Myoung Dong Kahl Gook Soo

I have been coming here for over a decade now, and I thought I should give my two cents. This place has the best korean noodle soup in town (Kalgooksu). What is special about this place is that they use beef bone soup as the base. It is popular to use chicken broth and I, personally think bone soup tastes better. The dumpling noodle soup is basically same noodle soup but has few large dumplings. They have other korean dishes that are decent — my favorite is dolsot bibimbap. Their kimchi used to be excellent (super fresh and super garlicky) but it is just good now. It is self service for order and pick up. The price has gone up for the last decades ($ 6.99 to 10.99 for basic noodle soup!). Regardless, it still is worth it I think. It is hard to put price on best.

My Korean friend wanted to eat around the area, and I use to work around this area… but when you are going with a mother tongue you might as well follow suit and see where it brings you. As I had no idea, and she wasn’t that great at describing exactly where it was, as the other reviewer described, it’s in the multi-​level Hannam Supermarket complex, and the place is on the lower level and if you see a place that looks like a food court, you are probably there!
It’s the first stall, once you walk through the automatic sliding doors, and if you see a whole bunch of people sitting and slurping noodles it’s probably the place, also, there’s barely any English, it was already hard enough for me to even find out the name of this place! Since I can’t even read the menu, or even made the selection to come here I let my friend do all the orders, and she ended up ordering the Kal Gook Soo which is a fresh Korean cut flat thicker noodle in some broth filled with onions some ground pork. Cause we weren’t hungry, we ordered a bowl to share.
A good little wait, as they are actually cooking this thing up in the back, even though this is a foodcourt, from what I can see, they have a full size kitchen behind the main ordering area, and they use real utensils, the metal spoons, metal chopsticks, even the metal bowl (where’d they buy all this stuff… in one go?). This place also looks like a family affair, as to husband and wife working and serving everything. Eventually the woman behind the till called us over to get our order.
The bowl was hot, from it’s metal build, the steam was coming from the clear broth all above the bowl, and the noodles were nicely presented within the bowl. My friend told me to add the chili sauce that was at the table, but I wanted to try sipping the soup on it’s own first, and it was a very ‘homey’ feel. Something that was very clear and easy to eat where I can taste everything about it, not overly salty, just good. The noodles, they were really a great mix, and something I would probably start my day off if I could. Each strand was perfectly cut (wonder if a machine did this) but was cooked right through, not soggy, el dente. yup, and with the combination of the clear broth it felt like a start of a rainy day that would turn sunny.
Another winner here was the kimchi that was served alongside the noodles. Not overly fermented to the point of extra sour, and not flaming spicy, but just enough kick. My friend was planning to buy some from this on this day, but they said they don’t sell on Saturday, maybe they are running out, but to come back tomorrow. If your coming here, be patient as you may not know what to order, the woman that took our order didn’t speak too much English, but the quality of the food that came out was top notch, even though it was food court style seating. Nothing was really in English, so you might have to use some sign language like pointing at someone’s dish, or the pictures to get your order in. A worthwhile visit to warrant another one!

LOCATION — Like the name, the location of this establishment is also not easy to describe. First you pull into the Hannam Supermarket complex (the «double-​decker» mall on the opposite side of the H-​Mart strip mall) parking lot. Then, in the lower level, look for the sliding doors with #103 on it. Enter. The establishment is to your right. It looks like a food court… of just one restaurant.
FOOD — The menu is mostly in Korean language. The main dishes have pictures that are framed on the wall.
Kal Gook Soo (Korean knife-​cut noodles in soup) is a must-​try here. The noodles were chewy and fresh. What I really liked was the broth — I like my broth mild so I loved it. A lot of flavor, could have inhaled the whole thing if I weren’t so full from the giganto mandoo.
Mandoo is another must-​try. On the menu wall, it looks like the size of XLB (Chinese pork dumpling) but these are massive, and delicious.
Dolsot Bibimbap was served with a plate of kimchi and small soup. The stone bowl was hot, and the dish came sizzling. We had to add quite a bit of sauce to make it flavourful — but we thought it was a standard dolsot bibimbap.
Kimbap (Korean futomaki-​like roll) was also pretty standard.
SERVICE — This is a mom-&-pop shop. There were no waiters and it was just like a food court — the «mom & pop» were busy cooking/​prepping in the kitchen so sometimes it took a while to get their attention at the counter. But when I did get their attention, they were really friendly and tried to communicate despite their very broken English. :)
ATMOSPHERE — It’s in a mini-​mall, across from a store that sells bidet toilets, and the restaurant looks like a food court, so ambiance is minimal. But I do like that it’s quiet.