Sinseon Seolnongtang 신선설농탕 종로점

With only traditional soup as something we wanted to eat, Aaron and I struggled to find a shop that actually served it for dinner near when we left the Cheonggyecheon stream. We found one place but after sitting down realized that they didn’t actually serve soup. It was either only available for lunch or for after dinner (which compromised of only 50,000 won or more bbq) so we left. We popped into an information booth that was still open and asked for suggestions (Korea has many many different types of soup available so if you want help finding some it’s best to know which kind you want) and the lady working suggested this chain: Sinseon Seolnongtang. Thankfully there was one right around the corner that we’d walked past already and hadn’t noticed. It was on the second floor and open 24 hours. They specialize in ox bone soup. I ordered the Baekso  seolnongtang 백세설농탕 (13,000 won) while Aaron got the smaller sunsagolguk 순사골국( 9,000/ 13,000)

It was good, our table came with self serve kimchi and we also ordered mandu to split. There were two size options 6 and 3, we went for three. The menu they gave us was easy to figure out because it was in four languages (Korean, English, Mandarin, and Japanese). Also despite being called oxbone soup this chain doesn’t include any bones in your soup, instead there are just slices of meat in the stew. Mine came with ginseng, garlic, jujube/dates and plenty of mushrooms and vegetables while Aarons was more plain. They don’t particularly add anything else to the soup, but at the table is salt, black pepper and gochujang to add to the soup if you need it.  We were eating a bit late at about 8pm and so it wasn’t particularly crowded, with maybe only two other groups in the restaurant which gave it that surreal empty dinner feeling.