Mutan YeouidoTruffle and Steak Jjajangmyeon, One Bowl Feeds Two

Jjajangmyeon is wheat noodles in a thick black sauce made from fermented black bean paste, and it is one of the most-eaten dishes in Korea. It grew out of Chinese immigrant cooking in Incheon and became its own Korean thing — if you know Chinese zhajiangmian, this is sweeter, darker and glossier.

Almost every neighbourhood in Korea has a cheap version. This place is the opposite end of that scale — a Korean-Chinese restaurant on the second floor of TP Tower in Yeouido. It is built to be served properly, not cheaply.

The signature: steak and truffle jjajangmyeon

This is the dish to come for. Jjajangmyeon with truffle is the heart of the menu.

Thin slices of black truffle go on top of the black bean sauce, with thick pieces of steak through it. They are not stingy with the truffle — the aroma genuinely comes up at you.

Portions are large. Two adults can share one bowl and be satisfied. With another dish alongside, three can share. If you order one bowl per person you will leave food behind.

What it looks like

In a white bowl, a thick, dark brown jajang sauce covers the noodles, with several layers of sliced beef on top. On one side, thin shavings of black truffle sit over a soft fried egg, and the noodles are thick and yellowish. On the plate behind, finely cut green and red chili with sesame is piled like a mountain, with something fried spread underneath. At the upper left are a small bowl of braised peanuts and tongs.

Menu words

• Jajangmyeon is a Korean-Chinese noodle dish with black bean sauce spooned over noodles and mixed in
• Truffle is a strongly aromatic luxury mushroom, shaved thin and placed on top
• Yurinki is a Chinese-style dish of fried chicken in a tangy sauce

The chilli fried chicken (gochu yurinji)

The other headline dish.

Crisp fried chicken arrives buried under a mountain of finely sliced green and red chilli. It looks alarming in photos.

Easy to skip because of how it looks. It is one of the headline dishes here.

How to order

This is a place for a group, not a solo meal.

• Order two or three mains and share. This is the right way. Ordering one dish means seeing half of what the kitchen does
• Look at the set menus. They are reasonable value — better than ordering the same dishes à la carte

Beyond the noodles and chicken, look at menbosha — deep-fried shrimp toast — plus chadol jjamppong (spicy seafood-and-beef noodle soup, with an unusually thick broth) and mapo tofu served in an earthenware pot.

On price

Being straight: it costs more than an ordinary Korean-Chinese restaurant. That may put some people off.

The portion size offsets a lot of it. Counting one bowl as two servings, the per-person figure drops more than you would expect. The set menus help further.

Budget ₩20,000–50,000 per person. The range is wide because it depends entirely on what you order: noodles alone sit at the bottom, while the signature dishes and shared plates push you to the top.

Booking, location, and the small stuff

Treat booking as compulsory. Even a weekday evening fills up. Make the booking before you go.

It connects directly to Yeouido Station. Second floor of TP Tower, so you can arrive dry in the rain. Yeouido is an office district without much sightseeing around it, but for sheer ease of access this is among the easiest good Chinese restaurants to reach in Seoul. It closes at 10:00 PM.

If a brothy lunch sounds better another day, Beyond Vietnam's pho near National Assembly Station is another option in the same broad Yeouido area.

Card is the standard way to pay, and a photo menu plus a well-known signature dish keep ordering simple. This is a meat-and-seafood menu, though, so options for vegetarians are limited.

Who this suits

• ✅ You're curious about truffle and steak on Korean black bean noodles
• ✅ You're a group and can share two or three mains
• ✅ You want somewhere reachable without leaving the subway
• ✅ You can't eat spicy food — the chilli on the fried chicken is the mild kind
• ⚠️ More expensive than a typical Korean-Chinese place — check the sets
• ⚠️ Turning up at dinner without a booking will not work
• ⚠️ One bowl per person is too much food