Hi, it’s Solyn. This time we went to Golmokjip, a gopchang place two minutes from Sadang Station.
I come here whenever I get a craving for gopchang, and I’ve been coming long enough that the place has picked up a few memories of its own. It’s been on this corner since 2009.
Before anything else, I’m going to be straight with you: this is a restaurant built around beef offal. If that’s a hard no for you, skip this one — I’d rather say so now than have you walk in and regret it.
Getting there
Golmokjip sits on a corner in Namhyeon-dong, about a two-minute walk from Sadang Station (Lines 2 and 4). It’s close enough that you can come up from the subway and be sitting down before your phone finishes loading the map.
You’ll spot it by the green sign running down the corner of the building — 한우곱창, hanwoo gopchang — and the words SINCE 2009 under the name.
The vibe
There are two floors, and that’s worth knowing before you arrive. If the ground floor is full, just take the stairs up to the second. People miss this and stand around waiting for a table that already exists one floor above.
Now the honest part. This is a gopchang restaurant, which means it is loud. Grills going, extractor hoods running, tables full of people drinking. It’s a good kind of loud, but it is loud.
If you want a quiet dinner, this is not your place. There’s enough seating that you’ll get a table, but you won’t get silence.
What I ordered
Two of us came, and we ordered the modeum gopchang for two — the mixed platter, which is the one I’d point most people toward.
The prices, so you know what you’re walking into:
- Modeum gopchang (mixed: gopchang, daechang, makchang), 250g — 26,000 KRW per person (~$19). Two people, 52,000 KRW (~$39)
- Gopchang / daechang / makchang, 200g each — 23,000 KRW per person (~$17)
- Liver and omasum (gan, cheonyeop) — 11,000 KRW (~$8)
- Heart (yeomtong) — 12,000 KRW (~$9)
- Gopchang hot pot (jeongol) — 36,000 KRW small / 47,000 KRW large (~$27 / $35)
- Fried rice — 4,000 KRW (~$3)
Two of us ate and drank comfortably at around 26,000 KRW a head (~$19).
First, the soft tofu stew
Before the meat arrives, they bring you a pot of sundubu jjigae — soft tofu stew — along with the banchan.
Here’s the thing most people don’t realise: it’s free, and it’s unlimited. If you finish it, ask for more. Nobody will look at you strangely. This is normal here.
Honestly? The sundubu is the reason I keep coming back. I know that sounds strange at a gopchang restaurant, but it’s the thing I think about on the way over.
Two dipping sauces
You get two, and they’re not the same thing.
Left is salt with sesame oil. Right is a soy-based sauce. Try both, then pick your side. I go back and forth depending on which cut I’m eating.
The offal itself
Here’s where Golmokjip does you a favour: the meat arrives already grilled. You don’t sit there turning intestines over a fire and wondering whether they’re done.
Which means one rule: eat it the moment it lands. It’s at its best right then, and offal cools fast.
Wrap it the way it’s meant to be wrapped — with the garlic chives (buchu) and the onions simmered in soy that come with it. That combination is doing more work than it looks like it is.
And then the fried rice
There is only one correct ending, and it’s the fried rice, cooked in the same pan on the leftover fat.
It comes out with a fried egg and seaweed on top for 4,000 KRW. Yes, order it. Ending the meal any other way feels like leaving early.
- The free sundubu jjigae, refilled as many times as you want. It’s the thing I come for, and I’m not even joking.
- The meat arrives already grilled, so there’s no guesswork and no standing over a fire.
- Two floors — if the ground floor is full, go up. You’ll almost never wait.
- Around 26,000 KRW a head (~$19) for hanwoo offal is fair.
- It’s been here since 2009. In a neighbourhood where restaurants turn over constantly, that means something.
- It’s loud. Grills, hoods, full tables. Come for the food and the noise, not for a conversation.
- Gopchang divides Koreans too. This isn’t a foreigner problem — plenty of locals don’t eat it either.
- No English menu. You’ll be working through it with a translation app.
- Hours: Open daily from 11:00 AM. Sunday and Monday until 11 PM, Tuesday to Thursday until midnight, Friday and Saturday until 2 AM (last orders 30 minutes before close).
- Payment: Cards work fine.
- Reservations: Not needed. It gets busy, but I’ve never had to wait — and if the ground floor is full, the second floor usually isn’t.
- English: No English menu, and English isn’t really spoken. A translation app handles it.
- Start with makchang or daechang, not gopchang. This is my honest advice. Gopchang is the one that splits opinion hardest, even among Koreans. The other two are an easier way in.
- Is this a good first Korean food experience? No. If you’ve just landed and want your first great Korean meal, go eat something else. But if Korean food already agrees with you and you want to push further — this is a proper place to do it.
- Free Wi-Fi, and the password is printed on the menu.
Would I come back?
Yes — I already do, regularly, and I’ll keep going.
Part of that is the food, and part of it is that I’ve been coming here long enough that the place has collected a few memories along the way.
If offal is your thing, or you want to find out whether it is, Golmokjip is where I’d send you.
Offal is a big ask for one night out. Eight more places in Sadang & Isu, most open past midnight →
— Solyn