Gyeongju Korean restaurant with beef sashimi mulhoe and chicken stew

Hwangridan-gil is always packed with people visiting Gyeongju — weekends, sure, but even weekdays are buzzing. For me, travel = restaurant hunting, so food is a core part of any trip I plan around.

Especially in Gyeongju, I go in with a firm mindset of hitting up the best Korean restaurants no matter what, so I checked out Dongyang Baekban. It's a hanok-style spot serving all kinds of fusion Korean dishes, and they even have a chicken stew that seemed perfect for feeding a baby some porridge-like bites! It's popular with everyone from couples on a Hwangridan-gil date to families, so today I'm introducing it!

Location and parking — an alley at the far end of Hwangridan-gil

• 📍 Location: 1F, 1056-5 Poseok-ro, Gyeongju, Gyeongbuk, South Korea
• 🚗 Parking: None
• ⏰ Hours: 11:00 – 21:00

Dongyang Baekban, a great spot to bring a baby on Hwangridan-gil, sits in an alley at the far end of the street. There's no dedicated parking lot, but the closest option is the Hwangnam Culture Center public lot — ₩500 for the first 30 minutes, ₩200 per additional 10 minutes, capped at ₩10,000 a day.

The sign is mounted up above a staircase like this, which gives the place a distinctive vibe.

Three hanok rooms — what's the inside like?

As I remember it, the hanok (traditional Korean house) structure has three main rooms. Pretty fitting decor for a Gyeongju Korean restaurant, right?

Once you're inside, there's a mix of 4-person and 2-person tables. The day we visited, the air conditioning in one of the rooms was broken. I thought a sign letting people know would've been a nice touch.

This room had a really nice green view — such a shame about the AC though.

We moved to a different room and the AC was blasting! Super cool.

The 4-person tables were all full so we grabbed a 2-person spot. There were actually more tables around, but the other diners were sitting so close I couldn't fit them all in the photos.

Choosing the menu — from egg rice to chicken stew

What matters most on a Hwangridan-gil dinner date is the menu, right?! Even the rice wasn't just plain rice — there was egg rice, pollock roe rice, cheongyang pepper rice, gamtae rice, gondre rice, all kinds of options. If you're coming with slightly older kids, egg rice seems to be the popular order. For anyone bringing a baby, I'd recommend what I ordered — the Eunibeoseot Heuk-nurungji chicken stew! We'd been walking around in the blazing sun for so long that we also wanted something cool, so we ordered the regular hanwoo mulhoe too.

Side dishes

Once we ordered, the banchan (side dishes) came out right away: kkakdugi (cubed radish kimchi), seasoned bean sprouts, garlic scapes, and braised soybeans. It had that homemade feeling, like a meal my mom used to set out when I was a kid — I loved it.

Regular hanwoo mulhoe, ₩12,000

Even with a baby along in Gyeongju's Hwangridan-gil, you can't give up on something cool!!! Here comes the regular hanwoo mulhoe. There are two sizes, regular and large. Writing this post now, I noticed the menu says rice is included — but we never got any... T_T

Still think Gyeongju Korean food means only hanjeongsik (traditional set meals)? Congrats, you're old-fashioned lol. These days there are all sorts of inventive menus. The round slices of hanwoo (Korean beef) on top had genuinely great texture — good chew, nutty and savory.

Interestingly, there were also two soft-boiled egg halves seasoned with a salty kick. Total rice thief. We joked that this must be the same egg that comes with the egg rice.

If you're at Dongyang Baekban for a summer Hwangridan-gil date, try the yukhoe mulhoe (raw beef mulhoe) with its rich sesame oil aroma as a specialty. The vegetables were fresh and the broth was so cool it blew the heat right away.

Medium Eunibeoseot nurungji chicken stew, ₩38,000

Main dish time!!!!! Eunibeoseot mushroom? Never heard of it. Black nurungji (scorched rice) chicken stew? Never heard of that either. Something new? Then it's an automatic order!! <- That's how we ended up ordering this. And honestly, in summer you've got to fight heat with heat and eat something piping hot too~~

This is golden enoki mushroom. It comes in big clumps, so cut it into bite-sized pieces as you go~~

Looking it up while writing this post, turns out Eunibeoseot = white wood ear mushroom (huinmogi-beoseot). While eating I kept saying it tasted just like wood ear mushroom — turns out I was right lol.

Why it's great with a baby — boneless chicken

The reason Dongyang Baekban, a Gyeongju Korean restaurant, is great to bring a baby to!! The chicken in the stew is boneless!!!!! No bones meant it was really easy to eat, and I never once had a stray bone fragment the whole meal.

The broth is dark black in color but not seasoned too strongly, which seemed perfect for feeding kids~~

At the bottom there's a layer of nurungji, so you need to boil it hard for a while to soften it up.

Make sure to cut up the ginseng root pieces too — that's the flavor of health right there. There was another table next to us with a baby too, out on Hwangridan-gil. Such a cute, calm baby lol.

Scoop the nurungji, chicken, and various mushrooms into your own bowl to eat~~

I thought it would've been nice to have some kind of dipping sauce! But as it simmers down and reduces, the seasoning gets a bit stronger, and pairing it with kkakdugi balances it out perfectly!! Mild enough that it's great for eating with babies -

Overall verdict

Dongyang Baekban is a great pick for a Hwangridan-gil dinner date with a baby! The Eunibeoseot Heuk-nurungji chicken stew — loaded with various mushrooms, ginseng, boneless chicken, black sesame, and nurungji, all simmered together — works no matter who you're eating it with or when!!

In summer, after sweating buckets, it's great for restoring energy, and in winter, spooning up that hot broth would be perfect for warming up. If you come with older adults, they'd probably say this is exactly what a healthy table looks like, and since the chicken is boneless it's also easy for kids to eat, with the nurungji doubling as rice — I think this is a place that can satisfy everyone.