Gangnam Korean BBQ with staff-grilled pork skin: Kkondae Kim Bujang

I’m still the youngest person at my company, so choosing a place for every company dinner is such a headache, you know?! And at these dinners, it’s often chaos because someone has to grill, cut, and keep track of the meat ㅠㅠㅠ But at Kkondae Kim Bujang Gogi-jip Gangnam Station Branch (꼰대김부장고깃집 강남역점), the staff grilled everything themselves, so I got to eat super comfortably!!

The name alone made me laugh because it feels so perfectly suited to a company dinner, haha. But once I went, it wasn’t just the name—the restaurant really did have quite a few things that make it great for a group dinner?? Let me show you the 10-dish table setting first.

What comes with the basic table setting?

There were about 10 side dishes alone!! From the youngest employee’s perspective, this kind of thing is the best... When the basic sides are this good at a company dinner, it gives everyone an instant wow point, right? Haha.

• Basic kimchi, pan-fried pink sausage, and seasoned dried radish strips
• Salted pollack roe with sesame oil, acorn jelly and water parsley salad, and soy-marinated onions
• Blanched squid salad, eoriguljeot (salted oysters), and mushroom pancake
• About four sauces for dipping the meat

There were seriously sooo many kinds of side dishes that I thought I could get full just eating these, haha.

And the pink sausage really caught my eye!! It’s that old-school pink sausage, dipped in egg and pan-fried until golden. The second I saw it, I thought, ah, this is going to be a department manager’s favorite, haha. It feels like you could start a conversation over this one dish and suddenly 30 minutes of the company dinner would be gone?! It was salty and soft, and once you pick one up, you keep reaching for more. I hadn’t had it in ages, so it somehow tasted extra good to me!

Make sure to order steamed rice before the meat comes out! The salted oyster seafood and blanched squid salad alone make you finish half a bowl of rice in no time!

The ordered meats and staff grilling service

We ordered aged pork belly, cartilage, and pork skin.

First of all...!! The biggest advantage of Kkondae Kim Bujang Gogi-jip: they grill the meat for you..!! They grilled each piece and cut it into easy-to-eat sizes, so it had been ages since I’d gone to a Korean BBQ restaurant and could just focus on eating. It was sooo comfortable, you know..?

What I liked most was being able to focus on company-dinner conversation, have a drink, and eat at ease without getting frazzled grilling meat, haha.

Thick pork skin

My personal favorite was the pork skin. I don’t think I’d ever seen pork skin this thick before?! Because it was so thick, I initially wondered whether it would cook through, but the staff handled it themselves and cooked it to exactly the right state for eating~

The pork skin at Kkondae Kim Bujang Gogi-jip near Gangnam Station was thick, with a bouncy yet moist texture, and you could really taste the rich, nutty fattiness inside. Thin pork skin gradually gets tough, but this was chewy without being too hard, and it went incredibly well with beer!!

Aged pork belly

The pork belly was nicely thick too! The staff cut it into easy-to-eat pieces and grilled it for us.

It was clean-tasting without that distinct pork smell, and its moderate thickness gave it such a satisfying bite! Meat grilled by someone else really does taste best, haha. Even while we were eating, the staff came by to adjust the heat and remove the flame as needed, which was so convenient!

Soy sauce-marinated cartilage

The cartilage came in a soy sauce marinade style!

The salty soy sauce marinade had lots of umami, with the seasoning coming through subtly~ Best of all, the cartilage kept its signature crunchy-chewy texture, so it made a great snack with drinks, haha.

Finishing with bibim naengmyeon and doenjang jjigae

You can’t resist bibim naengmyeon (spicy mixed cold noodles) with pork belly, right? If you’ve had meat, you have to have naengmyeon, so we ordered it too! It came with noodle broth, so we could eat it in a watery bibim style with plenty of slushy ice~ The ice made it feel like it cleared out the palate.

We finished with doenjang jjigae (soybean paste stew). At the end, it has to be doenjang jjigae and steamed rice—you’d miss it if you skipped doenjang jjigae at a Korean BBQ restaurant.

It had a mild, savory soybean-paste base, making it great with rice after the meat. It wasn’t an overpowering doenjang jjigae, so it was lovely as a finishing meal~

Pairing the meat with salted seafood and sauces

A little detail full of my personal preferences! With so many side dishes, this would also be a great place for daytime drinks! If you look closely around the generous table setting, you’ll find sauces hiding there for dipping the meat?!

There were salted seafood sauces such as salted pollack roe, meljeot (salted anchovy sauce), and eoriguljeot that really boost the umami!! And it was such a nice detail that there were sauces like wasabi and pickled onions to cut through the rich flavor!

Here are three custom sauce combinations I personally enjoyed so much. Save these tips and definitely try them!

• Salted pollack roe + wasabi + pork belly
• Water parsley salad + pork skin
• Salted oysters + cartilage

Group gathering and open-air dinner seating

The indoor seating was also really spacious, so it looked great for company dinners, group gatherings, pre-wedding meetings, and all sorts of occasions. I loved that there was a range of seating, from group tables to tables for two to four people! There were quite a lot of guests, but the air conditioning was blasting and it stayed clean without any choking smoke, which I loved!

The weather is starting to get cooler now, right? There are outdoor seats with that open-air street-bar feel too, so if you’re considering an outdoor company dinner, it could be worth checking out, haha.

Looking for a company-dinner spot near Gangnam Station, or a Korean BBQ restaurant for daytime drinks? I recommend Kkondae Kim Bujang Gogi-jip near Gangnam Station! The staff grill the meat, so you can just relax and enjoy it~ And definitely order the thick pork skin!