How to Eat Stone Pot Rice (Insadong)

Hello~ It's London. Last week, CK and I went to see Gyeongbokgung Palace at night (which was amazing btw! If you'd like the post, click here). We went to Insadong to have dinner and found this tofu restaurant called Buk Chang Dong Soondubu (북창동순두부 인사동점) that had 4.32/5 ratings from Naver Map. Naver Map is like Google Maps here in Korea except Korean locals use it so we knew it was credible (I cross checked and it had good reviews on Google Maps as well :D). It is a franchise restaurant and we ate the Insadong location. 

     

This is how the outside looks like. The entrance is at the top of the stairs and you can see the restaurant on the second floor filled with lights. 

The placemat was also a part of their menu. We were super hungry so I forgot to take a picture of their actual menu but it was similar to this with sets and individual soups/entrees from their sets. 

Don't be fooled by the kettle before the food comes out. There's no tea in it! It's actually really hot water for the rice which I was explain in a bit. 

The individual entrees were about 7,000-12,000 won ($6-$11 USD) and there's more food with the sets so we decided on the Tteok-galbi & Bulgogi Set for 2(Grilled Short Rib & Marinated Beef) 떡갈비 &        불고기 세트 (13,500 won/ $12 per person). We had to choose what kind of soup we wanted and we chose seafood tofu soup. 

There's eggs at the table and you can only use one egg per person to put into the soup. It was my first time seeing this kind of service so it was interesting. There were young and older people eating at this restaurant so I guess they have no issues with people taking more than asked. 

Ok, so we got the rice in a hot stone pot. Now what? Well, remember the bowls that came with the kettle? Scoop the rice in the center and place it into the smaller bowl. Don't scoop the rice on the side of the stone pot! It is super hot so it is still cooking the rice. The rice will become slightly burnt and crispy and in Korean, this is called nurungji (누룽지) which means crust of crispy rice. 

After scooping the rice, pour the water in the kettle into the stone pot.

Cover it with the wooden lid. Continue eating with the regular warm rice, leaving some space for the stone pot rice later.

After finishing your rice in the small bowl, open the stone pot and the rice that was stuck to the pot should have mostly fallen off. All of a sudden, there's another bowl of rice that looks like it just got 10X bigger (no joke!). We enjoyed the rest of the meal with the stone pot rice. 

Overall, the food and experience (stone pot rice) was not too bad. There were at least two types of food that had tofu; a tofu side dish and the tofu soup. It's one of those restaurants where we'll come back to eat if we can't find or decide on what to eat. 

✨INFORMATION✨

Location: Buk Chang Dong Soondubu Insadong (북창동순두부 인사동점)

What: Tofu restaurant with hot stone pot rice

Price: $$ (7,000-33,000 won)

Rating: 4/5