Seoul Korean BBQ date in Yangjae: odol-galbi on its own grill, Gamdol

Gamdol Yeontan Jip Yangjae Citizen's Forest Branch (감골연탄집) serves a lunch special from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., has a break from 2 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., and does dinner from 4:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.

Getting to Gamdol Yeontan Jip near Yangjaesiminuisup Station, and parking

I went to this Korean BBQ place in Yangjae with my boyfriend, haha. I absolutely love pork belly, and I heard this place grills over briquettes, so I showed up with huge expectations, lol.

It's only about a 5-minute walk from Yangjaesiminuisup Station, so it was really easy to find, and if you drive, there's free parking behind the restaurant, which was so convenient. Parking in Gangnam is often stressful, but here you don't have to worry about it, which I loved.

Atmosphere and seating

The moment you walk in, you feel the retro vibe, lol. There are old-school props and decor everywhere, so just looking around was fun. It's the kind of place where you end up taking photos without meaning to.

There are also private rooms inside, and they were bigger than I expected, so they looked good for company dinners, family gatherings or group get-togethers.

And this is surprisingly important: there's space under the chairs to put your bag or coat, which cuts down a lot on the meat smell sticking to your things. They also had plenty of aprons, so it was easy to use them.

You order with the kiosk at each table, which was convenient, and there was a receipt event going on where you get a dried filefish snack (jwipo) if you join. Little events like that are fun, haha.

The five dishes we ordered on our date

The menu has a really wide variety, so I agonized for ages and then got a bit greedy, haha. This is what we ordered.

• Diced briquette fried rice
• Seolhwa kkodeulsal (chewy pork)
• Salted briquette pork belly
• Jul-jul pork neck
• Odol-galbi (marinated pork)

Since the meat is grilled over briquettes, the mood was different from the start. A staff member first greases the grill with pork fat, and just watching that got me excited, lol.

Side dishes and basil ssamjang

The side dishes come with three sauces: homemade ssamjang (seasoned soybean paste), basil ssamjang and sesame oil dip, plus sweet potato salad, pickled chili peppers and scallion kimchi. Everything was neatly presented and made me happy just looking at it. The basil ssamjang especially was new to me at a BBQ place, so it was fun, and it goes surprisingly well with the meat.

The water comes in a retro orange-bottle design, and it's plastic rather than glass, so you can use it without worrying.

A little later, the meat arrived in small crocks, and the colors looked great, haha. Even to me, someone who knows nothing about meat, the marbling looked good and fresh.

My boyfriend cut each piece into bite-size bits, so I just comfortably waited for the grilling, lol.

What does the diced briquette fried rice taste like?

The diced briquette fried rice is, as the name says, seasoned fried rice shaped like a briquette, with a soft-yolk fried egg, bracken (gosari) and cheese. It came out first while the meat was cooking, and it was so cute, lol. This combo is basically impossible to get wrong!! It's served on an iron plate, so the bottom naturally turns into crispy nurungji (scorched rice) as time goes on, and that nutty flavor was really appealing. The kkakdugi (cubed radish kimchi) bits you bite into now and then were crunchy and ended up being a nice touch.

Seolhwa kkodeulsal and jul-jul pork neck: how is the briquette-grilled meat?

My favorite of the day was the seolhwa kkodeulsal. Finally we got to taste the well-cooked meat piece by piece, and it was honestly better than I expected.. They say it's a specialty cut that only yields a few hundred grams per pig, and once I tasted it I understood right away why it's popular. It has that chewy texture the name promises, but it isn't tough, and the nutty flavor kept building the more I chewed. The jul-jul pork neck was soft and juicy too, so I kept reaching for it, and overall I couldn't detect any gamey smell at all.

It went well with the homemade ssamjang, and dipping it in the basil ssamjang had its own different charm. It was tasty with lettuce wraps, and eating it with the fried rice in between was a really good combination.

Marinated odol-galbi gets its own grill

Because the odol-galbi is marinated, it's grilled on a separate grill, and I liked that too. We grilled it last. You have to pay a bit of attention while grilling, but the chewy texture was really appealing, and the marinade wasn't overly sweet, so I kept eating it. I think it would be great with rice, and personally I thought it would be even better with a cold mulnaengmyeon (cold buckwheat noodles).

Finishing with a plum slush

Near the entrance there's a plum (maesil) slush you can have after your meal. I grabbed a cup on my way out, and it felt like it cleaned up my whole mouth, and since I'd just eaten meat it felt extra refreshing. Such a thoughtful way to finish, haha.

Is Gamdol Yeontan Jip Yangjae Citizen's Forest Branch worth going back to?

Even though it's Gangnam, there's parking, so it was easy to visit without stress, and the staff and the owner were friendly, so I was in a good mood the whole meal. Above all, the side dishes and the meat went really well together, and the distinctive briquette flavor on top made me very satisfied. If you want to enjoy everything from pork belly to specialty cuts, I strongly recommend giving this place near Yangjae Citizen's Forest a try. Next time I'm planning to order the naengmyeon too and go again, haha.