One weekend I was looking for somewhere to eat along Line 3 and ended up at Chebu-dong Sujebi and Boribap. Maybe it’s the upscale-home-cooking concept, but the place seemed hugely popular with the locals. Whether it’s worth a trip from far away is debatable, but if you happen to be eating in the area, it’s one I’d recommend dropping by.

The front entrance

Tosokchon is right in front of it, so it’s very easy to find. Everyone standing by the door was a Tosokchon customer, though. That line was ridiculously long.

Compared to what the entrance suggests, there’s a fair bit of space once you get inside. It wasn’t that busy when I went in, but by the time I left it had filled up quite a bit.

Mul-kimchi (water kimchi)

The side dishes were very clean and neatly done.

Sungnyung (scorched-rice tea)

I also liked that they serve sungnyung instead of plain water.

Bibimbap and gangdoenjang (thick soybean paste stew)

These came out as a little taster.

Boribap (barley rice)

You toss in the various ingredients and mix it all up. Judging by the barley rice alone, it was better than places like Sawol-e Boribap. A shame there’s no grilled mackerel or the like on the menu, though.

Perilla seed sujebi

It’s sujebi loaded with perilla seeds, and while the nutty, mellow broth was nice, what really made it was that the sujebi dough itself had been rested, so it tasted great.

Sujebi

Probably because of that resting, the depth of flavour is on another level. I could see why the locals love this place. That said, while it’s definitely a tasty restaurant, sujebi is a fairly ordinary dish, so it’s a bit of a stretch to make a special trip from far away. As a place for the neighbours to grab an easy meal, it’s excellent. I don’t usually go to places that serve this kind of home-style cooking, but once in a while it’s pretty nice.

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