Lunch at Um Yong Baek @ 27 Boon Tat Street

What birthday girl wants, birthday girl gets. Um Yong Baek seemed to be the trendy place to dine at, somewhat. Rumors of long queues seemed true from the recent experience. The two outlets; Telok Ayer and Boon Tat Street are pretty close to each other.

Telok Ayer outlet

before the shop opens

One should go online on the day of visit, and get a queue number. Thanks to Tiara, we were lucky to be placed in the first batch of diners to go in once the shop opens at 11am. Perhaps that was because we visited on a weekday.

At approximately, 10:45am, Tiara received an email notification that our table at Boon Tat Street outlet is ready. We headed over on foot as we were around the Telok Ayer area. Reached by 10:55am but the shop didn't open its door till about 11.10am. 

queue at Boon Tat Street outlet

queuing instruction and opening times

The staff will ask the patron to display the email notification of the table number and will check that all parties in the group are present before being let into the restaurant.

 

tables nearer to the entrance

We were led to the inner section of the restaurant where there were more tables available. The traditional types at the outer section near the entrance gives the cosy aesthetics but it does take up more space in the shop.

As all tables seemed to be meant for 4 pax, so we shared it with another patron whom is dining solo.

open kitchen view

The tables have been setup with the side dishes, flask of water prior to the guests arrival. 

pickled green chilies and vege stem

onions/chives kimchi

kimchi

bean paste, sliced green chilies and sliced garlic

water, self-service

salted shrimps

salt

Um Yong Baek offers dwaeji gukbap 돼지국밥 (Pork & Rice Soup) for lunch and there's two types; Busan style Daejigukbap and the Milyang style Daejigukbap. For dinner, its menu offers BBQ aged pork and makguksu (buckwheat noodle).

Ok, so we ordered the pork and rice soup, one each. Best of both worlds!

(top) Busan style Daejigukbap and (bottom) Milyang style Daejigukbap

Was happy with the generous amount of meat in the standard bowl and the meat is of quality. Tried the soup for both and the Busan style broth has a more pronounced porky flavour while the Milyang style broth is richer but less pronounced porky taste. 

Busan style Daejigukbap @$21

large piece of pork slice

Usual practice is, one can add the salted shrimp, or salt, or the bean paste to enhance the flavour of the broth. Recommend not to add all at once but one and a little bit at a time, to see which one you like more. My favourite was the bean paste as it changes the profile of the soup quite a bit.

Milyang style Daejigukbap @$21

beautiful layers

Perfect for cold weather, and it was quite filling at the end of the meal. It was enjoyable to match the spoonful of rice, some soup and a piece of kimchi. One could inform the staff to refill any of the side dish. We had another round of kimchi because we enjoyed the crunchy texture, and the juicy-ness of the kimchi here.

To my lunch companion Tiara, thank you for your company and Happy Birthday!

Um Yong Baek

Address: 27 Boon Tat St, #01, Singapore 069623

Website: https://umyongbaeksgeng.creatorlink.net/

Contact: +6588435968

Business Hours: 

Closed on Sun.

Mon-Sat: 11 AM–3:30 PM, 5:30–10 PM

[Busan] Haeundae Obok Restaurant 해운대 오복돼지국밥 @ Haeundae

After Jeju, we went to Busan. For our first day in Busan, dinner was dwaeji gukbap (pork porridge) at Haeundae Obok Restaurant. It's a restaurant that is within walking distance from our respective hotels.

