ate properly right to the end.

They spread and fried it widely across the hot plate, so the seasoning coated every grain of rice, and we even scraped up the crisp bits stuck to the bottom. We had webfoot octopus and even added self-made rice balls, but there was still room for fried rice.

The three of us—my husband, child, and I—ordered the 3-person fried-rice set, added self-made rice balls midway through, and finished with flying fish roe fried rice. Even the less-spicy option was spicy for my child, but the bomb steamed egg made it possible for us to eat together. I ate the webfoot octopus and pork belly together, separately, and wrapped in perilla leaves, and left very full. Next time, I would like to try a different heat level too.