A super-popular Korean restaurant featured in travel guides too—tender, generous portions of grilled Korean beef

Text and photos byPaine (Little Dot)

Today I’m introducing this already well-known restaurant in Mapo-dong, “Longmenjia,” which has been featured in many travel books. Mapo-dong has a Korean beef market where you can find certified genuine Korean beef. But Korean beef (not regular beef), is also graded. Some restaurants further classify the grades and display different prices accordingly. The first time I came to Mapo-dong, I had originally planned to eat at the grill place in the alleyway of Longmenjia, but I got tempted by an all-you-can-eat option for 20,000 KRW. If you want to eat regular beef, I’d say go for the all-you-can-eat. But if you want real Korean beef, come down this alley.

First, let me say that everyone’s perception of food is subjective—including mine and Miao’s. When we eat together, we often discuss our thoughts on the restaurant, and aside from service attitude, the food itself is really important.

If you exit from Exit 2 of Mapo Station, follow the route I marked on the Naver Map—it goes right through this market. You can take a look here, as it’s a place that specializes in selling fresh Korean beef. Some shops offer grilling services—you buy the meat, pay, and then they’ll grill it for you right there. I also saw some Koreans who bought meat and headed straight upstairs to a restaurant. If you’re looking for higher quality Korean beef, you can shop here and either take it home or have it cooked on-site.

At the end of the market, you’ll find this Mapo-dong BBQ alley.

It gets pretty lively here at night—full of foodies. (And lots of tourists too!)

My target today was Longmenjia, but there are plenty of options here—you can go on your own little adventure. I ended up here because the day before, while visiting the Chingjing Tree Garden, I met a Hong Kong couple who told me they were coming here the next day. They even sent me photos. When I got to Longmenjia, I found out that it’s actually quite well-known among Hong Kong people, so most of the tourists here are from Hong Kong and Macau.

Most of the seating inside is the kind where you take off your shoes, like in the photo. There are only two tables where you don’t need to remove your shoes.

On the left in red is Korean beef, on the right in blue is domestic beef. So yes, Korean beef is categorized differently. But even the red Korean beef has its own grades. For example, when I ate at Qibai Shitang in Hongdae, they specified 1++ grade, but Longmenjia doesn’t. However, when we walked through the meat market, we did see some BBQ places clearly labeling their meat as 1+ or 1++ grade.

Read more Hongdae’s ‘Qibai Shitang Korean Beef Specialty – Top A-grade 1++ Korean Beef That Lingers’

The owner’s wife (probably the grandma, since the photo shows her) is slicing the meat—this is for making beef tartare.

The price list is pretty straightforward. When you come in, just go for the “one cow” set (80,000 KRW for 700g of Korean beef, 60,000 KRW for 700g of regular beef). But, but—80,000 KRW is a bit much for two people. I think 80,000 KRW is better suited for three people. Two people can get the 50,000 KRW smaller portion. It’s not listed on the menu, but if you ask the waitress (who speaks Chinese), she’ll tell you it’s available. Two girls definitely shouldn’t get the 80,000 KRW set—it’s way too much.

But the staff didn’t proactively suggest the 50,000 KRW option for two girls. So… just keep that in mind.

All the above are à la carte prices.

The Chinese-speaking waitress seated us and brought out a bunch of side dishes and sauces—one of the sauces is vinegar, the other is sesame oil with salt—you can dip according to your preference.

Raw beef liver and beef tripe—the liver was super fishy, kinda scary, I took one bite and...

In the end, I ate a lot of kimchi because eating only meat without kimchi can feel pretty heavy.

The lettuce used for wrapping the meat

This beef tartare was really delicious, in my opinion—it had a nice sesame oil aroma, and the white crunchy bits were kind of like shredded pear.

The soup was something we asked the waitress for—it’s free.

They served five different cuts of meat—we could ask the waitress, and she explained them, but it was all in Korean, and I can’t remember now.

This cut had great marbling—I thought it was the best among them.

This cut was the toughest one, and they gave us the most of it—but it was also the last one we finished.

When grilling these pork belly slices, they use foil underneath. You take the foil off after grilling. It has enough fat, and it was pretty good.

This was actually my favorite cut of the meal.

The next two photos are from the back door—if you take the bigger road shown on the map, you’ll see the back entrance.

Tips: The service attitude is actually quite good. Since there are many tourists, there are Chinese-speaking staff to assist you. However, they didn’t proactively or thoughtfully inform us about the ₩50,000 beef platter for one person, which can lead to food waste. But they do provide a free canned soda (it seems all tourists get one), and the service staff are pretty warm and enthusiastic. They also change the grill grates very diligently. That said, both my friend Maio and I felt that although it’s Korean beef, it might just be the basic grade. In comparison, Chilbail Sikdang in Hongdae’s 1++ grade beef is really better—just by looking at the photos, the distribution and color of the marbling are clearly superior. But Chilbail Sikdang isn’t much more expensive (₩25,000 for 150g). We each spent ₩40,000 that day and were extremely, extremely full. I suddenly missed the feeling at Chilbail Sikdang back then—when we weren’t totally full but still thought the food was incredibly delicious.

Dragon Gate House (Pihwan Sang) Korean Beef BBQ
Address: 35, Gucheong-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul, South Korea, 76 (this is the back entrance)
Phone: 02-2299-4648
Korean Nest Chinese Map (marks the front entrance, located in the middle of the alley)
Route Map(this route passes by the meat market; the BBQ alley is on the left at the very end)
Coordinates:37.570871, 127.041805

Little Dot Sees the World ★ Fun in Korea, Rolling Around
Blog:http://www.paine0602.com/blog
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