Baecheonggwang Dongnae Ginseng Chicken Soup

Dongnae Samgyetang with a delicious, rich soup

Dongnae, which was once known as the military and administrative center of Busan, is home to Dongnae-gu Office and many attractions, such as the ancient tombs dating back to before the 6th century, Dongnaeupseong Fortress, and Dongnae Market, as well as many delicious restaurants. Just a short walk from Dongnae-gu Office is Dongnae Ginseng Chicken Soup, a samgyetang specialty restaurant that always has a long line of customers.

Samgyetang is a nutritious dish that helps people get through the summer heat. It is a popular dish in Japan, too. It is made by removing all the internal organs of a whole young chicken and stuffing the chicken's stomach with ingredients such as ginseng, jujube, glutinous rice, chestnuts, and garlic, and then simmering it slowly.

It is also a nutritious food eaten by the Korean national team to build up stamina on Ponnar, a three-day day in the summer when people eat nutritious food to beat the heat.

Dongnae Samgyetang is a restaurant that was converted from a regular house into a restaurant, located on the right hand side of a narrow alley at the narrow intersection of Dongnae-gu Office, about a 1-minute walk from Dongnae Station on Subway Line 10. The restaurant's garden is always crowded with customers who come to eat samgyetang, so it's better to come a little after mealtime so you can eat Dongnae Samgyetang without waiting. If there is a long line, you can receive a waiting number from the restaurant staff, and you can enter the restaurant when your number is called.

There are lockers to the left of the store entrance, where you can store your shoes and enter with the key, and you will see the smiling president of the store standing at the counter in front of you. The first floor, where the counter is located, is divided into tables and seats, but the second floor is all seats.

The restaurant only has two dishes on the menu: their signature dish Dongnae Samgyetang and Gunjung Yak Gyetang, made with seven herbal ingredients: deer antler, hwanggi, angelica root, pine nuts, chestnuts, wolfberry, and jujube. The dish I'd like to introduce today is Dongnae Samgyetang.

When you sit down to order samgyetang, the side dishes to bring out the flavor of the light samgyetang, such as ginseng liquor, lightly pickled kimchi, square radish kimchi, tongjip (gizzard), and somen noodles, are laid out on the table, but while you're drinking down the ginseng liquor, the samgyetang is brought to you, boiling away in a pot. At a glance, the color of the samgyetang soup on the table was pure white and rich. I immediately scooped up some of the soup with a spoon and tasted it, and found that it was already packed with flavor, and was seasoned so that it could be eaten as is without adding salt or pepper.

If you mash a whole young chicken in the white samgyetang soup with a ladle into bite-sized pieces and stir the soup, it becomes a thick chicken soup like porridge, making it a really easy-to-eat ginseng chicken soup ^^

Why not enjoy some delicious samgyetang while immersing yourself in Busan's history in Dongnae, where the old history of Busan is still alive?

Photo: August 2012, 8 (Suebushi)

directions: Get off at Dongnae Station on Subway Line 1, exit at Exit 2 and walk along the one-way road you will see diagonally to your left. You will see Megamart on your left. Go past it and continue straight until you reach the main road where city buses pass. Cross the road where city buses pass, enter the narrow alley and walk straight, turn left at the first corner and walk straight until you come to a one-way road with cars passing by. Turn right there and you will see Dongnae City Hall on your right. Keeping City Hall on your right and walking straight further you will come to an intersection with the main gate of City Hall. Turn left there and you will find a bookstore. Turn left at the bookstore and go down the narrow alley and you will find Dongnae Samgyetang on your right.

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Dongnae Market Dongnae Market, one of Busan's representative traditional markets, is located within Dongnaeupseong Fortress during the Yi Dynasty and has a long history, with its origins traced back to the Eupnae Market during the Joseon Dynasty.

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Bokcheon Museum Bokcheon Museum, which is full of Busan's ancient historical materials and valuable relics, displays various materials excavated from the ancient tombs in the Daeposan Hills to the north of Boksan-dong, Dongnae-gu. Bokcheon-dong Tomb Group…

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Toraifukusendo Burial Mounds The ancient tombs of the Three Kingdoms period in Dongnae, where a large number of relics, over 9 items, have been excavated.