All-you-can-eat eel in Yeongjong compared with Cheongna: Jangsodam

The first time I went to Jangsodam wasn't Sky City but Cheongna! I think Cheongna is the original, or the first branch. I've been to Cheongna and to the newly opened Sky City branch, and there's a real difference between the two. You feel it right away!

• Jangsodam, an all-you-can-eat eel, beef and pork place in Yeongjong
• Basic info: parking, hours, location
• Our trip with a 29-month-old and mom and dad, just the three of us
• What we liked about this place
• There were downsides too, and I'll be honest about those!

Jangsodam Yeongjong Direct Store: location, parking and hours

Jangsodam Yeongjong Direct Store is on the 2nd floor at 18 Haneul jungang-ro 195beon-gil, in the building next to GS the fresh. It's open 11:00–23:00 with no break time, year-round.

• 2nd floor, 18 Haneul jungang-ro 195beon-gil, in the building next to GS the fresh
• Open 11:00–23:00, no break time, open year-round
• Group seating can be reserved; pets allowed (in a stroller or carrier)
• Parking support for 3 hours per vehicle
• Corkage: free for up to 2 bottles (excluding alcohol sold here)

First of all, the place is spacious! The windows are big too. Restaurants in this spot have kept changing (Yeongjong locals will know!), but since it has always been a meat restaurant, the interior is roomy the way BBQ places are. Lots of tables, so it'd be great for company dinners or gatherings! Parking was easy too :)

And nothing beats a video for getting the feel of the place!

Jangsodam prices and visiting with a baby or kids

Eel as a healthy stamina food kids can share

My family loves all-you-can-eat eel places and we go quite often. We try them all over, Songdo, Cheongna, Siheung... It was the thing I craved most when I was pregnant. I already liked it, but early in my pregnancy we went and the two of us ate over ₩200,000 worth. Just eel, without a single bottle of alcohol... haha. That's when I realized it.

Yep, we have to go to unlimited places.. After the baby came and he started eating baby food, we eat it together too... and he likes it too?! All the more reason to go unlimited... Maybe he remembers it from the womb, because Junhu loves eel too.

One caution: it's an oily dish, so when you give it to kids, test it first. Even if they eat it well, keep the amount small and feed it with rice! There's also ice cream for dessert here, but oily food together with ice cream can upset a child's stomach, so be careful if you're with a little one :) Adults, of course, don't care at all, haha. We eat everything.

Why the Sky City branch tasted better than Cheongna

Eel, beef and pork all-you-can-eat, and at this quality, well! I think everyone's standards for taste and quality are a bit different.

I enjoyed it more here in Yeongjong than at Jangsodam Cheongna! The eel, beef and pork surely come from the same supplier for both branches, so I don't know why the Sky City branch tasted better to me!

The beef especially.. for an all-you-can-eat place, oh, this is pretty good! The eel was plumper and had a better texture too, I think. Taste can vary from day to day and there may be some variance, but in the end I quite liked Jangsodam in Yeongjong for eel, beef and pork all-you-can-eat. There were some letdowns though, so let me tell you about them.

Main refills come in half or whole eel portions

2. You can decide how much of the unlimited main dish you get: reorder by half an eel or a whole one. At a place I went to before, you picked just one item to refill and they gave a big amount each time, which was a pity when I wanted to eat a little of everything.

Beef and eel by kiosk, pork from the self-serve bar

3. If you want more beef or eel, you don't go get it from the self-bar; you order and it comes to your table, which was pretty convenient. (Pork is from the self-bar!) Since you order by kiosk anyway, you never feel awkward asking for refills!

Tangsuyuk, fried snacks, tteokbokki and Han River ramyeon

4. You can try tangsuyuk (sweet and sour pork), fried snacks, tteokbokki (spicy rice cakes), Han River instant ramyeon, fried rice, chicken and more, so even a group gathering or company dinner means everyone can enjoy it :) Just eat what suits your taste!

Soda, coffee and soft serve ice cream included

5. Usually drinks have to be ordered separately, but here soda and coffee are provided. With this kind of food, however good it is, it gets greasy as you eat, so you need a sip of soda now and then, haha. Oh, and there's soft serve ice cream for dessert too. As expected, it was the corner where you could see the kids' happy smiles.

6. The self-bar? The side dishes are cooked to order, so you eat them piping hot. But this was both a plus and a minus. Here's what I found disappointing.

To be honest, there were downsides too

At a typical buffet with a self-bar, the food is lined up in the self-serve corner and you take as much as you want. Here, you order by kiosk! The ordering isn't the problem... when it comes out, the portions are big T_T..

At a restaurant, small portions are the problem, so who complains about big ones? But at a buffet we like to grab one piece of tangsuyuk, one piece of boiled pork, one piece of chicken, try them, and go back for more of what's good. So it was a letdown for our taste.

I was curious about so many things, like fried eggplant, churros, chicken, cotton-candy tangsuyuk.. but when I put in several orders, the staff said it would be way too much food when it all came out T_T. And indeed, when it came out, the portions were big. Oh! If you come as a group for a company dinner or gathering, it's great for sharing. Order several and split a bite or two each, perfect! But it was just my husband and me, and once the fried eggplant came out like this, we couldn't order any other sides. We had to eat the main too T_T

Both the fried eggplant and the rice cake coated in soybean powder were tasty, but the portions were so big that I didn't get that buffet feeling of enjoying a variety. A pity!

Would we go back to Jangsodam Yeongjong Direct Store?

We quite liked that the three of us could eat this menu so generously for this price. Junhu especially loves it, and even though he's still too young to be charged, he ate well, and we thought, for three of us this is great! For anyone who hasn't been able to eat it often because the price was a burden, I think it's a good-value choice :)