Recommended: Damdam, a popular spicy beef tripe pho restaurant near Gangnam Station

Thanks to the never-ending rainy season, the weather has been cloudy and rainy on and off, and the humid days have continued. Naturally, I started craving spicy food and something with broth. While thinking about what could satisfy both, I thought of the spicy beef tripe pho near Gangnam Station. Since it’s pho that’s both spicy and served with broth, it was hard to resist.

Damdam, a Gangnam Station restaurant often called the original spicy beef tripe pho spot, is famous for always having a wait. On humid days like this, having a long line makes you not want to wait at all. But the turnover was faster than I expected, so the wait at Damdam was manageable.

I’m sure many people think of Damdam when recommending restaurants near Gangnam Station, so I’d like to introduce why.

 

Damdam’s interior feels both spacious and not quite spacious, but the tables are arranged well, so there are quite a lot of them. Finally, our number was called, and we were guided to a bar table. Because it’s a bar table, you might think you’d end up sitting very close to the person next to you, but it seemed like the staff adjusted things appropriately. And since bar seating doesn’t really have a proper place to put your belongings, they had prepared a basket under the table for storing them.

After sitting down, I looked over the menu. Damdam, which serves Vietnamese pho, doesn’t have a very wide menu, so choosing wasn’t difficult.

After ordering, I made a sauce at the table using the condiments provided. The sauce is really something you make according to your own taste. I usually mix hoisin sauce and chili sauce in a 2:1 ratio. Today, since I ordered the spicy beef tripe pho, it felt more like a 3:1 ratio than 2:1.

When ordering pho, the thing that makes you hesitate a hundred times is usually the fried side dishes. When in doubt, what do you do? Just order it~

I was deciding whether to get the fried spring rolls made with basic rice paper, called cha gio, but the coconut shrimp and crispy rolls caught my eye more, so I ordered those instead. I think it was a good choice. Visually, they already looked crispy and delicious. After all, the whole point of fried food is crispiness.

As expected, it was a fried dish with a satisfying crunch. It really delivered that crispy outside and moist inside texture, so I felt very glad I ordered it. It’s one of the menu items I’d quickly recommend at Dam Dam near Gangnam Station.

Next was a rice dish called com suong. Since I had already ordered pho and wanted something with rice, there was only one option, so I didn’t have much choice. Still, it looked like a pork rice bowl, so I thought it wouldn’t be bad. Seeing it served with an egg on top made me think it would be fine.

The server explained how to enjoy com suong deliciously, and after hearing the explanation, I hesitated for a moment.

It was meant to be mixed with fish sauce and eaten. Why didn’t I realize in advance that a Vietnamese rice bowl would be like that? Personally, I don’t really like fish sauce, so using it as the sauce for a rice bowl... Still, there was no other sauce, so I mixed it in. And as expected... I wouldn’t recommend this menu item to people like me who don’t like fish sauce.

This is the spicy beef tripe pho, which is really the reason I came to Damdam near Gangnam Station. This spicy beef tripe pho is also why it’s recommended as a popular restaurant. First of all, I liked that you could choose the level of spiciness. Some people can’t handle spicy food well. Even if you’re not good with spice, since the name itself includes the word spicy, I think it’s better to choose a level that still lets you taste some heat rather than going for the mildest option.

Although it’s called spicy beef tripe pho, I expected there wouldn’t be much tripe because it’s beef tripe. But there was actually a lot of tripe, which made me understand why it’s so popular.

Damdam’s pho spoon looks like a mini ladle, so you can eat the broth, noodles, and tripe all at once. Of course, the spoon doesn’t go into your mouth, but it’s still nice because you can scoop everything up safely without spilling and slurp it in.

The tripe wasn’t tender, but it also wasn’t tough compared to tripe you usually eat. And since the tripe is cooked in the broth, I thought some of its richness might have seeped into the broth, making it especially flavorful. Even so, the broth itself didn’t feel particularly deep or rich in flavor.

What I can really say for sure is that it’s packed with beef tripe. You could keep seeing tripe until the very end. It really felt like I had properly eaten spicy beef tripe pho in the truest sense. It seemed like I ate about the amount of tripe you’d get in one serving of regular gopchang hot pot. I could see why people line up to eat the spicy beef tripe pho.

If you’re thinking of a special meal, I recommend Damdam, a spicy beef tripe pho restaurant near Gangnam Station.