Yongsan shabu-shabu restaurant: Angus chuck roll at Shabu in Seoul

There are definitely days when you suddenly crave shabu-shabu, haha—like you’ve received a sign from above..! This time, I visited Shabu in Seoul Yongsan Main Branch. I found it while looking for somewhere to eat near Samgakji Station, and I loved that the atmosphere was much nicer than expected the moment I walked in.

📍 Shabu in Seoul Yongsan Main Branch

A calm atmosphere and spacious seating

The whole place has a calm wood-and-brown color scheme, and the tables are fairly spacious too! The seats are separated by tall, divider-like partitions, so you do not have to pay much attention to the next table. Rather than the usual bustling shabu-shabu restaurant vibe, it felt cleaner and quieter, so it would be a nice place for a date or meetup too. Haha.

Individual shabu sets ordered by tablet

You can order from the tablet at your table. There are individual set menus, making it easy for everyone to eat their own meal and simple to choose what to get.

🥘 What we ordered Prime Angus chuck roll shabu set 25,000 won × 2 Total: 50,000 won

There were three sauces on the table: soy sauce, yuzu sauce, a spicy sauce, and a nutty sesame sauce, so you could eat according to your taste! There was also minced garlic and chili peppers on the side, which I mixed into the sauces a little at a time. When you are eating shabu-shabu, one sauce can get subtly tiring after a while, so it was nice to rotate among all three!!

Prime Angus chuck roll shabu set

The meat we ordered was chuck roll! The marbling was so pretty that I took photos as soon as it arrived, haha.

A generous basket of vegetables came alongside it, including napa cabbage, bean sprouts, bok choy, enoki mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, and kabocha squash. The shape of the shiitake mushrooms and the panda fish cakes were so cute, hahaha. It is such a small thing, but seeing details like that always makes me take another photo.

Once the broth starts boiling, you toss in all the vegetables first, then lightly cook the meat one slice at a time. That is the joy of it, right?

Maybe because it was chuck roll, the meat was tender and not overly fatty, so it was easy to keep eating. A bite of meat, a bite of vegetables, switch sauces, then another bite... shabu-shabu always goes down endlessly like this.

As the vegetables cooked, their flavor seeped into the broth, so the soup became more delicious as we went along. I absolutely love piling in bean sprouts and mushrooms and eating them with the meat ㅠㅠ The weather has slowly been getting colder lately! It is the perfect menu for a day when you are craving warm soup.

Shabu-shabu ends with egg juk

The true finale of shabu-shabu is... juk (rice porridge), of course!! We let the shabu-shabu broth develop all that flavor just so we can eat juk!!

When you press the menu item labeled “Prepare meal,” a staff member comes over and makes the juk for you. They add rice to the broth, which is rich with meat and vegetable flavor, and let it bubble away. With egg mixed in, it was soft and savory, and the seaweed flakes and sesame oil drizzled on top made it seriously, seriously delicious.

I was actually pretty full, but I guess juk goes into a separate stomach after all.. I scraped up every last bite. Hehe.

A satisfying meal near Samgakji Station

Shabu in Seoul Yongsan Main Branch! I liked the clean restaurant and calm atmosphere first of all, and ordering a set meant we could have a satisfying full meal from the meat and vegetables through to the final juk. If I were looking for somewhere around Sinyongsan or Samgakji to eat until full without having something too heavy, I think I would come here again. Haha. More than anything, having shabu-shabu and then juk somehow makes it feel like you properly looked after yourself with one good meal for the day!!