Cheil Noodle Shop 제일제면소 @ Seoul

If you are looking for a quick eat that is still open late night near the Seoul Station, here’s a good one that would definitely satisfy you.

Cheil Noodle Shop 제일제면소 is a chain restaurant operated by CJ Foods, so don’t expect some gourmet stuff, but more like the McD for cold noodles.

They were running a promotion called “Summer Limited Gourmet Set 여름 한정 미식 세트” that came with two noodles and two side dishes to go with the noodles, all for ₩35,000 (~S$35).

You need to get a queue number from the counter (if you don’t have a local phone number), but everyone here speaks limited English. So get ready your Google Translate. And once you are seated, you can order from the tablet at each table. The menu is available in English.

Princess and I were very hungry from flying in late night from Taipei, so we were glad we found this place still open. The hotel was nearby, but there were almost nothing opened this late (9pm), and we wanted to go to the 24hrs supermarket next door to top up on our Korean banana milk. They close at 10pm and last order is 9.30pm.

I ordered a portion of bugolgi bimbap 불고기 김밥 (minced Korean beef rice ball) to share as we waited for the rest of the items to come. It had these little bits of puffed rice balls (or were they millet?) that gave it some crunch.

Their saeutwigim 새우튀김 (shrimp tempura) tasted like how my mom would prepare it. The batter was light and crispy although it still coated the entire shrimp and covered it like a corn dog in a State Fair because mom knew that we loved the crispy coating.

Mul naengmyeon 물냉면 (cold noodles) was one of the first Korean food I got introduced to, and I was quite taken aback how chewy it was. Then I had it in Seoul, where they would provide a scissors for you to cut up the noodles to save your jaws. That’s when I started to appreciate how wonderful it was to have a bowl of cold noodles in the sweltering heat of summer.

And if you do not like the cold, soupy version, there’s the spicy bibim naengmyeon 비빔냉면 (cold spicy noodles) that like you mix it up with some gochujang (red chiller pepper sauce). I was told that mul naengnyeon originated from Pyongyang and bibim naengmyeon started in Seoul, and at one point in time Seoulites would not be caught eating mul naengmyeon.

And to fill you to the brim, there’s the gigantic wang mandu 왕만두 (King Dumplings.) They were twice the size of normal mandu in Seoul, and all you need is just one to fill you up, excluding the noodles, as they are as large as our Dapao (Singapore large pork meat bun)

They changes their menu during seasonal changes, as Koreans are used to eat something hot for winter and naengmyeon falls out of favour during that time. Plenty of branches all over the place.

Cheil Noodle Shop Seoul Station 제일제면소 서울역사점
서울특별시 중구봉래동 2가 122-11 서울역사 3F
3F, Seoul Station, 122-11, Bongrae-dong 2-ga, Jung-gu, Seoul
Tel : +82 (02) 313 1880

Visited Aug 2025