Sungshin Womens University Korean Restaurant Jjudal Sungshin serves plump jjukkumi, or spicy stir-fried baby octopus, with beef, shrimp, pork and fried rice just 3 minutes from the subway station.
Sungshin Womens University Korean Restaurant: Jjudal Sungshin, Spicy Jjukkumi Loved by 130,000 Diners
Once you start appreciating seasonal food, it becomes hard not to seek out ingredients when they are at their best.
And in Korea, one ingredient I especially look forward to in spring is jjukkumi (쭈꾸미), or baby octopus.
When it is plump, chewy, and cooked in a spicy Korean sauce, I honestly prefer it to squid or even regular octopus. So whenever I hear about a particularly good jjukkumi restaurant in Seoul, it immediately goes onto my list.
That is exactly how I ended up at Jjudal Sungshin (쭈꾸미달인 성신여대점), a popular Sungshin Womens University Korean restaurant known for its unusually large jjukkumi and spicy stir-fried dishes.
And this one absolutely lived up to the hype.
The baby octopus was impressively plump and springy, the sauce was spicy without overwhelming the flavor of the seafood, and the restaurant had the energetic atmosphere of a place where everyone genuinely cares about what they are serving.
According to Sungshin Womens University Korean Restaurant Jjudal Sungshin, around 130,000 customers have visited, and after eating here, I could understand why so many people become regulars.
My dining partner kept saying, “Wow, that was seriously good,” all the way home—which is very rare praise from him.
If you are looking for spicy Korean food in Seoul, especially somewhere around Sungshin Women’s University, this is one restaurant I would happily recommend for both dinner and drinks.
Sungshin Womens University Korean Restaurant Jjudal Sungshin Location
Address:
40 Dongsomun-ro 20na-gil, 1F, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul, South Korea
(서울 성북구 동소문로20나길 40 1층)
Sungshin Womens University Korean Restaurant Jjudal Sungshin is located about a 3-minute walk from Exit 1 of Sungshin Women’s University Station.
The restaurant sits in one of the neighborhood’s busiest food alleys, so it is very easy to include in a day exploring northern Seoul.
Even on evenings when nearby restaurants look relatively quiet, this place often has people waiting outside. I had passed it several times before and always wondered why this particular restaurant had such a crowd.
Eventually, I decided I needed to find out for myself.
I originally made a reservation, but my schedule ran about an hour late. By the time we arrived, Sungshin Womens University Korean Restaurant Jjudal Sungshin was already packed and we had to join the waiting list.
One important tip: reservations are generally available only for times before 6 PM. After that, diners need to add their names to the on-site waiting list.
Fortunately, turnover was faster than expected. There were about five parties ahead of us, but we were seated after roughly 30 minutes.
If you hate waiting, I would recommend either making an early reservation or visiting between the main lunch and dinner rushes.
Jjudal Sungshin Opening Hours
Daily: 12:00 PM – 12:00 AM
Last order: 11:00 PM
There is no afternoon break, which makes this a particularly useful option if you prefer eating outside Seoul’s busiest meal times.
Inside Sungshin Womens University Korean Restaurant Jjudal Sungshin
Sungshin Womens University Korean Restaurant Jjudal Sungshin itself is moderately sized and casual, with tables arranged in two rows.
There are around six round tables as well as several four-person tables, making it equally convenient for couples, small groups, or friends looking for a casual Korean dinner.
The tables can also be combined for larger groups, so I could easily see this working for a casual company dinner near Sungshin Women’s University.
For larger parties, however, I would definitely recommend contacting the restaurant in advance and arriving before the evening rush.
Another sign of how popular the restaurant is locally?
It wasn’t just the dining room that stayed busy. Delivery drivers and takeaway customers were constantly coming and going throughout our meal.
Sungshin Womens University Korean Restaurant Jjudal Sungshin Menu
The menu is refreshingly straightforward.
The star is, of course, jjukkumi, which you can pair with additional ingredients such as:
- Beef
- Pork belly
- Shrimp
- Assorted combinations
There are also several side dishes and additional ingredients you can order, plus the all-important Korean fried rice at the end of the meal.
And yes, this is absolutely the kind of spicy Korean food that makes you want a cold beer or soju alongside it.
We spent most of our waiting time debating what to order, and although we originally thought we might skip fried rice if we got too full, that plan did not survive the meal.
The sauce was simply too good to waste.
What Does Sungshin Womens University Korean Restaurant Jjudal Sungshin’s Jjukkumi Taste Like?
Before anything else, I put on an apron.
No matter how carefully I eat jjukkumi, somehow that red sauce always manages to find my clothes.
Then came one of the restaurant’s cutest little touches: ginseng milk, served before the spicy meal.
It is intended to make the spicy food a little gentler on your stomach, and I loved the thought behind it.
After waiting outside and arriving thirsty, though, we also started our meal with a cold Korean somaek, a mixture of soju and beer.
A very Korean beginning to a very Korean dinner.
