Jongno Chinese restaurant for mala tofu: Cheonghwawon Daehangno

With delicious dim sum and beef knife-cut noodles that you just do not find around my neighborhood, this is a Daehangno Chinese restaurant I end up visiting now and then whenever I am here for a date!

When you think of a Chinese restaurant, you might picture one serving jajangmyeon (black bean noodles) and jjamppong (spicy seafood noodle soup), but this place has neither. It is a Daehangno specialist restaurant where you can try Taiwanese beef knife-cut noodle soup, dim sum, and more.

Finding Cheonghwawon Daehangno Branch from Hyehwa Station

From the subway, head out Exit 4 of Hyehwa Station on Line 4 and into the restaurant alley~ Pass CGV along the alley, and you will spot it on the first floor on the same right-hand side, thanks to its green sign.

An interior that works for solo meals and dates alike

Both the first and second floors are open for dining. The first floor has window-side counter seats, so plenty of people come alone. There are also lots of regular two-person tables, making it comfortable for solo diners or couples, while the second floor has a different atmosphere and a more spacious interior.

There are food descriptions posted around the walls too, for anyone trying beef knife-cut noodle soup for the first time. Beef knife-cut noodle soup?! It is a Taiwanese noodle soup with deeply simmered beef broth, knife-shaved noodles cut along the grain of the dough, and tender beef shank.

From beef knife-cut noodle soup to dim sum

The signature is, of course, the beef knife-cut noodle soup! Beyond that, there is a wide range of noodles, dim sum, rice dishes, fried dishes, stir-fries, and cold appetizers. There are easy meal options as well as larger dishes, so it would work for a simple Daehangno lunch or snacks with drinks in the evening.

The basic sides are zhacai (pickled mustard stem) and roasted peanuts~ The zhacai here is more tangy than salty, which makes it even tastier haha. It is one of those addictive flavors that keeps you reaching back in, and it is also the kick that cuts right through the richness of Chinese food. It really does the job of kimchi ^^

Ordering beef knife-cut noodles, mixed noodles, xiaolongbao, and mala tofu

• Beef knife-cut noodle soup
• Spicy mixed knife-cut noodles
• Xiaolongbao
• Mala tofu

The mala tofu came first. Rather than eating each dish course by course, we wanted to enjoy everything evenly together, so we waited for the other dishes—but the addictive aroma of the mala tofu kept teasing us, and it was so hard to hold out haha.

At last, every dish was out, and we slowly savored them one by one >.<

Mala tofu mixed with rice

I did not expect you to come out first~ I was drooling while waiting for you haha. Mix it straight into rice and take a bite—it is not overly spicy and just perfect with rice! With soft tofu in mala seasoning, it is a rice dish that anyone who loves mala can enjoy deliciously without a miss.

Since it is only tofu, it would disappear in minutes mixed with rice, so we picked a wider variety of dishes.

Handmade xiaolongbao full of broth

Chewy xiaolongbao (soup dumplings) filled with broth and handmade in the restaurant. When we came in, we even saw the staff shaping handmade dim sum on the first floor~ And with the dim sum steamer constantly working away on one side, there was no way not to order them haha.

If you eat one right away, you could burn the roof of your mouth, so gently tear the wrapper, check the broth, let it cool a little, then eat. It is mild yet nutty and delicious ^^ They also serve soy sauce with pickled shredded ginger; add that too, and I think I could eat more than ten of these lol.

Chewy Taiwanese beef knife-cut noodle soup

Cheonghwawon’s signature Taiwanese beef knife-cut noodle soup!

The broth is brown, so it looks as though it might be salty, but it is not as intense as its color suggests. The knife-cut noodles are wonderfully chewy, with a texture like sujebi (hand-torn dough soup), giving them a charm quite different from kalguksu noodles~ There are also bits with a texture like chopped aged greens?! Cabbage?! in the broth, so each spoonful is fun in a different way.

Cold, springy spicy mixed knife-cut noodles

The spicy mixed knife-cut noodles are the bibim (mixed-noodle) version of the knife-cut noodles. Since the noodles are rinsed cold, they have an even springier texture, and the beef topping and chopped chili bring a little heat—another appeal entirely from the seasoning of the beef noodle soup.

Chewy knife-cut noodles make the beef noodle soup fun to eat as well as deeply flavorful from its long-simmered beef-bone broth, while the handmade dim sum, full of broth with delightfully chewy wrappers, simply cannot be anything but delicious. Cheonghwawon Daehangno Branch is a Daehangno Chinese restaurant where you can sample a range of Taiwanese dishes, making it a lovely place to visit after a theater date ^^