Jinju Hoegwan

This kong-guksu (cold bean soup noodles) restaurant originally opened in 1962 in Jinju, in the southern regions of Korea, and relocated to Seoul in 1965. A bowl of kong-guksu at the time was 90 KRW. Now it’s priced at 9500 KRW, but there’s no end to the line of customers waiting for a cold bowl of noodles in thick bean soup in the heat of summer. Beans grown in Gangwon Province are ground to make the soup and noodles are made with the addition of bean powder. It's an incredibly simple dish, but combines perfect harmony among all its ingredients.For people who don’t like the unique scent of ground beans, you may think differently after having Jinju Hoegwan's rich and silky kong-guksu. There's a long history to kong-guksu: In Korea, beans are sometimes referred to as “meat grown from the ground.” In times when meat was scarce, a bowl of kong-guksu was a nutritious and filling meal. Though the hard times have passed, Koreans' love for this dish hasn't lessened at all. There's even one Samsung Group chairman, a known gourmet, who is said to have visited several times in the summer for these noodles.