Seoul Noodle Shop Tanglin Mall : Kalguksu Lunch

Seoul Noodle Shop is a large Korean restaurant in the basement of Tanglin Mall. It has taken over the space which used to be a collective shop known as Market Blue that housed a Korean Grocerant (Grocery with Restaurant) and several Korean f&b outlets.

Authentic Korean Restaurant at Orchard Road

The Tanglin Mall website describes Seoul Noodle Shop’s kalguksu as “… perfectly chewy and elastic noodles made with the skilled techniques of a Korean noodle master … cooked in meticulously brewed broth” and resulting in a rich and flavorful dining experience.

We have not seen enough of actual Korean restaurants to know whether this is what an authentic Korean restaurant should look like. But we have seen enough of K-dramas to imagine that it looks pretty close to a casual K-restaurant in Seoul, albeit more spacious than what we usually see.

There are different sections with various seating arrangements and furniture. This area with the antique furniture and calligraphy looks very traditional.

The semi-open kitchen allowed us to see some of the work being done in the kitchen. The picture below shows the rack of electric rice cookers, each pot cooking an individual serving.

Seoul Noodle Shop Menu at Tanglin Mall

Here are pictures of parts of the menu displayed at the restaurant. Since knife-cut noodles or kalguksu seem to be the highlight of this restaurant, we decided to try two types of such noodles – half-chicken noodles ($18.50++) and bone broth noodles ($18.50++) as well as some vegetable dumplings (mandu).

Kalguksu and Mandu at Tanglin Mall

The basket of three pieces of mandu ($5++) was the first to arrive. They gave us a good first impression of this Korean restaurant which we were visiting for the first time. Each mandu was fat, juicy and delicious. The accompanying sauce was not spicy and worked very well with the dumpling.

Best value for money dish of the day went to the half-chicken. Instead of reading about chicken soup for the soul, we would rather eat it. This large bowl of noodles in chicken broth was topped off with a half-chicken. The soup had a gentle chicken flavour and the chicken was slightly dry, but still good. Both the noodle dishes were served with some pickles, kimchi and a small bowl of rice. The noodles were quite a lot, we did not really need the rice with this one.

As for the bone broth noodles, the soup was light, not much different from the chicken soup. The noodles were similar – light and with a nice bounce in texture. But the big difference was the protein content in this. Topped with very thin slices of beef, it was a contrast with the generous portion of chicken. For this dish, the additional rice came in handy.

Ratings:
Food: 3
Service: 3
Value: 3
Atmosphere: 3
Overall Rating: 3 TOPs

Seoul Noodle Shop

163 Tanglin Rd, B1-122 123,124, Singapore 247933

Open Daily
Lunch: 11am – 2.30pm
Dinner: 5-9pm