식당 주 는 대로 -  "sigdang juneun daero" (rough translation)

We arrived in Hwaseong Fortress just in time for lunch. If you want to know how to go to Hwaseong Fortress from Suwon, check my post here.

Before we got to tour the fortress, we ate lunch because we were really hungry. I am thankful that this was the nearest place to eat just right in front of the nearest entrance to the fortress from where we were. I want to share this restaurant that serves delicious and affordable Korean pork belly with lots of side dishes.


I have watched a handful of dramas and being such a K-drama fan, I know some Korean channels where dramas are being aired. I know, for a fact, that it is a big deal in Korea to be featured by a big broadcasting channel so I wanted to try this place and was expecting it to be good and we were not disappointed.

Poster in the front of the restaraunt

Poster showing that this restaurant was featured in the SBS channel

When we entered, I saw that there was another picture inside the place. framed showing the restaurant being featured in a show in SBS.



We ordered the side dishes per person which costs 8,000 won per person. This includes 10 different side dishes.  In our case, since we were two people, they actually served 20 different kinds of "banchan" or side dishes.  Since we wanted some meat, we ordered pork belly aka samgyeopsal.





You can see above how varied and how big they serve their side dishes.  We tried as much as we can to finish these enormous amount.  For first-timers in eating Korean food, eating side dishes is the one of the best ways to try eating Korean food.

Pork belly (12,000 won or 12 USD (estimate))

I actually tried the samgyeopsal in another restaurant in Nami Island before I tried this. I must say this is the best-tasting pork belly ever.  It only costs 12,000 won (a lot cheaper than in Seoul) and it may look like they give small servings but this was a lot for us. We tried our best to eat all of this since it was so delicious. The pork was chewy and tasted so fresh, in my opinion.
We have tried samgyeopsal in Korean restaurants in the Philippines but we both agreed that nothing beats the pork belly in the country where it came from.

Dwenjang jigae or Soybean Stew (one of the side dishes) I could not believe that they served dwenjang jigae or Soybean Stew as a side dish.  I know this is considered as a meal in Korea. But I am assuming since we were foreigners, they gave us this and we were thankful.  This is the best-tasting soybean stew I have ever had!  This costs probably 5-7 USD in the Philippines.

Clean grill plate