Yaksu

Michelin Bib Gourmand samgyeopsal (pork BBQ) restaurant, a three-minute walk from Yaksu Station Exit 8. It does not take advance bookings — only the same-day on-site waitlist — so there is no way to lock this in from abroad. Arrival time and how you register for the queue are the whole game.

A jeukseok tteokbokki restaurant in the Sindang-dong tteokbokki alley, traced back to Ma Bok-rim, who started selling there in 1953. Jeukseok tteokbokki is cooked at your own table in a shallow pan, and the smallest portion sold is for two people, so a solo traveller cannot place an order at all. Several shops in the same alley carry "Mabokrim" in their names, and walking into the wrong one is the usual mistake. No source found describes a booking route, so plan around walking in.

A grilled and braised semi-dried fish restaurant inside Sindang Central Market. The signature dish is grilled semi-dried cuttlefish. An English guide states that dine-in is walk-in only and that only takeout orders can be phoned in a day ahead. It opens at 13:00 and runs until 01:00, so it is shut at lunchtime. Grilled cuttlefish runs from 39,000 won for the small to 98,000 won for the large, so picking the size that matches your group is the main decision here.