Side Dishes Made for Spicy Jjukkumi
The complimentary side dishes have clearly been chosen specifically to complement the main dish.
We received fluffy steamed egg, corn cheese, salad, perilla leaves, seaweed, garlic, flying fish roe, pickled radish, garlic mayo sauce, and cheese powder.
The steamed egg deserves special mention.
It was incredibly soft and fluffy, with exactly the mild flavor you want between bites of spicy jjukkumi. I noticed several other tables ordering an additional serving, and I completely understood why.
Huge, Plump Jjukkumi with Beef
Then the main pan arrived.
It was loaded with jjukkumi, thinly sliced beef, vegetables, glass noodles, and spicy sauce.
The staff takes care of the cooking at the table, so there is no need to worry about timing the seafood yourself.
What immediately caught my attention was the size of the jjukkumi.
These were genuinely some of the largest baby octopuses I had seen at a jjukkumi restaurant—thick, plump, and almost large enough to make you question the word “baby.”
Sungshin Womens University Korean Restaurant Jjudal Sungshin explained that it deliberately uses a larger, premium grade of jjukkumi prized for its chewy texture.
And that quality became even more obvious as everything cooked.
Lower-quality jjukkumi can shrink dramatically and release a lot of water, leaving you with a thin, watery sauce. Here, the seafood remained satisfyingly plump while the sauce stayed rich enough to cling to every bite.
The beef added another savory layer, while a generous pile of bean sprouts went in toward the end for extra crunch.
How Spicy Is It?
You can choose from three spice levels.
Level 1 is roughly comparable to Shin Ramyun.
Level 2 sits somewhere between Shin Ramyun and Buldak Bokkeum Myeon.
Level 3 is closer to Buldak or the hotter end of Korean spicy tteokbokki.
We both love spicy food and debated between Levels 2 and 3, but since it was our first visit, we chose Level 2.
It turned out to be a great choice.
There was enough heat to make the jjukkumi exciting, but not so much that the spice overwhelmed its natural sweetness and texture.
The Best Way to Eat Jjukkumi Here
My first bite went straight into the garlic mayo sauce.
Plump, chewy jjukkumi covered in spicy sauce meets creamy garlic mayo—and yes, it works exactly as well as it sounds.
Next, I wrapped the jjukkumi in a perilla leaf with pickled radish.
That combination is already a classic for a reason: spicy, fragrant, tangy, crunchy, and chewy all at once.
But there was another combination I hadn’t tried before—jjukkumi wrapped in seaweed and pickled radish.
My dining partner became completely obsessed with it and asked for three additional servings of seaweed during dinner.
That probably tells you enough.
Don’t Skip the Fish Cake Soup
We were already getting full, but spicy jjukkumi and drinks have a dangerous way of convincing you that one more dish is necessary.
So we added the fish cake soup.
For just KRW 6,000, the quality was surprisingly good. The fish cakes were springy and chewy rather than soft and floury, and the warm broth worked beautifully alongside the spicy main dish.
If you are visiting for drinks rather than just dinner, I would absolutely add this.
And Definitely Don’t Skip the Fried Rice
By this point we were unquestionably full.
But in Korea, fried rice after a spicy stir-fried dish is less of a side dish and more of a finale. Or dessert.
We ordered just one portion, but it arrived as a very generous serving. The staff fried the rice directly in the remaining jjukkumi sauce and added plenty of flying fish roe, giving every spoonful little pops of texture.
Eating it straight from the pan was delicious.
Wrapping a spoonful in seaweed was even better.
We had officially eaten far beyond the point we originally intended—and regretted absolutely nothing.
Is Sungshin Womens University Korean Restaurant Jjudal Sungshin Worth Visiting?
Our meal ended with one final touch of old-school Korean hospitality: a small bottle of Yakult.
After a table full of spicy jjukkumi, beef, steamed egg, fish cake soup, and fried rice, that tiny sweet yogurt drink somehow felt like exactly the right ending.
Sungshin Womens University Korean Restaurant Jjudal Sungshin is the kind of restaurant that reminds me why a constantly busy dining room can still be one of the best indicators of a genuinely good neighborhood restaurant.
The seafood is unusually plump, the spicy sauce is addictive without being one-dimensional, and the staff takes care of the cooking so even first-time visitors can enjoy jjukkumi properly.
More importantly, the meal simply feels generous—from the complimentary sides to the little ginseng milk before dinner and Yakult afterward.
If you’re looking for a Sungshin Womens University Korean Restaurant , or want to try spicy jjukkumi in Seoul, Jjudal Sungshin deserves a place on your list.
It’s great for a casual Korean dinner, a night of soju with friends, or anyone who wants to venture beyond the usual Korean BBQ and fried chicken.
After finally trying the restaurant we’d seen people queueing for so many times, we spent the walk home saying the same thing:
We’re definitely coming back.
Related post about spicy Korean food in Seoul you might enjoy : Spicy Korean Food Sindang Chicken Feet & Tteokbokki Street: Woori Home Ddeokbokki Review (Seoul Must-Try Spicy Food)
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