삼겹살 100g 6,500원, and right under it in smaller print, (1인분 160g 10,400원). You're sitting at a grill table, the tongs haven't arrived yet, and the place you walked past on the way in had a sign saying 1인분 200g 13,000원. That one looks pricier. It isn't. Those two shops charge exactly the same for the meat. The number to compare on a Korean BBQ menu is the 100g line, because a "serving" is whatever weight each restaurant decides it is.
Why the menu shows two prices
The word doing the confusing is inbun (인분), the unit for "a portion for one person." So 1인분 (il-inbun) is one serving and 2인분 (i-inbun) is two. It sounds standard, but Korean law doesn't say how many grams one serving should be. What the rules do say is more useful: restaurants have to price meat like bulgogi (불고기) and galbi (갈비) per 100 grams. A restaurant can add a per-serving price, but only if it prints the weight of that serving right beside it. The government's plain-language law guide gives the format as "불고기 100그램 OO원 (1인분 120그램 △△원)" in its restaurant operation rules, so a menu that looks like that is following the book, not padding the bill.
Run the numbers from the opening scene. 10,400 won for 160g works out to 6,500 won per 100g. 13,000 won for 200g is also 6,500 won per 100g. The second shop's serving is just 40g bigger. If both shops ask you to order at least 2인분, the first one comes to 20,800 won for 320g and the second to 26,000 won for 400g. Neither is a better deal per gram. One simply gives you more pork.
Two other things on that menu you can stop worrying about. The listed price is supposed to be the final price: VAT and service charges can't be shown as separate add-ons. And if the restaurant is large (150㎡ of floor space or more), it has to post prices outside as well as inside, so at a bigger place you can check the 100g line on the outside board before you sit down.
Where the 100g rule stops
The rule is written for meat you cook or finish at the table: plain cuts like samgyeopsal (삼겹살) or moksal (목살, pork neck), marinated meat you grill yourself, extra meat added to a dish, and pre-smoked or pre-grilled meat that goes back on the heat. Seoul's food safety page on restaurant price labels lists what falls outside it. Soups and stews (tang, jjigae), braised jjim, bossam (보쌈), jokbal (족발), yukhoe (육회), steak and donkkaseu (돈까스) are priced as finished dishes. So are shabu-shabu and dakgalbi (닭갈비) when the meat comes mixed with vegetables, along with a whole chicken or duck. If you're staring at a dakgalbi menu with no gram count, nothing is missing. That's simply how those dishes are allowed to be priced, and the honest comparison there is the dish against the dish.
The grams also aren't what ends up on your plate. A restaurant may list the weight before cooking, and pork belly sheds fat and water on the grill. A 160g serving that looks smaller once it's cooked down hasn't been shorted. The rule also can't help you check the weight itself. You won't see a scale at the table, so the printed number is what you're trusting.
Ordering more meat works on the same number. 추가 (chuga) means "extra," and add-on meat falls under the 100g rule even inside a dish that is otherwise exempt, so a line like "고기 추가 100g" tells you exactly what one more round costs. Ask for 1인분 추가 and you get the restaurant's own serving size again, at the serving price.
The habit worth keeping: read the 100g price first, decide how many grams your table will really eat, and only then look at how many 인분 that comes to.
Sources checked October 27, 2026
- Ministry of Government Legislation, Easy Law (찾기쉬운 생활법령정보), "음식점 영업자 등의 준수사항" (information as of September 15, 2026); legal basis: Enforcement Rule of the Food Sanitation Act, Annex 17, item 7
- Seoul Metropolitan Government, Seoul Food Safety Information, "음식점 등 가격표시제"
- Ministry of Government Legislation, Easy Law, Q&A "음식점 가격 표시"
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