Cheolsune Spicy Galbijjim in Daejeon: Saturday Wait Review

Hi! Today I visited Cheolsune Maeun Galbijjim, a place people call a must-visit stop in Daejeon. I didn’t know much about it before going, but locals seem to recommend it as a real neighborhood favorite. Here’s my honest review from a Saturday visit, when the waiting situation was seriously intense.

The location is Bongmyeong-dong, Daejeon. 📍 Hours 17:00–01:00 (closes when ingredients sell out) Closed every Sunday 📍 Parking You can park for 3 hours in the building parking lot. After paying, tell them your vehicle number. 📍 Waiting I joined the waitlist at 5:00 and was able to enter a little after 6:30. Since it is a single-menu place, I chose the flavor when I put my name down. Once you sit, the order is already placed according to the number of people in your group. After waiting a bit, the food comes out. It is not a system where they call your phone. You basically have to wait outside. There are only a few chairs outside the restaurant, so I spent time walking nearby and also stopped by a prize-machine arcade.

Spicy galbijjim (spicy flavor)

For ordering, you only choose the flavor, and they order portions based on the number of people. My one regret is that I was too full at the end to eat fried rice.

The basic side dishes were seaweed soup and icy dongchimi. The dongchimi broth was so cool and tasty.

Once seated, they also brought Coolpis and a fried egg. I’m not sure if the egg was cooked in perilla oil, but it tasted rich and nutty. Before eating the spicy galbijjim, I ate one to protect my stomach a little. If you want to add more fried eggs or Coolpis later, there is an extra charge.

Then the spicy galbijjim appeared, piled up like a mountain and spilling down. The visual was honestly amazing. It had plenty of back ribs, rice cakes, and bean sprouts. I didn’t just scoop up the broth by itself, but it was definitely spicy. It didn’t feel like an immediate burn from the first bite, but if I stopped eating for a moment, the heat suddenly caught up with me. It was not sweet-spicy; it was just spicy.

How could anyone resist this? I had no regrets about waiting an hour and a half. A lot of customers were getting takeout too, but I felt this would be several times more delicious eaten right there than from a takeout container. One more note: around 7 pm during my visit, they stopped accepting new people for the waitlist. They said that after counting the people already waiting, they would stop taking names once the ribs were expected to run out. Customers kept coming in, but the owner kept repeating that they couldn’t take more because there were no bones left. If you absolutely want to eat this, definitely arrive right when they open.

The meat came off the bones so easily that we finished it quickly. Because I had already eaten several things as soon as I arrived in Daejeon, I was not extremely hungry. We finished the ribs, but I couldn’t eat fried rice. Still, the cheese fried rice at the next table looked incredible. If I go to Daejeon again, I want to come back and eat the fried rice next time.