Bongdam Korean restaurant treating my mother to pork set menu

Today I wanted to treat my mother to a meal, so after looking around here and there, I went to a Bongdam favorite, Hwadamga (화담가), located in Bongdam, Hwaseong.

What is Hwadamga? Hours and parking

Hwadamga is a place where you can eat both grilled fish and meat. They grill the fish in a wood-fired oven for extra flavor, which is what drew me there. My daughter Dasol said she wanted juicy, moist meat, so after some thinking I checked the menu and found they had boiled pork!

📍Hours Daily 11:00–22:00 Break time 15:00–17:00 Last order 21:30

📍Parking There's a parking lot in front of the restaurant. The space is wide enough that even beginner drivers can park easily.

Seating with private rooms, and what we ordered

The seating has a nice, upscale feel, and there are private rooms too — great for family gatherings or get-togethers with friends, and good for bringing your parents since you can enjoy it privately.

I ordered the boiled pork set menu along with grilled mackerel and grilled hairtail. One nice thing about ordering a set menu is that you get to help yourself to the banchan (side dishes) at the self-serve bar.

What's at the self-serve banchan bar?

There's seaweed soup, japchae (stir-fried glass noodles), steamed sweet pumpkin, barley rice, and white rice, and you can scoop out as much rice as you like. When you first order the set menu, you get barley rice. There's also a huge variety of banchan, so it's fun picking what you like~ The seaweed soup was nicely salty, so Dasol mixed a whole bowl of rice into it too~

There's meat in the seaweed soup too, and the set comes with a separate stew as well — since the seaweed soup is separate, adults can have the doenjang jjigae (soybean paste stew) while kids have the seaweed soup, which is so nice.

The side dishes included seaweed stem, doraji (bellflower root) muchim, stir-fried eggplant, nakji jeotgal (salted octopus), stir-fried zucchini, seasoned bean sprouts, and so many more! The banchan weren't too heavily seasoned, just the right amount of salty and delicious. My mother loved how tidy the side dishes were and how nice the atmosphere was too.

Bibimbap made with sesame oil and gochujang

You could finish a whole bowl of rice on the banchan alone, but each table also has its own sesame oil and gochujang (red chili paste), so I made myself a bibimbap and it was genuinely delicious.

There were also ssam vegetables (lettuce and perilla leaves) and salad for wrapping the meat, plus chili peppers and garlic, so it was nice to have such a healthy meal. I wrapped some of the boiled pork in the greens too — the pork was thick and filled my mouth in one bite, with really good meaty flavor.

How was the wood-fired mackerel, hairtail, and boiled pork?

The mackerel and hairtail we ordered had no fishy smell and were plump, with a lot of meat on the bone. Being grilled in the wood-fired oven made them even more savory, moist, and delicious. The boiled pork was thick and juicy too — Dasol ate almost half of it herself!

My husband ended up eating three more bowls of rice with just the banchan haha. He said the barley rice just kept going down, mixing it into rice and eating it with the doenjang jjigae too — he really ate well~

At the table next to us, some diners had come for grilled meat, and when I saw the staff serving it, the quality of the meat looked so good that Dasol suddenly said she wanted grilled meat too. We'd already finished our rice, so we couldn't order more meat, but we decided to come back next time just for the grilled meat.

Suhyangmi rice, and final thoughts

Hwadamga cooks its rice with suhyangmi rice, and maybe because of that, when you choose the suhyangmi rice you get a faint scent reminiscent of scorched rice (nurungji), making the rice even more savory and delicious!

Whenever I eat with my parents, I always get a little nervous wondering if the food will be good — but my mother, Dasol, and my husband were all so satisfied with this meal.

If you want to eat both meat and grilled fish, need a private room for a family gathering or any kind of meet-up, or just want a tidy, delicious home-style meal, go visit Bongdam favorite Hwadamga (화담가)!🤍