Gwangju eel BBQ, no-wait 3:30pm weekend visit with Mom: Deokeun Jangeo

Eel for a health boost with Mom at Deokeun Jangeo, Gwangju

I went to Deokeun Jangeo (더큰장어), already a very famous eel place in Gwangju, with my mom. It's known for great value, and we were wondering what to eat when eel suddenly popped into my head as a health boost, so we dropped by on a whim :-)

Deokeun Jangeo Main Branch: location, hours and parking

Deokeun Jangeo Main Branch is a newly built big building at 596 Haseo-ro, Buk-gu, Gwangju, next to Honam Regional Rehabilitation Hospital. It's open daily 11:00–22:00, last order is 20:30, and there's parking.

There's also a café across the street that we often go to, so you can have your meal and coffee too! :-)

Exterior

I'd only ever seen it while passing by every day, and I finally visited! It was a weekend, but we went around 3:30, so it wasn't mealtime and there weren't many people. Otherwise, Deokeun Jangeo always has a wait.

The lower level looked hard to park in, but if you go up, a big parking lot like this appears. Wait, it's not even mealtime, so what are all these parked cars? haha

After parking, take the stairs down. The parking lot is the 1st floor, and the eel shop below is basement level 1.

It was my first time, so my heart was pounding and my eyes went wide. Since it's a new building, I liked how clean it was.

How does Deokeun Jangeo work?

At Deokeun Jangeo, you buy eel at the shop on basement level 1 and either take it home, or go up to the restaurant, pay a table fee and grill it there. I honestly thought it was just a restaurant, but it works like this????

It usually has a heavy wait.. so there's a big space for waiting like this. Imagine even this space being full.. wow.

They say they run their own antibiotic-free fish farm in Muan. Cutting out distribution margins makes the prices really reasonable. And I found it super easy to choose because it's divided by number of people, haha. There are options by price, so you pick the amount you'll eat, pay, and done.

Enough for two: about ₩33,000 for 2 servings

It was just Mom and me, so we chose the 2-person size at around ₩33,000 :-) When I paid and said we'd eat there, they gave me a receipt with our table number.

Delivery orders accepted too

I didn't know, but Deokeun Jangeo also takes delivery orders. There's a separate counter for it. I didn't think much of it at the time, but I wish I'd ordered some too.. The eel was in good condition with no fishy smell, so I'll order some for our next camping trip.

Mini café zone

This is Deokeun Jangeo's little mini café zone. It's a nice spot for coffee after eel, or while you wait.

How big is the 2nd-floor restaurant?

The 2nd-floor restaurant is so big it has its own seating chart. I knew the building was big, but a seating chart once I got upstairs?

The inside is seriously huge, right? A seating chart makes sense. It's not mealtime so it looks roomy now, but weekends must be hectic.

Table fee and extra order prices

• Table fee: ₩8,000 for 2 people
• Bowl of rice: ₩1,000

Side dishes and the self-bar

The side dishes are kimchi, green onion kimchi, pickled onions, and pickled wild chives (myeongina-namul) that go well with eel. We were directed to table 10 and the table was already set like this?? It took less than a minute after ordering, so fast! You get wrap greens from the self-bar as much as you like.

Self charcoal grilling: can a beginner do it?

It's a self-grill place, so there are tips for grilling well written on the table. If grilling is hard, you can also ask the staff.

I think we bought about 600g, and the eel is huge, right?? At first I thought the amount might be small, but seeing it laid out, I wondered if we could finish it all.

Following the tips, we grilled it, sprinkled pink salt evenly, then flipped it and grilled the other side.

But I guess we looked hopeless, because a staff member started helping haha,,, right before we burned it,, hehe. It had been so long since I grilled eel myself.. I had no feel for it.

They cut it in half like this and grill it a bit more, then once it's cooked enough, cut it into bite-size pieces with scissors. We devoured everything haha.

The charcoal is really strong.. it burns if you let your guard down, so be careful.

The self-bar had wasabi and a pretty good variety of wraps, so I brought some over. Pickled wild chives can be refilled too.

How did the eel taste?

The eel was chewy with no fishy smell at all, so delicious,, there's really a reason popular places are popular. Dipped in the sauce they provide, it never gets boring.

It was a lot of food, so I figured a little would be left over and thrown away, but somehow that all fit in our stomachs too haha. In the end we finished everything,, well done us!