Woomiok is a traditional Korean restaurant located on the edge of Convoy in San Diego. They are most known for their seolleongtang which is a traditional Korean bone soup where the bone has been simmering in the broth for hours to really get the flavor and the nutrients out to turn the water into a rich, milky white texture. The bone soups at Woomiok are set on the stove for an entire 24 hours in order to extract its nutrients and healthy properties.
Woomiok was named one of the best Korean restaurants in San Diego and offers a great variety of Korean food on their menu. For our meal, we ordered their bulgogi over rice (which is a variation of their bibimbap), their seafood pancake, and their beef bone emperor soup. Anything you order comes with a plethora of delicious side dishes that are refillable if you were to want more of any of the side dishes. Some of their side dishes include kimchi, fish cake, japchae (stir-fried glass noodles), and pickled radish, all very traditional Korean side dishes that you will see at other Korean restaurants alike.
First of all, their bulgogi over rice (or bibimbap in Korean) is made with soy sauce marinated beef that is cooked with radish, carrots, spinach, bean sprouts, and mushrooms and is served over white rice. This dish comes with a raw egg yolk right in the center of the dish, making it a very aesthetically pleasing and pretty dish. This dish also comes with a side of short rib soup and their special soy sauce. The purpose of the raw egg yolk in the middle is to be broken open with a spoon as you are mixing the meat and the ingredients together with the rice. The egg yolk adds a lovely creaminess to the dish and, as the ultimate egg lover, I feel that the egg makes this dish so much more amazing than it already is. This is a very classic Korean dish and they do it very well here. One thing I find particularly commendable is their bulgogi which is so flavorful and cooked so perfectly, not overcooked at all which is a problem with bulgogi sometimes. The flavor is a great balance between salty and sweet which is super addicting. Their rice is very soft and quite aromatic which proves that it is good quality rice. This dish is a great way to get in some of your daily vegetable intake while still be absolutely delicious. All the flavors from the ingredients just work so well together and, for me, the special soy sauce was unnecessary so I didn’t add it but it would be nice for those with a heavier taste.
Next is their seafood pancake, which is a Korean-style savory pancake made with their special batter and green onion, mussels, shrimp, and calamari. It also comes with their special dipping soy sauce. This dish is perfect for those seafood lovers out there and you honestly just can’t go wrong with a good savory seafood pancake. Their pancake is super crispy and satisfying to bite into. Their batter gives it a chewy consistency, so it is crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside which is just perfect. This is definitely very loaded with seafood and some of my favorite bits are the shrimp and calamari. The calamari adds a really nice and fun texture to the pancake, gives it a good chew. This dish definitely works really well with their special dipping sauce and I would say it is more necessary for this dish and helps to level it up. There was a slight sourness to the batter, but I believe that it is intentional, and it didn’t ruin the taste or throw me off, but it is definitely something to note. I’ve had seafood pancakes at other Korean restaurants, and they didn’t have this sour flavor to it, but it wasn’t bad, just unique and rather unexpected.
Last but not least, we had their beef bone emperor soup, which features their signature seolleongtang bone soup that I mentioned earlier that they are known for. This broth is very good for you and you can tell by how pure it is in both appearance and flavor. They really emphasize the flavor of the beef bones themselves by not adding much of other seasonings or flavors. It is especially healthy in that it is low in sodium, allowing the bone flavor to come through, and the bones have been cooking for so long that the soup is extremely rich in nutrients and vitamins from the bones themselves. This edition of their bone soup comes with oxtail, brisket, ox knee, cheek meat, shank, and flour noodles. It is then topped with green onion, shredded eggs, jujube, and oyster mushrooms. There is definitely lots of meat in this soup and the meat is so tender, pretty much breaking off when you pick it up due to being cooked on slow heat for so long. And the flour noodles are just lovely. This dish is clean and delicious and the noodles are very soft and satisfying to slurp. This dish is not only delicious but also extremely good for your health!
Overall, this was a very fulfilling yet healthy traditional Korean meal and it is just all the best comfort food you could ask for. Their bone soup is known to be a great cure for hangovers as well! Definitely recommend trying out their food, my personal favorite was their bulgogi with rice.
