Jihasikdang Perilla Soup: Euljiro’s Tiny Underground Spot Inside Jungbu Market

Jihasikdang’s perilla soup is part of what makes this tiny Euljiro restaurant feel so specific: a small, below-the-stairs dining spot in Jungbu Market where Korean comfort dishes sit beside Western-style drinking snacks. For anyone searching for Euljiro perilla soup, the most source-backed story is not a large famous soup house, but a four-table restaurant known for its unusual setting, one-person operation, and flexible menu.

The restaurant, called Jihasikdang in phonetic English, has been described as a small shop inside Euljiro’s Jungbu Market, specifically in the dried anchovy alley area. Hotplacehunter listed it at 24 Eulji-ro 32-gil, Jung-gu, Seoul, 3rd District B-dong 169, and described it as a four-table restaurant run by one owner, serving both Korean and Western dishes such as pecorino potatoes, gambas, perilla soup, and dried pollack soup.¹ That combination is the key to understanding the place: it is not presented in the sources as a single-menu specialist, but as a compact, characterful restaurant where perilla soup appears within a wider menu.

Jihasikdang Perilla Soup in Context

Jihasikdang Perilla Soup tiny underground Euljiro restaurant

Perilla soup, known in Korean as deulkkae-tang, usually suggests warmth, nuttiness, and a comforting texture, but the available source material does not provide a recipe, ingredient list, price, or tasting note for Jihasikdang’s version. What it does confirm is that the dish appears on a menu that also includes dried pollack soup, gambas, pecorino potatoes, and other Korean and Western items.¹ That matters because it places the soup in a broader Euljiro dining style: casual, compact, and built around dishes that can work as meals or as anju, the food served with drinks.

Jihasikdang is also categorized by Polle as an Euljiro drinking spot, with menu tags including braised tofu, gambas, banquet noodles, pork cutlet, LA galbi, and budae-jjigae.² Those tags do not replace a formal restaurant menu, but they help show the range of food associated with the place by diners and listing platforms. If you are looking specifically for perilla soup, the safest takeaway is simple: the dish is source-supported as part of Jihasikdang’s menu, while the restaurant’s identity is broader than that one bowl.

That breadth is part of its charm. Many Seoul restaurants are easy to categorize: noodle shop, barbecue house, soup restaurant, cafe. Jihasikdang is harder to file away. The sources describe a place where Korean stews and soups can share space with gambas, where a market location shapes the atmosphere, and where the small number of seats makes the experience feel more intimate than polished.

A Four-Table Restaurant Under the Stairs

Jihasikdang became more visible through coverage tied to KBS 1TV’s “A Walk Around the Neighborhood,” also known by its Korean title “Dongne Han Bakwi.” BizEnter reported that the Seoul Jung-gu episode aired on July 29, 2023, and introduced the Euljiro Jungbu Market Jihasikdang as a restaurant under the market stairs, with a low ceiling and only four tables.³ Sports Kyunghyang also reported that the program’s 230th journey aired on KBS1 on July 29, 2023 at 7:10 p.m., and included Jihasikdang among stops such as Jangchung Gymnasium, a firewood-roasted chicken restaurant, and ironworks alleys.⁴

The same broadcast-related coverage described the restaurant as unusual, citing menu items such as calamansi fried rice, “itgochu,” and “sulbudae.”³ Sports Kyunghyang likewise highlighted the four-table scale and those distinctive menu items.⁴ These details are useful because they show that Jihasikdang was not introduced only as a perilla soup destination. It was framed as a small, unexpected restaurant tucked into an old market environment, with a menu that does not follow one predictable category.

KBS also maintains an official VOD page for episode 230 of “A Walk Around the Neighborhood,” with a three-minute preview and full VOD viewing information.⁵ The official VOD page confirms the episode’s program context, while the location details about Jihasikdang come from the articles that previewed or covered the Seoul Jung-gu episode.

A personal blog post published on February 2, 2024, described Jihasikdang as being beneath the stairs of the Jungbu Market building and noted that one owner cooks there. The post gave a KakaoMap-based address as 24 Eulji-ro 32-gil, Jungbu Market 3rd District, 1st floor, units 169 and 179, and mentioned Korean dishes such as steamed dried pollack alongside gambas.⁶ While personal blogs should be read as individual accounts rather than official records, this description lines up with the repeated source-backed picture of a small market restaurant with limited seating and a mixed menu.

What to Know Before You Go

The most practical detail is the address. Across listings and writeups, Jihasikdang is consistently connected to 24 Eulji-ro 32-gil in Jung-gu, Seoul. Hotplacehunter gives the more detailed location as 3rd District B-dong 169, while Polle lists the address as 24 Eulji-ro 32-gil.¹² The personal blog’s KakaoMap-based note gives a slightly expanded unit reference, 169 and 179, within Jungbu Market’s 3rd District.⁶ These are not contradictory in spirit; they all point readers toward the same Jungbu Market setting.

The second practical point is size. Multiple sources describe Jihasikdang as a four-table restaurant, and Polle user records repeatedly mention limited seating, with references to making a reservation or arriving early.⁴² That does not prove a fixed reservation policy, but it does suggest that the restaurant is not built for large groups or casual overflow traffic. If you are planning around a specific dish like perilla soup, the source-backed advice is to treat the space as small and the menu as variable enough that checking current availability directly would be sensible.

The third point is expectations. If your mental image of Euljiro perilla soup is a dedicated soup restaurant with a large dining room, Jihasikdang is better understood as something more compact and idiosyncratic. The available material emphasizes the market alley, the low ceiling, the four tables, and the one-owner operation more than any single signature dish. Perilla soup is part of that story, but so are dried pollack soup, gambas, braised tofu, pork cutlet, and other dishes attached to the restaurant across listings and posts.¹²

Jihasikdang perilla soup inside Jungbu Market Seoul

Jihasikdang’s perilla soup stands out because of where it appears: inside a tiny Euljiro restaurant under the stairs of Jungbu Market, surrounded by a menu that moves between Korean comfort food and Western-style bar snacks. The sources do not give enough detail to describe the soup’s flavor or recipe, but they do support a clear picture of the place: small, unusual, market-rooted, and memorable for the way it blends everyday Seoul food culture with the hidden-corner energy of Euljiro.