Jungang Haejang

Whether skilled in cooking or not, most agree that a great dish starts from great ingredients. Jungang Haejang, located near Samseong Station, is a good example: with its own 36-year-old butcher in Majang-dong, an area in north east Seoul famous for its meat market alley, this restaurant always has fresh, quality meat that is transformed into a bowl of comfort on site. Other ingredients that go into its dishes, including pepper flakes and rice, are all domestically sourced, as well. The fact that there is always a long line during lunch time is probably due to such factor.

As it opened in early 2016, the space inside the restaurant looks quite clean. The most popular dish here is haejangguk (ox bone broth "hangover soup") which has a nice portion of blood curd and beef (ruminant) stomach which resembles a laced blanket. But what I want to recommend the most is the the spicy beef intestines and tripe soup (12,000 won) which has a generous amount of quality beef intestines. The Korean mustard sauce mixed with other condiments provided such as pepper oil and pickled peppers makes for a nice dip with a real kick. While the dish is often understood in Korea as "hangover soup," it certainly goes well with soju as the broth is clean and light.