Work took me to Vulkan, a hamburg steak specialist on Garosu-gil. I tend to avoid places without any distinctive flavor, but it turned out not bad at all, so here it is. Honestly, as long as the tables turn over quickly enough, there is no way a hamburg steak costing over 10,000 won can taste bad. The atmosphere is fine, the concept is fine, and the place was packed.

Roughly what the interior looks like

The music is loud, so it is not the kind of atmosphere where you can eat in peace, but it does have that clean, tidy Western-food feel. It has something in common with Japanese family restaurants like Royal Host.

Probably the cheese hamburg

You get two small hamburg patties. One big one would look better, but the small ones save on cooking time and there is less chance of getting them wrong. The patty itself is the same for every menu item; the difference is the sauce on top.

Soup

A soup that seems to be made from instant mix comes as standard.

The original hamburg

It was fine to eat even without much sauce. The garnish seems to be frozen stuff, but even so it was decent enough overall. The fried egg on top is a plus too. In Japan there are tons of hamburg steak chains all over the country (Big Boy, Bikkuri Donkey, Tomato & Onion and so on), and if places like Vulkan start making good money, I suspect that trend will gradually grow in Korea as well.

French fries

Better than I expected.

It is probably even more so because the shop operates on Garosu-gil, but you can see cost-cutting efforts here and there. Still, the staff are friendly and the atmosphere is good, so it seemed like a decent option for a meal or a date with a regular person on Garosu-gil. A hamburg steak beats a half-baked pasta any day.

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