Dadong near Gyodae: A Great Soba Noodle Spot
My current company is near Gyodae (Seoul National University of Education). Or maybe it's a bit too far to call it "near." Anyway, it makes it easy to grab a delicious lunch, and today I stopped by Dadong, a place known for its good momil (cold buckwheat noodles). Usually, when I look for good restaurants, the biggest help is hearing someone say, "That place is pretty good." But this time, I was just walking past Gyodae often and went in purely on a gut feeling: "Oh! That place looks like it would be really good." When I go somewhere based on a hunch like this, it's a coin toss: it's either absolute garbage I don't even want to touch, or a true gem where I keep eating until my stomach bursts. Fortunately, this time it was the latter.
Looking at the exterior (I didn't take a picture) and walking in, the prices for the soba and udon are more expensive than you'd expect. I especially love drinking beer with udon, but a beer here is 5,000 KRW, not 4,000 KRW. Honestly, I didn't come here expecting a place that serves excellent food at a premium price; I came expecting good value because of the shabby exterior, so I was quite surprised when I saw the menu. Still, it's not so expensive that you'd debate whether to eat or leave—it's just the standard price for a meal near Gyodae, an area famous for having some of the most expensive real estate in the country. To get the best value, I ordered the "Soba Large Portion Set." Honestly, regardless of the price, I was just so hungry.
Since I love udon and soba so much, I tend to be generous when evaluating noodles. (My personal trainer will hate reading this.) When it comes to cold soba, it really needs that experience where the chewy, cold noodles soaked in a sweet sauce slide down your throat, filling your stomach and cooling down your body heat. This place perfectly maintains that chewy texture, and the slightly sweet soba tsuyu (dipping sauce) pairs incredibly well with it. It's definitely a great restaurant that serves classic, delicious Korean-style cold soba. If you bury your face in the bowl and slurp it down frantically, you'll experience the magic of it all disappearing in no time, even though it's a large portion.
The owner here boils the buckwheat noodles themselves, so it seems they throw away whatever is left over. Maybe that's why, after arriving for a late lunch and finishing our meal with my coworkers, they gave us more, saying they had some boiled noodles left.
I'm pretty sure the lady asked,
"Would you like one more bundle?"
...but a whole new tray came out. Since I was getting it for free, I couldn't leave any behind, so I stretched my stomach to the limit and happily inhaled it all. Then she said, "One more?" and was already putting more boiled noodles onto a tray.
If you time your visit right, you might get lucky like this. But please don't make a scene demanding to know why you aren't getting extra...