What the broth is made of — eight Seoul houses, seven different bases

Beef, ox knee, beef stock with loach, pork twice, a whole chicken, cod, and sausage. Eight Seoul houses whose signature is a single bowl of soup, arranged by what that soup is actually made from. A bowl costs between 11,000 and 20,000 won, four of them shut for part of the afternoon, and two publish no hours at all.

Published Sep 4, 20264 min read

Set the eight bowls side by side and they look like one dish. All eight are hot soup poured over rice, and the bowls themselves are not far apart in shape.

What differs is what the soup is made from. Eight houses, seven bases.

These eight were chosen from menus, not from taste

There is one test — the first line of the record's menu ends in tang or gukbap, or the house's own name contains that bowl. Applied to the 41 Seoul restaurant records this site holds, it returns 12 houses.

Four of them are already in another list — Imun Seolnongtang, Mapo-ok, Gangnam Ttaro Gukbap and Jeonju Seolleongtang appear in Seven Seoul houses that open for breakfast. That list was chosen by opening hour and this one by what is in the pot, so a house qualifying for both is not a contradiction. Here we take the eight that remain.

There is no ranking in it. The order below is simply the base moving from beef through pork, chicken, fish and cured meat.

Seven bases

Beef — Naju Gomtang Ujeongjip, simmered down to a clear broth.
Ox knee — Daesungjip. The same animal, the cartilage of the knee.
Beef stock plus loach — Yonggeumok, the only bowl of the eight with two bases: a freshwater fish set on a beef stock.
Pork, clear — Gwanghwamun Gukbap and Dwaeji Gomtang Hau. The same base at two houses, one calling the bowl gukbap and the other gomtang.
A whole chicken — Tosokchon Samgyetang. Nothing is made separately; the bird is boiled and its water is the broth.
Cod — Won Daegutang, the only one of the eight built on fish rather than meat.
Sausage, potato and cabbage — Bada Sikdang. It is budae-jjigae, and this house calls it Johnson-tang.

Three beef, two pork, one each of the rest. Only one of the eight lists a spicy version on its menu at all — Won Daegutang — and even there the clear version costs the same.

What a bowl costs — 11,000 to 20,000 won

Naju gomtang 11,000 won — the cheapest of the eight.
Gwanghwamun Gukbap, dwaeji gukbap 12,000 won · Yonggeumok, chutang 12,000 won
Daesungjip, dogani-tang 13,000 won (large 17,000) · Dwaeji Gomtang Hau 13,000 won (large 16,000)
Won Daegutang 15,000 won — spicy, clear and offal all the same price.
Tosokchon Samgyetang 20,000 won — the most expensive. Black-boned chicken is 25,000.
Bada Sikdang, Johnson-tang 24,000 won — priced for two, so this line is not in the same unit as the others.

Counted one bowl to a person, the spread runs from 11,000 to 20,000 won — less than double. What stands out is that price does not track the ingredient: the dearest bowl is chicken, not beef.

Four are shut in the afternoon, and two you cannot know about

Four close for part of the afternoon.

Gwanghwamun Gukbap 14:30–17:30 — three hours, the longest of the eight.
Dwaeji Gomtang Hau 15:00–17:30
Naju Gomtang Ujeongjip 15:00–17:00
Won Daegutang 15:00–16:00

Two publish no opening hours at all — Daesungjip and Yonggeumok. Both were undecidable for the same reason in the breakfast list. They may be open and they may not, and no other house's hours were borrowed to fill the gap.

The closing days differ too. Naju Gomtang Ujeongjip shuts for both weekend days, Gwanghwamun Gukbap on Sundays, Won Daegutang on Mondays, and Bada Sikdang on the 1st, 3rd and 5th Monday of each month. Dwaeji Gomtang Hau does not publish its closing days.

Four you can walk between, four you cannot

Straight-line distances calculated from the coordinates this site holds — not walking distances.

Gwanghwamun Gukbap ↔ Yonggeumok 401m — the closest pair of the eight.
Gwanghwamun Gukbap ↔ Tosokchon Samgyetang 1,054m, Daesungjip ↔ Tosokchon Samgyetang 1,094m
Those four fall inside a 1.8km radius across Jongno-gu and Jung-gu. One bowl a day makes it several days' worth, but the walking is easy.
The other four are spread across Gangnam, Yongsan and Seongdong. The two in Yongsan, Won Daegutang and Bada Sikdang, are 2,249m apart.
Daesungjip ↔ Naju Gomtang Ujeongjip 10,174m — the furthest pair.

So this is not an order to walk in. Read it as: four to choose from on a day you are in Jongno or Jung-gu, and one anywhere else.

Where to walk after the bowl

Frequently asked questions

How were these eight chosen?

They are the Seoul restaurants whose first menu line ends in tang or gukbap, or whose own name contains that bowl. Applied to the 41 Seoul restaurant records this site holds, that test returns 12 houses. Four of them — Imun Seolnongtang, Mapo-ok, Gangnam Ttaro Gukbap and Jeonju Seolleongtang — already appear in Seven Seoul houses that open for breakfast. The remaining eight are this list. It is not a ranking by taste.

Why arrange them by what the broth is made of?

Because all eight are the same thing in form — hot soup over rice — so what separates them is the base. Three are beef (one of those the knee, one with loach added), two are pork, and chicken, cod and sausage account for one each. Eight houses, seven bases.

Can I go in the afternoon?

Four of the eight — Naju Gomtang Ujeongjip, Gwanghwamun Gukbap, Dwaeji Gomtang Hau and Won Daegutang — close for part of the afternoon and reopen for the evening. Gwanghwamun Gukbap in particular is shut for three hours, from 14:30 to 17:30, so a late lunch there is easily a wasted trip. Only Tosokchon Samgyetang runs straight through the day.

Do the eight make a route for one day?

No. But four of them sit close together. Gwanghwamun Gukbap and Yonggeumok are 401m apart, and with Daesungjip and Tosokchon Samgyetang the four fall inside a 1.8km radius across Jongno-gu and Jung-gu. The other four are scattered across Gangnam, Yongsan and Seongdong, and the furthest pair — Daesungjip and Naju Gomtang Ujeongjip — are 10.2km apart.

Why are the prices quoted in different units?

Because the houses count differently. Six are one bowl per person, between 11,000 and 20,000 won. Won Daegutang quotes 15,000 won per person, and Bada Sikdang's Johnson-tang is 24,000 won for two. So Johnson-tang looks like the most expensive line in the table, and per person it is not.