▲ Yonggoong Kalguksu / CEO Heejeong Kang and Kangyoung Lee

Nestled in Provence, Paju City, Yonggoong Kalguksu, a chopped noodle soup restaurant, is enjoying a surge of diners recently. Opened May 2015, it signed a technical cooperation with FL Food for making fresh and healthy noodles. The soup contains a variety of seafood and grains: squid, abalone, crab, shrimp, clam, mussels, jangdan soybean, barley, brown rice, oats and sanghwang mushromm. The restaurant is so popular that average monthly sales have surpassed 90 million won ($74,000).

How to eat?
Eat like shabu-shabu. Dung seafood provided first into boiling water and eat when cooked. Then add noodle and eat. Then fry the rice and eat to finish the course. Menus are customized depending on how many you are from two and three to four. You should expect to wait in line on weekend. 

Jangdan soybean
Jangdan soybean is local specialty grown in Jangdan, Paju. It is known to be the first bean breed for supply in South Korea. Many areas of the city have long been restricted for civilians for military reason as they face North Korea across the Imjin River. In other words, conditions to grow grains, in particular the soybean, are just right. Unlike similar bean products, Jangdan soybean is known to ease symptoms of menopause and its rich isoflavone fights cancer while rich anthocyanin slows aging. A test by the Korea Food Research Institute shows that Jangdan soybean contains 60 to 70% more isolfavone than that in other regions.

The noodle and the broth
The noodle is made through the specially designed noodle machine at 100 degrees Celsius after mixing it with powdered grains in appropriate heat, pressure and water. No flour, starch, gluten and salt are added. The meat broth is made with vegetables and seafood. 

Package deals
Yonggoong Kalguksu is supplying its food to a food company ‘ourhome’ and selling the noodle with a number of sources in package. While the business is steadily growing, co-chief executive officers Kang and Lee are working on diversifying the size of the noodle and launching a franchise. Their goal is to go nationwide and global over South Korea starting from China, Japan and South East Asia.