SECOND LOOK KOREA
LOCATIONS · 02
SAMPLE COPY This restaurant and its owner are real; this piece is assembled from public sources (mainly coverage of the shop's appearance on a Korean television programme), not from a visit. Not published reporting. The four photos in this piece are real, unlicensed images supplied for local preview only: a food close-up, a table spread from an apparent social-media repost, a kitchen photo understood to show the owner himself, and a storefront photo from an identified Naver blog post. None of their usage rights have been secured, and none of them may appear anywhere outside this local build until that is resolved.
← Issue Zero
A table spread of Korean bunsik dishes at Dreamland, including a sliced gimbap-style roll, with a Korean social-media caption overlay.
A table spread at Dreamland. Source unconfirmed — appears to be a repost carrying its own caption overlay. Supplied by the editor for local preview only; no usage licence has been secured and this image must not leave this local build.
LOCATIONS · 02
Dreamland · Jangwi-dong, Seoul 드림랜드

A Restaurant Called Dreamland 1

By the Second Look Korea editors

A nine-table jjolmyeon counter in Seongbuk-gu that a working actor has run alone since 2017, and that once happened to share this magazine's working title, by an accident neither of us arranged.

Most of the "locations" in this magazine are places a camera pointed at once, briefly, years ago. This one is different: it is open right now, most days, and anyone can walk in and order. Dreamland is a small snack bar (bunsik, the Korean catch-all for noodles, rice rolls and street-food basics) in Jangwi-dong, a residential corner of Seoul's Seongbuk-gu. It has been open since 2017, done up in a deliberately retro style, with a short menu built around jjolmyeon (springy, spicy-sweet cold noodles) alongside gimbap, tteokbokki and sundae.

In April 2025 it turned up on Master of Life, a long-running Korean television programme that profiles small, unadvertised businesses judged unusually good at one specific thing. The segment ranked it among Seoul's two best jjolmyeon counters.2 The owner runs it alone (no staff), which is also why, on the days he has a call time somewhere else, it simply does not open.

A man with his back to the camera, wearing a t-shirt printed with the restaurant's name, working at a kitchen sink.
The owner at work in the kitchen — understood to show Park Seong-il himself, though we cannot independently confirm the identification from the image alone. Source and photographer unknown; supplied by the editor for local preview only. No usage licence has been secured and this image must not leave this local build.

Unlike the other location pieces in this issue, we are printing the address and a map for this one; see the note at the end of this piece for why.

The owner is Park Seong-il, the actor this issue is also about. He is not moonlighting in the sense of doing something unrelated to fill time between roles; by his own account in a recent interview, running the shop and acting are just the two things his week is made of.3 Read that piece for the twenty-six years around it.

The name is the reason we noticed this place at all while researching Issue Zero. Dreamland (드림랜드) is what the actor called his own restaurant, years before this magazine briefly existed under that same working title, and with no knowledge that a magazine would one day borrow it. We are not claiming any connection beyond the coincidence, and we are resisting the urge to make more of it than that. A name is a small thing to have in common with a noodle counter in Seongbuk-gu, and that is exactly the size we want to leave it at.

The Dreamland storefront on a Seoul street, with a Korean blog banner overlay reading "Dreamland Bunsik."
The Dreamland storefront. Screenshot of a Naver blog post ("Posted By Hooniverse," blog.naver.com/hooniverse719) — a real, identifiable source, but no usage licence has been secured. Supplied by the editor for local preview only; this image must not leave this local build.

The map in the details panel below points at the real address; see the factlist at the end of this piece.

Unlike the other location pieces in this magazine, Dreamland is not a filming location and we are not treating it like one. It is a working business that has already chosen to be found: it appeared, by name, on national television specifically so that people could go there. So this is the one piece in the issue where we are printing the actual address and dropping a pin, rather than stopping at the neighbourhood: 166 Wolgye-ro, Jangwi-dong, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul, first floor, right-hand storefront.

A close-up of Dreamland's sliced gimbap-style roll and a bowl of tteokbokki in red sauce.
Dreamland's jjolmyeon roll and tteokbokki. Source unconfirmed, supplied by the editor for local preview only. No usage licence has been secured and this image must not leave this local build.

For the actor who runs it, read the profile of Park Seong-il. For his most substantial screen credit before the drama that finally got him noticed, read our piece on Sprinter.

  1. 1 SAMPLE COPY: preview build, not a published piece. Dreamland is a real, currently operating restaurant; this piece is assembled from public sources (coverage of its Master of Life television feature and related Korean-language write-ups), not from a visit. Nobody from this magazine has eaten there. Not verified reporting until fact and legal review is complete.
  2. 2 생활의 달인 ("Master of Life"), episode 978, broadcast 14 April 2025: segment on Seoul's top jjolmyeon counters.
  3. 3 See footnote 2 on the Park Seong-il piece for the interview this is drawn from.
The Second Look Korea Editors We write about the people, places, and work Korean stage and screen hasn't gotten around to noticing yet. This piece is a working sample. The real reporting will include a site visit and the production's sign-off before publication.
PLACE
Dreamland · 드림랜드
AREA
Jangwi-dong, Seoul
ADDRESS
166 Wolgye-ro, Jangwi-dong, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul (map precision: Neighbourhood only)
APPEARED IN
Issue Zero
FIND IT
Google Maps → Naver Map → Kakao Map →
THIS PLACE ELSEWHERE
FEATURED HERE
← Nameless for Twenty-Six Years