Hongdae Dawn: Korean bar in Hongdae, Seoul

I just got back from my 2-weeks vacation to South Korea so now my backlog of places to review is even longer and my iphone keeps telling me I have no storage 😢.

I arrived to Seoul on a Friday night and we were tired and hungry from the flight. Our accommodations were in an area called Hongdae, where there’s a pretty lively night life culture with bars and clubs and late night food stalls and shopping.

Hongdae has a lot of food and drink options and there were lineups for most places. We specifically didn’t want to go to a Korean bbq restaurant because we had just showered and didn’t want to smell like bbq.

The first place I ate at after getting to Hongdae and checking into our hotel was a Korean bar called Hongdae Dawn. They have no website and honestly it was really hard for me to even find the English name of this restaurant on Google Maps.

Recommended: Read about my first few days in Seoul in my travel recap blog post.

The vibe

There was a short line to get into Hongdae Dawn. The exterior was all wooden and had a really cool traditional Japanese or Korean look to it. When we actually got inside though, we were seated downstairs in the basement (we didn’t know there was a downstairs floor).

There are no windows but lots of wooden booth seatings.

Food and drinks review

Here is everything we ordered for 3 people. Everything on the menu was listed in KRW, and for simplicity, I will just convert it to CAD with a 1:1 ratio. Prices are also rounded to the nearest dollar.

Citron highball ($9)

One of my favourite drinks when I was traveling in Japan was the yuzu highball so I was pretty excited when I got to the drinks page and saw they had similar looking drinks. They label it as citron but it’s basically the same thing as a yuzu high ball – so refreshing! And at $9? omg 😍

The guys got melon ones (green) and it tasted more like that grape/melon candy but still refreshing.

We also ordered a bottle of flavoured soju for just a few dollars – so cheap!

Korean raw beef ($22)

Yukhoe is seasoned raw beef, a Korean appetizer that I quite like. They usually serve it with some pear and egg yolk.

The portion size of this is ok, similar pricing to Vancouver (still a few dollars cheaper). The colour did look a little bit more red/pink, similar to the colour of tuna tartare though. Overall, it was still tasty but I don’t think this place is known for their raw beef or anything like that.

Potato pancake ($19+$3)

If you know me personally or really read all my reviews, you’ll know I am a potato girl and love potatoes! Well, the potato pancake is up there on my list of favourite ways to eat potato. We added $3 for the cheese because Koreans love cheese and our server recommended it, but I found the cheese made the potato pancake a bit too greasy for us after such a long flight (I can imagine it being greasy good if I was drunk though).

Aside from the cheese, the potato pancake was yummy and fried well! Pretty big pancake but also it’s like $19 so not sure about the pricing on that but I love potatoes so I am willing to pay $19.

Nagasaki seafood stew ($23)

Our friend was worried about our spice tolerance when we tried to decide on a soup/stew to order, so we settled for the Nagasaki seafood stew, which didn’t look as red and spicy as some of the other options.

The stew was a decent size for 3 people and came in its on hot pot stove burner. It still had a little bit of spice, but nothing Kelvin and I couldn’t handle. The seafood stew had quite a bit of seafood in it – lots of mussels and other clams/shellfish, crab, and noodles. The broth also settled our stomachs after our flight so we felt better eating it.

Final thoughts

Loewe’s rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

We had a good first meal in Korea at Hongdae Dawn. Do I think it was the best or amazing restaurant/bar in Hongdae? No, but it didn’t have the longest line and we really liked the atmosphere. Food was good and I would say better than your average Korean restaurant in Vancouver.

Prices were also lower than Vancouver Korean restaurants, especially for alcohol. They also have no tax or tip in Korea, so overall everything is cheaper.

Hongdae Dawn seems more like a drinking place – their drinks menu was very extensive. And the food menu seems to pair well with drinking, so it’s not really a restaurant but more a bar.

Can’t wait to share more reviews and my travel recap with you all!

Sincerely, Loewe