Hanwoori (Seoul, Korea)- Mediocre Shabu Shabu Experience

At the Express Bus Terminal Station, you can find an AMAZING underground shopping area for girls (sorry boys :P), a movie theatre, a few fast food restaurants such as Krispy Kreme and McDonalds, and Shinsegae, a high end department store. The restaurant level is located on the 10^th floor.

My friends and I were originally going to shop at the underground shopping area, but we decided to grab dinner first. But then by the time we finished dinner, the underground shopping area was closed. :( We ended up choosing this shabu shabu restaurant called Hanwoori.

I knew this restaurant was going to be quite pricey because of its location but I didn’t expect it to be as expensive as it was (remember, I’m really cheap ><). Regardless, the place was packed with customers so I am assuming a lot of people who live around this area are well off. :P

They first give you a small sampling of pumpkin soup. It was very thick and tasted like traditional Korean pumpkin soup.

As always, no meal can be complete without Korean side dishes :P and this time they served peanuts, kimchi, preserved radish, and seaweed.

Since shabu shabu literally means dipping thinly sliced raw meat in boiling water for a few seconds to cook it, they also provide condiments for you to dip the meat into. On the left is a peanut sauce and on the right is a soy sauce, garlic, lemon concoction.

Here is the pot and this feeds three people. They added button mushrooms, nappa cabbage, enoki mushrooms, leeks, and thinly sliced raw meat.

It only took a few seconds for the meat to cook and then a server came and scooped it out into three individual servings.

Here was my serving. They do this twice so you technically get double the amount you see here. The food was alright. It tasted exactly as it looks: boiled vegetables and meat.

Then came the noodles! The server added noodles to the pot and proceeded to help us cook and serve it.

These noodles were very delicious but the serving size was not enough to fill my abnormally large appetite.

After finishing the noodles, I was not incredibly full, but I paid 21,000 won ($20 CAD).  I felt like it was wayyy too expensive for what it was. Maybe it’s because I come from Vancouver and we can have all-you-can-eat shabu shabu for $17 CAD. But nonetheless, I thought the meal was too expensive, especially in Korean standards, for a dinner this mediocre.

Happy Eating!