Geumbyeol Maekju (금별맥주) is a Korean pub chain, and the Bangi branch sits in the Bangi-dong food alley in Songpa-gu, Seoul. My wife and I went there on a Friday night in April 2026 as our last stop of the evening, after a steamed clam dinner at Jjimagi and a coffee at Petit Chlo a few minutes away. We shared three dishes: the tomato haejang pastang, the Samonim gambas and a sweet French toast. The short version: the food was good across the board, and it is an easy place to sit down for drinks and a few plates in Bangi-dong.
- Name: 금별맥주 방이점 (Geumbyeol Maekju, Bangi branch)
- Address: 24 Ogeum-ro 11-gil, Songpa-gu, Seoul (서울 송파구 오금로11길 24) · Google Maps
- Hours: Mon to Fri 14:00 to 06:00, Sat and Sun 13:00 to 06:00
- Visited: a Friday night in April 2026, my wife and me
- What we ordered: tomato haejang pastang 24,000 won, Samonim gambas 16,900 won, sweet French toast 12,000 won
- Ordering: tablet on the table
- My rating: 4.3 / 5
- Info checked: September 23, 2026
The last stop after clams and coffee
That night started at Jjimagi, a clam and scallop steamer restaurant on the same side of Bangi-dong. The kids were away at an overnight camp with their taekwondo school, so after dinner we stopped for a coffee and tiramisu at Petit Chlo, and then wanted one more place for a drink and something small to eat. My wife had been to Geumbyeol Maekju before at its Cheonho-dong branch and remembered the food being good, so when we saw the Bangi sign we went in.
Geumbyeol Maekju is a franchise, and its menu is much bigger than a typical beer pub’s. There are soups and hot pots, fried snacks, pizza, chicken, Korean-style dishes and Western-style plates. The signature is the tomato haejang pastang, which is the dish my wife wanted to eat again.
Inside the Bangi branch
The room is dark and decorated in a retro style: chandeliers on the ceiling, dark wood panels and a patterned tile floor. On the Friday night we went, almost every table was taken. It suits a date or a small group more than a quiet chat, because the room is busy and loud.
Ordering on the table tablet
You order on a tablet fixed to the table. The menu is split into tabs such as new items, signature dishes, chicken and pizza, Western-style plates, soups, fried snacks and light snacks, and every dish has a photo and a price. The screen is in Korean, but the photos make it easy to point at what you want. There is also a staff call button (직원 호출) on the left side of the screen if you need help.
These are some of the dishes and prices we saw on the tablet in April 2026, plus the two extra dishes we ordered:
| Dish | Korean | Price (won) |
|---|---|---|
| Tomato haejang pastang | 토마토해장파스탕 | 24,000 |
| Seafood Toowoomba cream jjamppong | 해물투움바크림뽕 | 24,000 |
| Hanwoo beef yukhoe with gamtae seaweed | 한우 육회와 감태 | 21,000 |
| Mixed sausage budae jjigae | 모둠 소시지 부대찌개 | 24,000 |
| Fish cake skewer soup with rice cakes | 물떡 모둠꼬치 어묵탕 | 23,000 |
| Hanwoo beef intestine gochujang hot pot | 한우대창 고추장전골 | 22,000 |
| Butter-grilled cuttlefish | 갑오징어버터구이 | 23,000 |
| Hot crispy chicken | 핫크리스피치킨 | 22,000 |
| Samonim gambas | 사모님! 감바스 | 16,900 |
| Sweet French toast | 달달 프렌치토스트 | 12,000 |
Samonim gambas
We had just eaten a lot of shellfish, so we did not expect to order more seafood, but the gambas was the first thing we picked. Samonim (사모님) is a polite Korean word for a married woman, a bit like “madam”, and the menu calls this “Samonim style” gambas. The menu describes it as garlic and shrimp with myeongnan (salted pollock roe) melted into the oil.
It came in a hot cast-iron pan with plenty of oil, shrimp, whole garlic cloves, jalapeño slices and some noodles, with four pieces of toasted baguette on top. The jalapeño gives it a mild kick, so it did not feel greasy even with that much oil. Dipping the bread in the oil was the part we both went back to.
Tomato haejang pastang
Haejang (해장) is the Korean idea of a soup that settles your stomach after drinking, and pastang is a play on pasta and tang (soup). The menu describes it as a spicy tomato seafood soup pasta, with a note about risotto. It arrived bubbling on a small gas burner at the table.
There were mussels, scallops and shrimp in a red, spicy broth, with pasta noodles underneath, so it is filling as well as spicy. It tastes like a spicy tomato seafood pasta turned into a soup. We liked it: it works with beer or soju, and the broth does what the name promises.
Sweet French toast
My wife loves bread, so the third dish was the French toast. The menu says it is made with cranberry baguette. It came as thick slices dusted with powdered sugar, with a small cup of condensed milk for dipping and a handful of sprouts on the side. It was soft, buttery and sweet.
By this point the clams from our first stop had caught up with us. We finished the pastang and the gambas and took the French toast home.
What we thought
All three dishes were good, and none of them felt like filler. The pastang is the one to try if you have not been to a Geumbyeol Maekju before, and the gambas is a good second dish if you want something to share with drinks. The prices felt reasonable to us, and with three dishes between two people we did not feel we had overspent. I am giving it 4.3 out of 5: good pub food in a lively room, though as a chain it is not somewhere you would cross the city for.
Getting there
The pub is at 24 Ogeum-ro 11-gil in the Bangi-dong food alley (방이동 먹자골목), a block of restaurants and bars between Jamsil and Bangi stations. It opens in the afternoon and stays open until 6 a.m., so it works as a first or last stop. If you are planning an evening in the same alley, these are the places we have written about nearby:
- Jjimagi Bangi, steamed clams and scallops, our first stop that night
- Petit Chlo, the cake cafe where we had coffee in between
- Iga Ne, lamb ribs and skewers in Bangi-dong
- Jinseong Hanu Gopchang, beef gopchang in Bangi-dong
I would go back for the pastang and gambas, and next time I would come hungry enough to eat the French toast at the table.