Yeouido gyukatsu restaurant, weekend lunch with salad refills: Izawa

I had plans near The Hyundai Seoul department store and went looking for a good place to eat. I heard there's an easy-to-reach gyukatsu (breaded beef cutlet) spot near Yeouido Station, so I gave it a try. Here's my review of Izawa Yeouido Direct Store (이자와 여의도직영점) on a weekend lunch!

Location and hours of Izawa Yeouido Direct Store

Izawa Yeouido Direct Store

2nd floor, 42 Yeouinaru-ro, Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, South Korea (in the Yeouido Complex Mall in front of Yeouido Station Exit 5. Take the stairs up to the 2nd floor and head right; it's next to Bonjuk).

• Daily 11:00–21:00
• Break time 15:00–17:00
• Last order 20:30
• Separate men's and women's restrooms, free parking available
• The ground-level lot on the building's 1st floor is free for one hour!

Izawa Yeouido menu

At Izawa, the gyukatsu set and the steki (steak) set are the staples. There's plenty more too, such as steki-don (steak rice bowl), donto-ro-don (pork jowl rice bowl), gyudon (beef rice bowl), mazesoba (brothless mixed noodles), spicy ramen, basil ramen and pan-mohmil (cold buckwheat noodles), so you can pick whatever suits your taste.

There's currently an event where you get a mini curry or a drink if you write a Naver receipt review, so keep that in mind!

Atmosphere and bar table for solo diners

The inside of Izawa Yeouido Direct Store is pleasant and spacious. There are plenty of seats for both 2 and 4 people, so you can sit at the table that fits your group, and the tables are spaced nicely, so it seems like a good place to chat!

There's also a bar table for solo diners, so I think people eating alone can come without feeling awkward.

On one side of the restaurant, I could also see mini braziers and grill plates prepared on the tables.

They have Sapporo draft beer inside too, so coming after work for beer with a gyukatsu set sounds amazing. That's a combo I can't resist, ugh..

How to grill on the natural stone plate, and plate swaps

The tables at Izawa have instructions on how to enjoy the food even better. Gyukatsu and steki come out cooked rare, so you grill them on the plate to your liking. Since Izawa uses natural stone as the grill plate, the meat can stick while it cooks, but they'll swap the plate any time, so you can eat without worry.

The mini brazier and grill plate came out as soon as we ordered! When I lit the solid fuel underneath, the heat shot up ridiculously strong.

What comes in the steki set

The steki set we ordered first! It's a seriously generous spread!

Besides the hearty portion of steki, it came with the fluffy cabbage salad typical of Japanese restaurants, pickled ginger and fresh wasabi.

They also gave us a special sauce for dipping the grilled steki. It's salty and sweet, and it goes perfectly with the grilled steki!

Danmuji (yellow pickled radish) and kkakdugi (cubed radish kimchi) come as basic side dishes, plus two more special sauces. The white sauce is sweeter, and the brown one is soy sauce based and saltier.

On top of that, there's nicely cooked fluffy rice and miso soup, making for a solid, well-rounded meal.

Gyukatsu set and salad and miso soup refills

The gyukatsu came with the same lineup as the steki.

By the way, the salad is refillable, so if you want more, just request it on the tablet and they'll bring it over. Not only the salad, the miso soup and side dishes are refillable too!

The color.. isn't it insane?

Medium rare gyukatsu and steki: how they taste

I started with the gyukatsu I was most excited about, putting it on the grill plate. The moment it lands, the hot plate makes a sizzling sound and delicious smoke rises.

My personal preference is medium rare, not overcooked and not too raw. I put a piece on rice, topped it with wasabi, and ate it: crispy outside and full of juices inside, the textbook gyukatsu taste!

Next I put the steki on to grill. The solid fuel in the mini brazier is quite powerful, so I could eat the cooked meat without waiting long.

When the underside looks done, flip it and you get juicy grilled steki. You can taste the rich, savory fat of beef sirloin.

Dip it in the special sauce that comes with the steki set and pop it in your mouth, and there's no way you'll stop at one bite.

I quickly put the second batch of meat on too. The light pink marbling on the steki and the crispy surface of the gyukatsu go so well together that if you come as two, ordering one gyukatsu set and one steki set to share seems like a great idea!

I kept dipping in all the different sauces and before I knew it, I'd emptied the whole plate..

If you're looking for a good gyukatsu restaurant near Yeouido Station, I recommend Izawa Yeouido Direct Store~!