Prime pork shabu-shabu 3-person lunch set at Shabuway Ruwon City

As the weather's been getting chillier lately, I keep craving warm soupy food. This time I wanted shabu-shabu around Cheongna, so I looked around and ended up at Shabuway Ruwon City Cheongna Branch. Shabu-shabu is the kind of dish you can dress up or keep light depending on what you're craving. The place turned out clean and the food was solid overall, so I had a comfortable meal. Today I'll walk through everything I ordered for a detailed review of this Cheongna shabu-shabu spot :)

Location and hours

• Address: 2nd Floor, Ruwon Top Plaza, 11 Yeomgok-ro 464beon-gil, Seohae-gu, Incheon, South Korea
• Hours: Mon–Sun 11:30 AM – 9:30 PM
• Break time: 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM (no break on weekends and holidays!)
• Closed September 24–25 for Chuseok holiday

Is parking convenient?

Shabuway Ruwon City Cheongna is located in the Ruwon Top Plaza building in Gajeong-dong. If you're driving, you can use the building's underground parking lot. When I visited, the lot was quite spacious so parking wasn't a hassle at all. Anyone coming by car should be able to park without much worry :)

Atmosphere and seating

Taking the elevator up to the 2nd floor, Shabuway Ruwon City Cheongna was right there, easy to find. Once inside, the restaurant was much bigger than I expected. Seating was split left and right from the entrance, with plenty of room between tables. When I visited, most people were seated on the right side, so I mostly photographed the left side. Overall the space felt roomy with generous gaps between seats, which seemed great for group visits haha.

What's on the salad bar?

The salad bar had vegetables perfect for rice wraps — carrots, cucumbers, onions, purple cabbage, and more, all laid out cleanly so you could take as much as you wanted. There was also a self-serve corner for making porridge. Finishing off shabu-shabu with a bowl of porridge sounded like a satisfying way to end the meal 😌 There was a good variety of sauces too, and what I especially liked was a sauce-pairing guide posted nearby! If you're unsure which sauces go well together, you can just follow the guide, which is handy even if you're not confident mixing sauces yourself haha.

There was also a wide range of vegetables for the shabu-shabu broth — napa cabbage, bok choy, bean sprouts, sweet pumpkin, and even minari (water celery). Several kinds of mushrooms were available too, so you could pick according to your taste ☺️

Hot food sides

There were plenty of side dishes to pair with the shabu-shabu! Cajun chicken salad, perilla oil pasta, pad thai, mala xiang guo (spicy stir-fried mala dish), plus kimchi and various banchan (side dishes). Looking around, I also spotted seasoned galbi, egg fried rice, ratatouille, boneless fried chicken, sweet and sour pork, and even pizza — quite the lineup. Since you're not limited to just shabu-shabu, this setup works well even if someone in your group isn't a huge shabu-shabu fan, since everyone can pick what they like :)

By the way, Shabuway Ruwon City Cheongna also has an all-you-can-eat shabu-shabu option. Order it and you can take as much meat as you like from the salad bar setup. With the wide variety of salad bar dishes plus unlimited meat, it seemed like a solid choice for anyone wanting to eat their fill haha. After the meal, there was also ice cream, fruit, and coffee for dessert.

How much is the weekday lunch?

Here's the price list at Shabuway Ruwon City Cheongna. Since I visited on a weekday lunch, I ordered the prime pork shoulder lunch — 180g of shabu meat per person plus the salad bar, for ₩18,000. There's also a separate all-you-can-eat option, priced as follows.

• Weekday lunch all-you-can-eat: ₩24,900
• Weekday dinner all-you-can-eat: ₩29,900
• Weekend/holiday all-you-can-eat: ₩29,900

There's a separate kids' pricing too. Weekday lunch is ₩12,900 for school-age kids and ₩7,900 for preschoolers. Weekends and holidays are ₩16,000 for school-age (8–13) and ₩8,900 for preschoolers (36 months–7 years). If you eat a lot of meat, the all-you-can-eat option makes sense; if you want a moderate amount of meat plus the salad bar like I did, the lunch set is the way to go.

Choosing broth and setting up for three

There were 4 broth options to choose from. Shiitake mushroom broth is the default, with spicy broth costing an extra ₩2,000, and sukiyaki or mala broth each costing an extra ₩3,000. You can pick up to 2 broths and split the pot half-and-half, but sukiyaki can't be paired half-and-half with another broth. This time I kept it simple and went with the basic shiitake mushroom broth. Once I ordered, they first set up the broth along with a basic plate of vegetables. If you need more vegetables while eating, you can just grab more from the salad bar mentioned earlier — very convenient. We ordered 3 servings and the portion was genuinely generous! The meat looked vividly colored and fresh overall, appetizing just to look at. 😋 Meat quantity really matters for shabu-shabu, and for 3 people, this amount seemed more than enough :)

How was the shiitake broth and rice wraps?

Time to actually dig into the shabu-shabu! First, we tossed all the prepared vegetables into the broth. As the vegetables cooked, the broth started picking up more flavor, and just watching it made me want to eat right away haha. While the broth was coming to a boil, I also grabbed vegetables from the salad bar for rice wraps, arranged to my taste. Once the broth started bubbling, in went the star of the show — the meat! With vegetables in, rice wrap ingredients ready, and meat cooking, the table finally felt fully set haha.

I wrapped the well-cooked meat and rice wrap vegetables in rice paper just the way I liked and took a big bite. The texture was great and it tasted really good! Dipping it in a sauce that suited my taste made the meat and vegetables come together so well that I kept reaching for more. The shiitake mushroom broth had a clean yet subtly deep flavor. It wasn't harsh or salty — quite clean, so I didn't feel weighed down even after adding more meat and vegetables. As the ingredients simmered, the broth kept absorbing more flavor and got tastier and tastier! If you like a clean, mild broth, this one should be a safe and satisfying pick 😁

Best salad bar dishes

After enjoying the shabu-shabu, I went around trying the salad bar dishes one by one. Honestly, I would've been satisfied with just a solid shabu-shabu, but the salad bar food overall surprised me with how good it was. It wasn't just a lot of variety — each dish actually tasted good. My personal favorites were the perilla oil pasta, pad thai, and sweet and sour pork! The friends I went with tried everything too and said it was all delicious! I came for shabu-shabu but ended up thoroughly enjoying the salad bar food too haha. After a filling meal, of course dessert came last! I grabbed some ice cream, and there were several toppings available so I could customize it to my taste. I finished the meal with a proper dessert to top it all off 😆🍦

Overall verdict

Overall, I left Shabuway Ruwon City Cheongna satisfied with everything from the shabu-shabu to the salad bar to dessert! Parking was easy and the restaurant is spacious, making it a good option for family outings or dining with a bigger group. If you want to enjoy shabu-shabu along with a wide variety of salad bar dishes, this Cheongna shabu-shabu spot is worth a visit :) I'd love to come back and try different broths and menu items next time!😖