Korean bar near Isu Station: galbi-marinated fried pork, Ari Gyegok

Why we went to Ari Gyegok Isu Station Branch, a chicken izakaya

Ari Gyegok Isu Station Branch (아리계곡 이수역점) is a fusion Korean pub near Isu Station built around chicken dishes. It's where Ha and Shu, two seriously devoted meat lovers, went to finally eat some chicken again.

So, Ha is a beef person and Shu is a chicken person, haha. Ha drifted a little away from beef during pregnancy, but Shu never drifted away from chicken. Still, Ha had a stretch of morning sickness when the smell of any meat was hard, so Shu couldn't eat chicken very often either. Then one day Shu came up with a chicken izakaya. Okay, let's go! A tasty Isu Station pub: Ari Gyegok Isu Station Branch, here we come!

Ari Gyegok Isu Station Branch: hours, parking and waiting

Ari Gyegok Isu Station Branch is at 21 Dongjak-daero 27na-gil, Dongjak-gu, Seoul. It's open Sunday to Thursday from 16:30 to 2:00 the next day, and Friday and Saturday from 16:30 to 3:00 the next day. Parking is not available.

You can join the waitlist with Catch Table. We arrived around 5:30 and got in right away, but by 7 or 8 o'clock we kept seeing people putting their names down. A proper Isu Station hotspot, hehe.

Seating and atmosphere inside Ari Gyegok Isu Station Branch

The hall at Ari Gyegok Isu Station Branch is clean and roomy overall. There are table seats and also sofas where you can sit cozily. And, true to an Isu group-dinner pub, there are some slightly private spaces too.

Maybe because it's a fusion Korean pub, you can see all kinds of traditional liquors and very Korean-looking (?) decorations. There's even a waterfall inside, haha!

The in-house restroom and the hair ties at the counter

I love that Ari Gyegok Isu Station Branch has a restroom inside the shop. Shu had been holding it in, and when Ha said there's a restroom inside, Shu was so surprised and ran off, hehe. And it's super clean!

There are also hair ties at the counter. Ha, who always leaves hair ties lying around, was so happy about this, hehe. What a thoughtful touch!

Menu and drinks at Ari Gyegok Isu Station Branch

At Ari Gyegok Isu Station Branch, the menu is a folding screen standing on each table. Isn't it so detailed and cute?

Drinks run from whisky (양주), distilled spirits and makgeolli (Korean rice wine) to highballs that look like Ari Gyegok makes them in-house. (Ha... can't take her eyes off the drinks, sob)

Many of the dishes to go with drinks are made with chicken, but there's also a good variety of others, like tteokbokki (spicy rice cakes), soft tofu hot pot and whole pork fry.

Pickled radish side dish and QR ordering

The side dishes at Ari Gyegok Isu Station Branch are simple, but the pickled radish is sweet and sour, and we asked for refills twice before the main dish even arrived. Another good thing about Ari Gyegok: you can order by QR code!

Spicy hangover chicken hot pot with extra nurungji: how was it?

Our first dish at Ari Gyegok Isu Station Branch was the spicy hangover chicken hot pot (얼큰 해장 닭전골) with nurungji (scorched rice) added. The chicken dishes are the famous ones, so we started with one. We agonized hard between glass noodles and nurungji, and went with nurungji because it's unusual!

It's not samgyetang (ginseng chicken soup), but jujubes and those wood-like pieces go in too, so there's a faint herbal aroma, and that was such a kick, haha. The staff had lightly grilled the drumsticks before putting them in, so we were told we could eat them right away, and the tenderloin, they kindly explained, should be swished shabu-shabu style once it starts boiling.

But greedy Ha and Shu had already studied up... haha. Hungry Ha started cutting before it even boiled.

Once cut, I tried a piece and it's really chewy and springy. It goes so well with the special sauce too. I couldn't get a photo, but it's a perfect match with the radish that came out first, too.

When it started bubbling, I scooped up some nurungji and honestly... it's the kind of taste that makes soju just slide down. Choosing nurungji over glass noodles was such a good call!

Chicken tenderloin shabu-shabu in the hot pot

As we ate, Shu dipped the tenderloin in for me. It's only lean meat, so it didn't look especially tempting, but Shu said the really tender part is the tenderloin and urged me to try it, so I gave in with a show of reluctance. And wow!!!!!! I felt it last time too, but the real meat star is the tenderloin... If the drumstick was chewy, the tenderloin is seriously tender and melts in your mouth.

Also, I thought it was glass noodles but it was bracken fern, and I was disappointed, sob, haha.

Extra glass noodles and a broth refill

The spicy hangover chicken hot pot comes with a chopstick-pinch or two of glass noodles, and when Ha kept chanting "glass noodles, glass noodles," Shu thoughtfully ordered extra, hehe. And the staff member was even more thoughtful: they came to bring the noodles, saw the broth was running low, and brought more broth too. Without us saying a thing. Such attentiveness, wow!

Yes, that... all of it, please, hahaha. A day when we ate all the glass noodles we wanted.

Whole pork fry marinated in galbi sauce: how does it taste?

Our second dish at Ari Gyegok Isu Station Branch wasn't chicken but pork: the whole pork fry (통돼지 후라이드). I'd seen another table eating the muddy duck jeonbyeong (진흙오리전병, a crispy duck wrap) and agonized about it like 5,000 times, but pork marinated in galbi (short rib) sauce and then fried...? I was too curious to resist.

There's no smell at all even without lemon juice, but since it's there, I squeezed some on anyway. It looks small, but it's a whole pork cut, so each piece is huge. You have to cut one into pieces just to fit a bite in your mouth!

The meat isn't quite fried chicken and isn't quite tangsuyuk (sweet and sour pork) either. It's sweet and salty, a taste that feels half-familiar and new, and our eyes went wide as we stared at each other. And cut up and dipped in the mustard sauce that came with it, it was at its best. The sauce is really sweet and nutty, so good!

Inside, onions and shishito-like peppers (꽈리고추) are pickled in a little soy sauce, and eating the meat with those pickled vegetables worked well too, since they cut the richness of the meat.

What we'll eat next time at Ari Gyegok Isu Station Branch

At Ari Gyegok Isu Station Branch we ended up cleaning every plate again, and walked out patting our bellies saying we'd gained weight... haha. Even so, Ha and Shu were already talking about trying the muddy duck jeonbyeong and the cheese buldak (spicy chicken) in a earthenware pot next time... haha. Made for each other^^

Ari Gyegok was the best Isu Station pub. We should come again for our next company dinner.