The restaurant feels like a family restaurant and I spied that solo diners are welcomed too. The restaurant offers set meals for 2 pax, so one could choose which type of rice porridge (difference is with the accompanying meats) and it has its own accompanying sides. I was sharing with Ivan, so I chose my porridge to be with the pork head meat (because it sounded like a delicacy) and it came with a small side of boiled pork. Hence and Tracy's set came with the sundae (blood sausage).

our set meals

Staff was generally friendly and we did see the boss in the restaurant as well.

makgeolli with rice porridge, hehe

interior

The orders arrived rather quickly as the restaurant was not too busy at the time of our visit. We were there for early dinner or late lunch.

dwaeji gukbap with sundae

 pork head meat and stomach

I liked my order. Pork porridge of head meat and innards. The broth was flavourful and rather comforting although it was pretty hot weather outside.

side dish of sundae

side dish of boiled pork slices

chives

lean pork slices

I liked the pork porridge here better than the one that I had at Busan city center in the previous visit. No queue and on point flavours.

We spent about ₩16,250 per pax.

 

Haeundae Obok Restaurant 해운대 오복돼지국밥

Address: 15 Gunam-ro, Haeundae-gu, Busan, South Korea

Contact: +82517311488

Business Hours:

Daily 24 hours

[Busan] Bonjeon Dwaejigukbap 본전 돼지국밥

First evening in Busan, and I had arrived from Seoul via KTX while the rest of the gang, were coming in from Jeju. So interesting, right? Keke.

First meal, we agreed to have local food. The top must-eat foods in Busan seemed to be 밀면 milmyeon (wheat noodles), 돼지국밥 pork and rice soup (dwaeji gukbap),  어묵 eomuk (fish cake), and 냉채족발 (naegje jokbal) pork trotters with chilled vegetables. On hindsight, we did 3 out of 4 which was quite a feat, yes?

Let's start with dwaeji gukbap or loosely translated as pork rice soup. Bonjeon Dwaejigukbap was about 5 minutes from the KTX station and within walking distance to McDonalds too. We were hungry and weather was nicely cooling. There was a line outside of the shop by the time we were there at about 7.23pm. Waited for 20 minutes before we got seated.

Busan KTX station

Bonjeon Dwaejigukbap (left) shares the same building as Motel 3.6.9

The place had local tourists plus the foreign tourists like us. The place is casual and no-frills. The ahjumma running the place was rather strict and placed more emphasis on guys. Pretty traditional I'd think.

menu

The menu was rather straightforward too. Reasonably priced and slightly cheaper than Seoul. We ordered almost everything from the food menu.

Once the order had been taken, the staff will bring forth the side dishes. On the table, there was a pot of something that looked like chinchalok, fermented small fish. Tasted extremely salty and not pungent as chinchalok.

Jeotgal 醢

raw green chilies and onions, kimchi and spicy spring onions (back)

The kimchi was refillable, if you wish to have more. The green chilies were rather powerful and I learnt it, the hard way. The burn was strong and stayed for quite a while (about 10 minutes).

super spicy!

Initially thought that the sundae gukbap 순대국밥 would taste funky but it was pretty good. The sundae was cooked till soft and when eaten with the light tasting soup, it warmed our tummies and hearts.

순대국밥 

There was a gukbap with pigs stomach and that tasted really familiar. Much like the pig stomach soup back home. All the soup bases are similar and very mild tasting. One could add the jeotgal to season it a bit.

pig stomach gukbap 섞어탕반

Actually, the ahjumma did share with us on how one should be eating the gukbap. She said, add a bit of the jeotgal to the soup and then throw in a bunch of those seasoned spicy spring onions. Depends on your preference actually. One could do original and then alter the taste with the side-dishes.

돼지국밥 (pork bits rice soup)

For the premium set, the boiled pork belly was sliced thinly but intact while the regular pork rice soup had smaller bits of the pork meat.

pork belly gukbap

porridge and beer?

Good thing about dwaeji gukbap is that you won't end up feeling bloated or very full. The amount of rice in the soup was either half or about two third of a normal bowl.

Bonjeon Dwaejigukbap 본전 돼지국밥

Address: 3-8 Jungang-daero 214beon-gil, Choryang-dong, Dong-gu, Busan, South Korea
Phone: +82 51-441-2946
Business Hours:
Daily 830am to 930pm