The two parties that face off in the chamber appear together in Yeouido’s lunch records. We grouped disclosed political-fund meal expenses by restaurant and split the visiting lawmakers by party affiliation. All 20 of the busiestspots, without exception, drew both the Democratic Party and the People Power Party, and none of the venues with 50 or more visitors had one side above 90%. This piece is less about which restaurant ranked first than about whether Yeouido’s busiest lunch spots belonged to one party alone.
Why Split Visitors by Party?
Lawmakers must report to the National Election Commission how they spend the political funds they receive, and those records are public. Group the meal expenses by venue and you can rank the restaurants that drew the most lawmakers. But a visitor ranking alone does not fully describe a place. A restaurant visited by 100 lawmakers means one thing if they came from a single party, and another if both sides were mixed throughout.
So we grouped the disclosed meal records by restaurant and broke down the lawmakers who visited each venue by party (partyBreakdown). It is a count of distinct lawmakers: the same person visiting many times still counts once. We then divided that headcount between the Democratic Party and the People Power Party. As on the map’s main toggle, restaurants and bars are grouped and tallied by venue. The mix that totals usually hide comes into view this way.
Party Composition at Busy Restaurants
Gasiri, the busiest venue, drew 118 Democratic Party lawmakers and 89 from the People Power Party. That is 207 lawmakers from the two parties alone. Among the 20 most-visited venues, not a single one lacked one of the two major parties. Hwadam (98:89) and Donghaedo Hanhan (76:72) are nearly even; Namdomaru (119:60) leans one way. Still, the other side never disappears. Yeouido’s lunch routes are far less segregated than its parliamentary fights.
Different Lean, No Monopoly
Not every restaurant is evenly split, of course. Among the 20 busiest, 15 lean Democratic, 1 is nearly balanced, and 4 lean People Power. The Democratic share runs from 34% at Singkai (29 to 56) up to 80% at Ilmi (78 to 20). At Sohojeong, Ido Sikdang, Unsan, and Singkai, the People Power Party is the larger group. The broad current tilts gently toward the Democrats, but the shade differs from restaurant to restaurant.
Yet that ‘color’ has a clear ceiling. Across all 44 Yeouido restaurants visited by more than 50 lawmakers, not one had a single party above 90%. Even the most lopsided, Home Restaurant, reached 89% Democratic (40 to 5), just short of the line. Only 6 venues, including Hanguk-ui Bapsang and Ilmi, passed 70%; the other 38 had both parties mixed in. In the data, it is hard to call any of these busy restaurants one party’s exclusive place.
Yeouido as a Work Radius
Party composition also describes Yeouido’s work radius. Political fights happen inside the Assembly, but lunch is solved within a few walkable blocks around it. That narrow radius pulls both parties toward the same streets and the same set of practical restaurants. The busier a place is, the harder it is for one party’s color to dominate, because it functions less like a party gathering spot than like shared workplace infrastructure.
Disclosed political-fund records usually survive as spreadsheets and totals, which makes the character of each venue hard to see. Put each restaurant on the map and split its visitors by party, and the coexistence hidden inside the totals becomes visible. Hwadam’s 98 to 89 is not a story of large spending. It is a record that, within a few hundred meters of the Assembly, lawmakers from both sides repeatedly overlapped in the same lunch district. Even in the middle of partisan conflict, the lunch route moves together. That ordinary overlap is what this article is trying to show.
Method & source · Meal expenses from political-funding accounting reports disclosed by the National Election Commission, gathered by venue and grouped as restaurants + bars, identical to the map’s main toggle. Visiting lawmakers at each venue were broken down by party (partyBreakdown); ‘visiting lawmakers’ counts distinct lawmakers (repeat visits by the same person count once). Party composition and balance ratios are computed from the visitor counts of the two parties, the Democratic Party and the People Power Party; independents and other parties are excluded from the ratio. When converting venue names to coordinates, some were mistakenly matched to a different shop of the same name, so coordinates were verified and merged into a single location. This is a snapshot at the time of payment; the figures point to the tallied restaurant, not to any particular lawmaker. Data tally · kookrator.