Xin Liu: Upscale Korean-Chinese restaurant in Lotte Department store, Jamsil

I had a list of foods I wanted to try during my trip to South Korea and Korean-Chinese dishes were on my list. Common Korean-Chinese dishes are the spicy jjamppong (spicy seafood noodle), jajangmyeon (black bean sauce noodles), and the tangsuyuk (like a sweet & sour pork).

I didn’t have a specific restaurant in mind, although I was interested in celebrity chef Yeon Bok Lee’s Korean-Chinese restaurant called Mokran (we didn’t have reservations so the likelihood of eating there is unlikely 😢).

We did end up eating Korean-Chinese food during our day at Lotte World, an amusement park in the Jamsil area. We were actually so hungry and tired from waiting in lines at Lotte World, we decided to actually leave the amusement park and eat elsewhere because it was just too many fucking people everywhere.

Recommended: Read about Seoul travel recap part 2 – featuring Lotte World!

We ended up venturing into some of the attached malls and towers like the Lotte Department Store and Lotte Tower. Finally, we found a floor with restaurants and I chose to eat at the Korean-Chinese restaurant named Xin Liu.

The vibe

I don’t have a photo of the space since we were so tired and hungry we just wanted to sit down and eat, but it is a pretty big restaurant located on the 11th floor where a bunch of other restaurants are. They had the red lanterns hanging on the ceiling and a more “Chinese” aesthetic with circular wooden tables and chairs.

We were seated on the very inside of the restaurant, where there was some nice natural light coming from the windows and since we were on a high floor, an ok view of all the tall buildings around us. However, we noticed belatedly that this indoor area of the restaurant has poor ventilation and the AC wasn’t really reaching us so we eventually got pretty hot.

Food review of Xin Liu

Here is everything we ordered between 4 adults. Prices are converted from 1000:1 KRW to CAD and rounded to the nearest dollar for simplicity. There is no tax or tip in South Korea.

Shrimp fried toast ($30)

When I saw menbosha (shrimp fried toast) on the menu, I got really excited because I love shrimp and I love bread and I love deep-fried items. It is also one of Chef Yeon Bok Lee’s specialty dishes, but I guess since we are not at his restaurant it doesn’t really matter that much.

I was shocked at the $30 price tag 😵 because it only comes with 5 pieces and I know they are not that large. We ordered it anyways because I didn’t know when else we would eat at a Korean-Chinese restaurant. They plated it so beautifully?? Like what is with those pieces of dried oranges 😂.

The shrimp toast tasted exactly how I imagined – it had a nice crunchy exterior and a very decadent flavour (can be a little oily if you eat more than one).

Black bean sauce noodles with seafood ($16)

Kelvin orders the black bean noodles with seafood. The basic/original version doesn’t actually include seafood (just some minced meat and onions), but he chose to upgrade his noodles and it came with quite a bit of shrimp and even abalone! I guess that makes the $16 price tag a bit more worth it because $16 for a black bean noodle is almost the same price as Vancouver.

I like that they separated the sauce and the noodles as well so it doesn’t get soggy and you can mix it yourself.

Spicy seafood noodle soup ($12)

Our 2 friends both got a spicy seafood noodle soup, which they mentioned was pricey for Korean-Chinese food. It came in a large bowl and also had a lot of seafood like abalone so I suppose it is a bit more luxurious than your average cheap/takeout Korean-Chinese place.

I had a little taste of the broth and actually found it wasn’t that spicy, which was my reason for not ordering it because I was scared it would be too spicy (and that I would get broth splatter on my clothes).

Fried rice ($14)

I order the fried rice version of Kelvin’s dish, which also comes with a side of black bean sauce, seafood mixed into the fried rice, and a small bowl of soup.

I found it to taste pretty good and I also had abalone in my dish (just chopped up and hidden into the fried rice). I actually couldn’t finish it because I was too full.

Garlic sweet and sour pork ($35)

Lastly, we ordered a sweet & sour pork to share. The waitress recommended the garlic version as a popular menu item.

I’m a basic b and I love Chinese sweet and sour pork, and I find the Korean/Chinese version of this is not too far off from the Chinese version. Pieces of the pork were fried well (although I find the batter is never as crunchy as if we order the sweet & sour chicken) and the sauce has this thicker consistency and a vibrant red colour.

Final thoughts

Loewe’s rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I don’t know if I was really hungry and tired or if this place is really good, but I thoroughly enjoyed all the dishes we ordered at Xin Liu. We didn’t really do any prior research to look for a highly rated restaurant, so for one we just found and decided to try, it ended up tasting pretty good.

Portions were big and the food tasted exactly how I imagined it would taste.

Price-wise, I know you can get Korean-Chinese food for as long as $6, so compared to those options, this restaurant is definitely more expensive and fancy. I would expect a different kind of taste/feeling though from those places vs. Xin Liu. For me, as long as it’s cheaper than what I need to pay in Vancouver, it’s good enough 😅.

I probably wouldn’t recommend Xin Liu for you to go out of your way and find it to eat here, since there are many affordable Korean-Chinese options in Seoul. But since we were trying to find a place to sit down and eat, I think many of the food options on that restaurant floor would have been around the same price anyways because it’s a fancier department store.

Sincerely, Loewe