Sinsajeon — Restaurant in Seoul

The staff was friendly and was fluent in English, so it was easy to converse with him. He was patient in answering my queries multiple times.

When you arrive, remember to go up to the staff and leave your name on the waiting list. You can’t leave a Korean phone number either, so got to stay in the area as they will call for your name.

We went there on a Tuesday evening, 5:30pm and there was a queue already, it was an estimated 1h wait. But we were lucky enough that the person queueing in-front of us (on the waiting list) didn’t show up, so we got a seat earlier (about a 40min wait).

NOTE: You have to bring passport if you want to drink. They don’t allow digital forms e.g. picture or Singpass.

If you never bring them, you can’t order alcohol (and won’t be let in). Or you can tell the staff that you will not be ordering alcohol (that’s what we did).

We ordered potato cheese jeon and a platter of a variety of jeon (smallest size). The potato cheese jeon was average, too much cheese for my liking. But the potato was crispy and tasted like crisp. I don’t recommend the jeon platter. The fish was stinky. Only item memorable was the kimchi pancake, but it was just the “better” ones among the rest. We didn’t finish the platter.

You have to pay 4,000KRW for a glass of honeycomb and 10,000KRW for a bottle of makgeoli to have the viral honeycomb makgeoli. The table beside us overheard our situation (that we were all legal but didn’t bring our passport) and was kind enough to let us try a cup. Visually appealing, but difficult to drink. Cup was sticky and you got to break the honeycomb down so that it will melt into the drink. The taste wasn’t mind blowing either, just how you would expect a honey makgeoli to taste like. Not my kind of drink, but my friends loved it so…

Overall, I wouldn’t recommend this place. Really not worth the hype. There are perhaps other restaurants that also serve honeycomb makgeoli with...

The moment we stepped in the guy at the front asked for our passports but not everyone in my group had it and we asked if we could use our drivers licenses and he said no saying he “called us that we had to have our passport”. However, he never called us as we never gave them our number. We then asked if instead only the people who brought their passport could drink the makgeolli but he said no either everyone drinks or no one drinks. We asked if pictures/PDFs of our passport is acceptable too, only to get an attitude again. I understand being in a foreign country you should carry around your passport especially if you want to drink but the guy at the front was really rude saying “NO and I’ve already told you guys you need your passport”. He was neither friendly nor tried to be understanding to our situation. Even though our first impressions weren’t the best, the food was actually good and I loved the boiled pork with the chive shrimp pancake. Besides the guy at the front, the service from the rest of the staff was good but unfortunately the first guy kinda tainted the experience. At the end when we went to the front to pay our bill the same guy from earlier gave us an annoyed face and side eye that he would have to deal with us again. Overall, even though the food and atmosphere were good it was ruined by that first experience...

Overall, the ambience and food was alright. Went there at 12 plus and didn’t have to queue. They have a lunch menu that has items such as chicken noodles, kimchi stew and bossam. Do note the kimchi stew portion is for 2 pax and above.

We also tried the famed honeycomb makgeolli. Tbh we thought it was a little overhyped as there is only one classic type of makgeolli. The honeycomb was quite a special experience. Lots of people also pair the drinks with the assorted pancake platter.

We had the chicken noodle soup. We like it as we were craving for light food after all the bbq and fried chicken in Korea. It’s warm and comforting. Huge portions but def a healthier choice.

In short, I would come here once for the experience. If you love makgeolli and want more variety of flavours, this is not the place. Otherwise, the chicken noodle soup was decent and boiled pork is so so.

Pro tip: the chicken noodle soup is huge and can be shared among 2. You can also add chicken or noodles for a few dollars...