A Great Pork Cutlet Spot in Namsan: Sanchaejip — Honestly, Every Dish on the Menu Is Delicious

After Chuseok had passed, I thought autumn had suddenly arrived, but the weather over the weekend felt like summer had come back. Maybe that was why I wanted to go somewhere cool for the weekend, so I headed to the Namsan trail. It would have been nice to go up and see N Seoul Tower, but it was too hot, so I only walked around the trail, and that was still great. After walking the Namsan trail, I got hungry. I think everyone has a food that comes to mind when they think of Namsan. For me, it’s pork cutlet!!

There are so many pork cutlet restaurants next to the Namsan cable car that some people even come to Namsan just to eat pork cutlet.

There are really a lot of famous pork cutlet places in Namsan. I visited Namsangol Sanchaejip. Usually, Namsan pork cutlet places mostly have pork cutlet-focused menus, but I liked that Sanchaejip also had a variety of dishes besides pork cutlet. Pork cutlet is definitely delicious, but because the portions are large, if you order only pork cutlet dishes, it can start to feel a bit heavy.

Sanchaejip, widely known as a popular restaurant in Namsan, is a good restaurant and a safe restaurant, so it’s a place you can trust and enjoy.

Since the Namsan pork cutlet place is on a main road, you have to use valet parking. The valet fee is 2,000 won, and it’s paid in advance. Since so many people visit, it seems they collect it upfront.

Namsan Sanchaejip uses the first and second floors. I visited well after lunchtime, so there were definitely fewer people coming in. Still, people kept coming in steadily for pork cutlet and bibimbap.

You can choose a set menu at Sanchaejip, but today I didn’t really feel like bibimbap, so I ordered the dishes I wanted to eat: two pork cutlets, napa cabbage pancake, and bossam!!

Sanchaejip is actually famous for its chive pancake, which has even been featured on TV. I think that’s probably because it has a crispy fried style. So I thought the napa cabbage pancake might be similar, but it was just cooked like a regular pancake.

The chives were thinly sliced and made into a pancake, so they could easily be torn apart and eaten with chopsticks. When you dip it in soy sauce, you get hooked on the appeal of chive pancake, which is crispy yet subtly soft.

When you go to eat pork cutlet in Namsan, one side dish that you can’t leave out is the chili pepper. I think that’s probably because the pork cutlet is deep-fried. Since Sanchaejip also serves bibimbap, they provide yeolmu kimchi as well.

Namsan pork cutlet sticks to the old-style pork cutlet tradition, so soup is served with it. It was nice to have cream soup after such a long time. And of course, the sauce is generously poured over the pork cutlet. The batter gets soggy, but it has its own kind of charm.

Looking at the dishes we ordered, there’s probably a drink that naturally comes to mind. I ordered a glass of makgeolli. Sanchaejip sells only one bottle for every two people, so it’s a place where unfortunate incidents caused by alcohol will never happen.

It’s bokbunja makgeolli, so the color has a slight pink tint. Since it’s real bokbunja, the color isn’t strong but has a gentle pink hue.

This was bossam that I was debating whether to order or not. The moment I took a bite, I thought it was really the right choice to order it. It was seriously so tender. You might think bossam is just something you boil, but it’s actually a dish that’s surprisingly difficult to make taste really good.

I topped it with the white kimchi and shredded radish salad served with the bossam and ate it that way. The fatty part was springy, and the meat was tender, so eating them together made for an amazing combination. If you boil meat too long in an effort to make it very soft, the fatty part can sometimes crumble and the texture isn’t as good, but this was really boiled perfectly and tasted great.