Hwa Ban: Korean BBQ restaurant in Songpa-gu

I have been to my fair share of Korean BBQ restaurants across the Vancouver Lower Mainland but no trip to South Korea is complete without having Korean BBQ and trying hanwoo beef!

Hanwoo is actually the name for the breed of the cow that is indigenous to Korea. Hanwoo cows are the main source of hanwoo beef, one of the most rare and expensive meats in the world. It is often compared to the Japanese wagyu beef.

I have never tried hanwoo beef in Korea before so I was excited to try some and made it high on my list of foods I need to try in South Korea. On my 4th day in Seoul, our friends took us to Hwa Ban, a meat dish restaurant that offers Hanwoo beef and pork bbq.

Recommended: Read about my travel recap to Seoul – featuring Lotte World, Gwangjang Market, and more!

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The vibe

Hwa Ban is quite a spacious restaurant. They had a cool lobby area where you can actually see their freezer of dry-aged meats. I hear they are actually more known for their pork meats, but the pricing for their hanwoo is reasonable, which was the main reason we chose to come here.

The interior can fit quite a large number of tables and they are spacious wooden booths. There are low-hanging air ventilators right above the grill to suck up all the smoke that emits from the grills. They also have a cool indoor-outdoor wall where the windows open up so on a nice night, you can feel the breeze and air out naturally the smell of bbq.

The table was set up with everything we needed – a bowl of salad, dipping sauces for everyone, side dishes and more. The only strange thing is that the cups were paper cups.

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Food and drinks review

The menu was actually all in Korean so our Korean friends ordered for us. I have attached photos of the menu for reference. Prices are converted 1000:1 KRW to CAD and rounded to the nearest dollar for simplicity.

Soup

I’m not sure if this comes with the BBQ set we ordered, but we get a choice of either tofu/kimchi soup or the soybean soup. We end up choosing the spicier option.

The portion is pretty big and good to share with 2-4 people. It wasn’t too spicy for me but it was a little spicy! Nice to have as a side dish when eating BBQ meats.

Steamed egg

Again, not sure if this steamed egg comes with the BBQ set but it is also often eaten at Korean BBQ as a side dish. The steamed egg is smaller than the soup but there’s quite a bit of egg in there! Hot and fluffy.

Hanwoo beef

It is time for Hanwoo beef 🤩!

This is how much hanwoo beef we ordered for 4 people. It came on a plate and I was salivating because I was hungry from exploring all day and also I could see how beautifully marbled it is!

One thing I will say is bless the servers in BBQ restaurants in Korea because they are full service! Not only were they so speedy in getting our table ready, preparing our order, etc. They also cook and cut all the meat for you so you literally do not need to do anything except put the piece in your mouth and eat it.

Our server looked young (early twenties) and he took so much care into grilling our hanwoo meat. He made sure it was cut into even and bite-sized pieces, and would periodically flip them over so that it was cooked right. Then he would place it on the edges of the grill for us to pick up and eat. BLESS THIS MAN. Why the hell do I pay 18% tip in Vancouver for grilling my own meat 🤨?

So the hanwoo beef is amazing – melt in your mouth like butter! Delicious even without dipping it in any of the sauces or salt and has a tinge of smokiness from the grill. It can definitely be compared to wagyu, which until now has been my all time favourite meat.

Is it better than wagyu? For me, no (for now). This is because I’ve eaten wagyu many times before and in different versions (ex. wagyu on a skewer, wagyu steak, wagyu rice bowl, wagyu sandwich, etc.). But I’ve only eaten hanwoo in bbq so I think I need to taste it in more variations before I can decide which one is better.

Pork belly

We supplement the rest of our meal with pork belly meat.

Again, our server does all the hard work for us like the cooking, flipping and cutting. I will say though that we did get a different server and he seemed to care less about our pork belly than the previous server with our hanwoo beef. For example, he will leave it on the grill and come back in a bit vs. the other guy stayed at our table and paid 100% attention to the hanwoo beef until it was all cooked. Maybe they are more careful when cooking the hanwoo beef because it is a more expensive cut.

The pork belly was yummy and tasted great with all the side dishes and sauces.

Spicy cold noodles and regular cold noodles

To finish off our meal, we end with 2 bowls of cold noodles. We choose a spicy version and the regular (the main difference is the sauce).

The cold noodles are served with chewy noodles, some cucumbers and radish, a boiled egg and sometimes thin slices of meat. Kelvin is usually pretty picky about cold noodles because he eats this dish often, but he did like the broth of this one – sweet, savoury and refreshing!

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Final thoughts

Loewe’s rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

So honestly the hanwoo beef is the reason why this place is getting 5 stars from me. Because the hanwoo beef was so delicious and amazing, and everything else (although good) wasn’t too different from Korean BBQ I’ve had in other places. So the hanwoo beef + the quality of service is great!

Price-wise it was difficult for me to breakdown costs because our friends ordered everything in Korean. The total bill came to $157.70 CAD… which is not that expensive at all 😳? It comes down to around $40 per person and we had so much meat and ordered beer and soju on top. For the price point, I am so satisfied and it makes me realize how amazing it would be if I didn’t have to tip or pay tax back in Vancouver for eating out.

We didn’t choose to come to Hwa Ban specifically for hanwoo beef as Seoul is littered with Korean BBQ spots on every street. We were exhausted from a full day at Lotte World and Lotte tower and was just in the area so Hwa Ban became our top choice, but we definitely do not regret going!

Sincerely, Loewe