FatManSeoul

Hidden among the posh boutiques of Samcheon-dong is the best deal in town for cheap eats:

Moksuidonna Ddeokpokki is easily one of the most famous places in all of Korea to get the spicy simmer of rice cakes and pepper sauce, and with justification. Unlike common street stall ddeokpokki that’s all spice and flash but not much else for flavor, this place makes ddeokpokki for the ages.

The menu here is all ddeokpokki, but in permutations seldom seen. Diners chose from a base of seafood, cheese, meat, or any combination thereof, and then chose add-ins like boiled eggs, noodles, odeng, fried mandu, or deep fried meatballs. The kitchen assembles it all and starts cooking before bringing it out for you to finish the job tableside to your own liking. In most places, too many cooks can spoil the broth, but here they need all the help they can get rushing food out of the tiny kitchen . . .

The name of the place roughly means “eat, rest, pay, and go” - and they mean it. This humble little back alley spot is so popular that at the dinner hour people will like up down the street waiting to get in, and busy kitchen staff will rush outside to take orders before you even get inside. If you don’t want to wait, be sure and go at an off hour.
Once the ddeokpokki of your choice arrives, prepare to be transported to a ddeokpokki heaven you didn’t previously realize existed. The real joy here lies in the sauce - especially combined with seafood and cheese, the normally blistering but one-note red sauce is transformed to a rich, deeply flavorful essence. The seafood mixture especially is wonderful, incorporating squid, octopus, and beautiful briny mussels. Since you have to order for two anyway, make sure to get one cheese, one seafood together in the same pot. The sauce here, in addition to being much more flavorful than the usual is also much milder, so even sensitive palates can enjoy this ddeokpokki to the fullest. Sides of ramyeon, tangmyeon, or julmyeon help soak up even more of the marvelous sauce . . . but even after you’ve scarfed down seemingly everything but the pot itself, more bounty presents itself.

After you’ve eaten all the ddeokpokki, the staff will kidnap your pot, and return it full of fried rice made from the leftover sauce. Dried seaweed and nibblets of corn add a sweet and salty edge to the bokkeumbap for yet another layer of flavor. Say goodbye to restraint, and plunge in.
As with most Korean restaurants, you’ll need to order for at least two. A single serving costs 3,000 won, and add-ins like boiled eggs, dumplings, and odeng range from 1-3,000 won per very generous serving. This is about as good as cheap eats gets, and you can easily feed a crowd of 3-4 people for about 10,000.
To find MSDN, take exit one from Anguk Station (line 3). Turn right at the Anguk Building and Pungmun Girl’s High School. MSDN is about 500 meters down the road, in an alley on the left hand side (just past the Family Mart).

Ah, what the heck - let’s have another view of that beautiful bubbling sauce . . .