Dongseon Noodle Shop: Neat Jeju Noodles in Seogwipo
I checked the clock after work and it was almost 8 PM. Everything about where I live now is great, except that there's no delivery and the nearby restaurants close before 8. Fortunately, Dongseon Noodle Shop (Dongseon Jemyonga), where I'm heading today, takes last orders a bit later, so I went there for dinner.
When you walk in, the atmosphere is different from your typical Jeju restaurant. You have to order through a kiosk, and people are eating out of ceramic bowls instead of stainless steel ones. From the Marshall speaker to the decor, nothing feels particularly "Jeju-style." Only the menu itself is truly local.
I was curious how their gogi-guksu (pork noodle soup) compared to other places, so I ordered the 1-person set. The food takes quite a while to come out. The dombe-gogi (Jeju-style boiled pork) and dumplings came out first. Unlike other places, the pork is sliced beautifully. If you eat dombe-gogi at Olle Guksu in Jeju City or other noodle shops, the meat is sliced so roughly it almost looks tough. But here, it's sliced very thin and pretty, making it great for tourists from Seoul who are used to neatly presented food.
After I tried a few pieces of the boiled pork, the meat noodles arrived. I'm not sure if it's because they use black pork, but I was impressed by how it tasted cleaner and less greasy than Olle Guksu. The meat in the soup is also sliced thin and pretty. It's a very delicate, feminine take on meat noodles. The portion is definitely smaller than Olle Guksu, but it has a luxurious feel to it.
A few days later, I was curious about their other noodles, so I ordered the molmang-guksu (seaweed noodles). On this day, the food was even slower than my previous visit. I waited over 30 minutes and the food still hadn't come out. When I finally got to eat it, the molmang-guksu felt healthy and great for a hangover, thanks to the broth packed with seaweed. It has a strange charm—not quite like bomal (turban shell) soup, and not quite like gengi (crab) soup either. However, the noodles today had a really strong flour smell. It felt like they were served undercooked.
It's an easy place for tourists to drop by while passing through. The clean interior and pretty garden give off a comfortable vibe. When you walk in, the staff aren't indifferent like typical Jeju servers; instead, they guide you with a service tone characteristic of Seoul. The delicate, beautifully sliced meat and side dishes feel like they soothe a mouth that's been battered by rougher Jeju foods. That said, the food quality seems to vary from day to day. When the wait is long and orders pile up, the taste inevitably drops, and the deviation from a good day was quite significant. Still, I'd like to stop by and eat here on a day when there aren't many customers.