Yeongdeungpo Station jokbal restaurant with makguksu: Gwihan Jokbal

I had some errands in Yeongdeungpo after a while, and it reminded me of Gwihan Jokbal Yeongdeungpo, a place I used to go to often back when I lived in the area. Whenever I craved jokbal (pig's trotters) back then, this was where I'd head. I remembered it being delicious, and I happened to be in the mood for jokbal again, so I went back. Here's my honest review of Gwihan Jokbal Yeongdeungpo~

Where is Gwihan Jokbal Yeongdeungpo, and where do you park?

Gwihan Jokbal Yeongdeungpo is at 19 Yeongdeungpo-ro 42-gil, 1st floor, Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, in the food alley near Yeongdeungpo Station. Hours are Mon–Thu and Sun 11:30–24:00, Fri 11:30–24:00, and Sat 11:30–01:00 the next day. There's no on-site parking, so you'll need to use a nearby paid lot (Esure Parking Lot, or search '영등포 주차장' on Naver).

Back again at Gwihan Jokbal Yeongdeungpo after a long while!🍖 Since I used to come here so often, just seeing the sign made me weirdly nostalgic haha. The restaurant sits in the food alley near Yeongdeungpo Station, so it's a great spot for a meal or a dinner-with-drinks in the area. There's no dedicated parking, so if you're driving, you'll need to use a nearby lot.

What the restaurant is like at 5pm on a weekday

The inside of Gwihan Jokbal Yeongdeungpo is quite spacious. Visiting around 5pm on a weekday, we were the first customers..haha. Even at that hour, delivery orders kept coming in — the Baemin app kept beeping, and after office hours ended, customers started trickling in one by one, with quite a few tables full of what looked like company dinners.

There's also a private room on the 2nd floor, apparently. It's worth keeping in mind if you're visiting with a group, for a gathering, or a company dinner. There were also various little perks depending on the occasion — birthdays, Naver reservations, visits with children, waiting customers, wedding invitation gatherings, and more. I also liked that they had small thoughtful items on hand, like hair ties, digestive medicine, painkillers, a selfie stick, knee blankets, and odor eliminators.

Gwihan Jokbal Yeongdeungpo menu and prices

The menu ranges from classic jokbal to spicy fire jokbal and bossam (boiled pork wraps), with a good variety of side dishes as well.

Ordering for two: medium jokbal 43,000 won plus makguksu 8,000 won

As someone visiting for the Nth time, I personally recommend the classic Gwihan Jokbal!

• Gwihan Jokbal medium (₩43,000)
• Makguksu (₩8,000)

The basic side dishes were spicy radish salad, chives, kimchi, salted shrimp, pickled onion, lettuce, and vegetables, plus a warm bean sprout soup. With the weather getting a little chillier lately, sipping the warm broth was really nice.

Gwihan Jokbal reportedly uses 100% domestic premium 1st-grade fresh Korean pork trotters. Maybe that's why the meat wasn't dry at all — the lean meat was tender and the skin was nicely chewy. They also use domestic kimchi. The kimchi was tasty, but personally, the radish salad that came with it was so tangy and crunchy that I loved it even more.

How the jokbal tastes, and is a medium enough for two?

The plating was clean from the start! Even the color looked tender and soft, and sure enough, it was soft with a chewy skin — delicious. No gamy smell at all, and the portion was more than enough for two.

You can't skip the lettuce wraps when eating jokbal!!! Put a piece of jokbal on lettuce, add chives and garlic, wrap it up — then top it with the radish salad for an extra tangy, crunchy bite that makes it even better.

Makguksu noodles wrapped inside the jokbal

Mix the noodles well in the tangy sauce, wrap them up with a piece of jokbal, and take a bite — honestly, it's the kind of flavor that has you wrapping jokbal and makguksu together over and over😋 One wrap, then another, and before we knew it, the two of us had cleared the whole thing.

Why Gwihan Jokbal Yeongdeungpo is worth a return visit

Eating at Gwihan Jokbal Yeongdeungpo again after a long time, the jokbal was still soft and tender as ever, and the kimchi radish salad was still so good. It's a chain, so quality can vary by branch, but since this is the location I used to frequent, I can confidently recommend Gwihan Jokbal Yeongdeungpo if you're looking for a great jokbal spot or a place for drinks in Yeongdeungpo😎 Another satisfying meal in the books.